Source: Radio New Zealand
Andrew Little is chair of the Wellington Mayoral Forum. RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
The Mayor of Wellington says the region needs to work together to plan a response to the government’s calls for simpler, more cost-effective local government to prevent changes from being “imposed” upon them.
All of the region’s mayors and the regional council chairperson have agreed, via the Wellington Mayoral Forum, to work on options for amalgamation.
Chair of the forum, Mayor Andrew Little said the centralisation of much of the region’s water management, changes to the Resource Management Act as well the government’s reorganising of local government would impact each council’s processes.
“All of this is coming together to suggest that council’s do need to look at their own organisations and – particularly where they are closely located to other councils – how they can work more closely together and, obviously, the question of amalgamation pops up,” Little said.
He said the forum’s first task would be to seek a mandate from their respective councils in early 2026 and to set up a project team to co-ordinate the work including public consultation.
“We need to work up a plan on how we’re going to tackle this. Which is what we’ve agreed to do. A critical part of that is engaging with the public, getting a bit of a mandate to see how they want their council’s to respond and react as we face the future – with a view to keeping downward pressure on rates but providing all the services that people need to see from their local council,” Little said.
Little said he did not believe the move was a “reheating” of the Super City proposal – which was scrapped due to a lack of public support in 2015.
He said the proposed changes to local government were likely “to be a reality” but he said attitudes had also shifted in the ten years since the Super City proposal was put on the back burner.
“I think the debate about what is an effective way to organise local government in New Zealand is probably more acute now than it was ten years ago.
“Simply because of planning rules and the complexity of them, the cost of local government and the fact that most local councils are dealing with massive catch up in investment to make sure that services continue to run. All of this has come to a head in a way that perhaps hasn’t been the case for some considerable time,” Little said.
Little said the economic and infrastructure issues facing the region were “too important to be left to chance”.
“The most important thing is that councils actually lead the discussion with their residents. But we’ve each got to work with our councils and with the people that each council represents rather than a more imposed approach from the outside.
“These things can only happen – and should only happen – with the right level of public support and that’s going to be a critical feature of the process that we do over the months and years ahead,” Little said.
Dame Fran Wilde is South Wairarapa mayor and deputy chair of the Wellington Mayoral Forum. Supplied
Deputy chair of the forum and current South Wairarapa Mayor, Dame Fran Wilde said she was hoping to avoid “the squabbling” that characterised the previous amalgamation proposal over a decade ago.
“The difference is that was for a unitary authority over the whole of the Wellington region. Now we are likely to get more than one unitary authority out of this. We don’t know yet what the shape will be but I suspect it will be more than one,” Dame Fran said.
She said – while the previous amalgamation plan was well supported in Wellington City – support was lacking in Wairarapa and Hutt City.
“Mayors we’re generally not happy with losing their jobs but a lot of Wellington City and Porirua – and a lot of people elsewhere – thought it would be useful but the leadership of the councils didn’t and you can make your own surmises as to why that was the case.
“The difference now is that people have realised that we should be doing it and it’s been quite instructive for me over the last several years how many people who were political leaders in those days – who opposed it – have come to me and said ‘Fran you were right, we should’ve done it’.
“But the other thing is the government has just said ‘get your act together local government’ and people understand that we either do it or it’s done to us,” Dame Fran said.
She said – while her focus was on the Wairarapa – she wanted to ensure the outcome was positive for the entire region.
“People in Wairarapa are very keen to have a go at a unitary authority. Iwi are very supportive of that, the business community are very supportive, so are a number of the community organisations because when you come to Wairarapa you don’t think ‘oh now I’m just driving over the boundary between South Wairarapa and Carterton or between Carterton and Masterton’ you’re actually in Wairarapa. People and business and tourists etc. don’t care about council boundaries.
“So we need to make sure it’s workable and affordable and we have to grow the economy. That is our number one priority, grow the economy,” Dame Fran said.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand