In November, the government released a Simplifying Local Government proposal to change the structure of local government which would see the ending of the 11 regional councils around the country, to be replaced by Combined Territories Boards (CTBs) run by district mayors and possibly a crown-appointed commissioner.
The original proposal indicated a decision would be made on the changes by Cabinet by March and regional councils would be gone by the end of next year.
When contacted, Minister of Local Government Simon Watts said the government was taking time to work through submissions made on the Simplifying Local Government proposal.
He said a number of councils indicated they were interested in moving quickly, and the government was looking at how best to support this work to allow early adopters to make changes before the 2028 local elections.
He said announcements would be made once decisions were confirmed. No timeline had been set on when the announcements would be made.
The government may be rethinking the proposed CTBs.
‘‘What with the resource management changes and legislation around rates capping, the government is busy in the local government area,’’ she said.
‘‘As well, there is work being done around whether some local government functions would be better done elsewhere.
‘‘All in all, reform of our sector does not seem to be the highest priority for them at the moment.’’
She said five of the 11 regional councils were in talks with government officials around reform of local government in their own areas.
‘‘There is no sense of urgency that I can detect for pushing local government reform ahead of the above reasons and against a background of international turmoil and the fuel crisis situation.’’
Central Otago Mayor Tamah Alley said she had heard unofficially that any announcement from the government had been pushed back to May.
‘‘It kind of felt like everything, everywhere, all at once. Sometimes that becomes a wee bit more than you can chew on a given day. So it wouldn’t surprise me if in the face of the fuel challenges that a couple of other things are going to be on a bit of a go slow,’’ Ms Alley said.
The process should not be rushed, she said, and it should take the time that was needed.
‘‘We need to make sure that all our communities retain a voice in how local democracy works for them. And it is best when it is closest to the communities. Otherwise, people just don’t care.’’
She said with other things coming up any real change would not happen before the general election in November.
‘‘I’d like to think that if they thought that it couldn’t be completed in the timeframe that they wanted or they had a couple of other things crop up that maybe some things might be just not rushed. We can’t afford to rush this and end up with unintended consequences.’’
Otago Regional councillor Michael Laws said it quickly became clear after the release in November that the proposal was a poor reform attempt that did not really recognise how local government worked or what the real problems were.
‘‘The solutions that were offered, certainly in the short term, weren’t going to be fixing any of the problems that local government’s got,’’ Mr Laws said.
‘‘It was a bit of a boondoggle, actually. It was poorly argued, poorly researched and really poorly expressed.
He said reforming the Resource Management Act was seen by the government as the most important piece of legislation this year. Once that was passed it would lead to reform of local government.
‘‘It’s a question of what comes first, the chicken or the egg, and really the answer is it’s the egg, and the egg is the resource management legislation reform.’’
It would be a longer process than first envisaged and he said the regional councils may indeed stay in existence until the next local body election in 2028.
‘‘I don’t think they’re going to be sacking local government, regional council people by the end of this year, which was certainly the original plan.
‘‘I think they’ve worked out that substituting regional councils with mayors is very likely going to make things worse, not better.’’
If there was a change of government then all bets would be off.
Cr Laws was an advocate of unitary councils and hoped they would all be in place by the next local body election.
Waitaki mayor Mel Tavendale said the changes as proposed would put the governance of one council on top of another council.
‘‘We need to find a more sustainable way to carry out local government functions and move into the future. But we just thought we need to keep some of the knowledge at the table while we’re making those decisions,’’ she said.
She said it was hard for Waitaki as some of the northern part of its district was in the Environment Canterbury region.
Although it should not be rushed, she said sometimes it was better to keep moving.
‘‘When you start talking about change, you don’t want to sit in that space for a long, long time and have your staff sitting in a space of uncertainty for a long time, especially for regional councils.’’
