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Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s speech to LGNZ's annual SuperLocal conference appears to have missed the mark, with one attendee describing it as “paternalistic and visionless” while others were left bemused at Luxon’s apparent lack of understanding of the local government sector and the impact his own government’s actions have had on councils' finances.
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown may find himself in hot water for having failed to disclose discussions with Wellington’s mayors about amalgamation in an OIA response. The discovery of the discussion only came about thanks to a LGOIMA response from Masterton District Council that revealed both Brown, and ministerial colleague Chris Bishop, had talked about the issue at a Wellington Mayoral Forum meeting in March 2024.
In the nearly 35 years since 850 local government entities were merged into 86, there has been some additional rationalisation, most notably with the formation of the single Auckland Council, but the system and its boundaries remain mostly the same. However, with water reforms progressing, city and regional deals on the horizon, and discussions about council amalgamations spreading, pressure for change is building.
Former Hastings District Council Mayor, National Party MP, and president of Local Government New Zealand Lawrence Yule has been appointed as a Crown Manager to both Wairoa District and Hawke’s Bay Regional Councils in order to oversee flood protection works for the town of Wairoa, with central government having invested $70 million in the vital infrastructure work.
Hot on the heels of having largely reannounced Labour’s Budget 2023 announcement for new trains for the lower North Island, it now appears the National-led Coalition Government’s Local Water Done Well reform package is slowly morphing into something that looks very similar to the previous Labour Government’s Affordable Water reforms.
Double-digit rate rises over recent years have highlighted the political and economic unsustainability of a local government funding system that is overly reliant on property rates. But what are the alternatives? Local Aotearoa explores and assesses some of the possibilities that could help diversify revenue streams from councils.
Local Aotearoa can exclusively reveal that plans for Wellington regional amalgamation are further along and more detailed than what has previously been publicly acknowledged. Substantial work has gone into developing a plan, circulating it amongst some of the region’s mayors, a process for advancing reorganisation, and a road map to implement the change by apparently lobbying the Government to bypass local referendums on any changes.
Tensions are bubbling away within the Wellington Regional Leadership Committee (WRLC) with at least four mayors appearing to be dissatisfied with the work of the committee, a Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act response to Local Aotearoa reveals.
Carterton Mayor Ron Mark is apparently trying to get a road tunnel through the Remutaka Hill back on the regional infrastructure agenda an email supplied to Local Aotearoa reveals, reigniting a proposal that’s been kicked around in various forms since at least the 1960s, if not even earlier.
The threat of central government intervention is often cast as a spectre over the existence of local government, especially whenever contentious issues are at play for councils. But how realistic are fears of the Local Government Minister hitting the nuclear option and appointing commissioners? The reality might surprise you…
Two pieces of media coverage from Radio New Zealand caught my eye this morning. First was an interesting explainer from Radio New Zealand’s Katie Kenny, “Missing mayor, record rates rises, and Tauranga's election: What's going on with councils?”. The second was RNZ’s The Detail podcast “A tale of two mayors” where Tom Kitchin spoke with The New Zealand Herald’s Simon Wilson and Georgina Campbell about their perspectives on the mayors of Auckland and Wellington respectively.
A process which began more than three years ago to much fanfare was extinguished in the blink of an eye on the evening of Friday 5 July as Local Government Minister Simeon Brown quietly put the Future for Local Government Review out of its misery via a Beehive press release. Now it looks like progressive iterations, rather than wholesale reformation, is on the cards for local government.
In a strongly worded rebuke of Wellington City Council’s decision-making processes, the Court of Appeal has sided with opponents of road and parking changes along Thorndon Quay, even though it has found the decision has improved safety along the route and won’t be ordering the work undertaken so far to be undone.
In the National-led Coalition’s third quarter action plan one item hasn’t received the attention it deserves - Cabinet deciding of the framework for National’s city and regional deals. So what might be on the cards for local government when negotiating these deals finally gets underway?
