By John McDonald (CityWatch NZ Editor)
In late November 2025, central government announced proposed reforms of regional councils. The Internal Affairs website then posted a draft proposal document and they are seeking public feedback on the proposals until the 20th of January 2026. I encourage people to let the government know your views on the proposals, both at the Internal Affairs stage and again once a bill reaches a Select Committee in Parliament.
In the press release about the proposal, the Ministers are quoted as follows…
“Ratepayers deserve a system that works for them, not one bogged down by unnecessary layers of bureaucracy.
“By removing regional councils, we can cut duplication, reduce costs, and streamline decision-making. This means more efficient services, greater accountability, and better value for every dollar spend. It’s about delivering a leaner, more efficient local government that puts communities first.”
That all sounds good. Reduce the costly bureaucracy, simplify the system, achieve better value, make local government more efficient, and put communities first.
However, the proposal from central government is not targeting the local government bureaucracy. The first stage of the proposed reforms (Step 1) are directly targeting your elected representatives for removal, while also explicitly leaving the current bureaucracy intact for at least two years.
Your elected representative can be part of the problems with local government, though your elected representatives are not the biggest problem within the local government system. The bureaucracy is a much bigger problem (financially, culturally, and operationally).
The salaries of your local council’s chief executive and senior managers are much larger than the salaries of your councillors. Then there is the wider bureaucracy not directly employed by your council, which takes the form of consultants, contractors, think tanks, lobbyists, support organisations, and corporate partners.
The bureaucracy has an interest in making the bureaucracy larger and making being a bureaucrat a more lucrative career choice. Generally the career prospects of local government bureaucrats will benefit from the local government system becoming more complicated, more cumbersome, more expensive, and less accountable.
The smaller problem of your elected representatives, is problem that people should be able to address during elections. People can vote for candidates that will strongly represent the interests of their community and vote against the candidates which promote the interests of the growing bureaucracy.
It is traditionally the role of the elected representatives to restrain the tendencies of the executive branches of governments. Left unchecked, the executive branch will tend to gather more revenue, obtain more powers, perpetrate more abuses using those powers, and shield itself from effective accountability. In the postmodern age, the executive branch is mostly a sprawling bureaucracy which can include associated corporations and public-private partnerships.
Despite the ‘bureaucracy is crazy’-type rhetoric from the Ministers and their acknowledgement of the need for change, the proposals reduce the numbers of elected representatives. All the regional councillors are to be removed as a priority, while “regional council operations” will continue unchanged in Step 1 of the proposed reforms. Council operations means the bureaucracy, as well as the frontline staff or contractors that do the physical things such as carry out maintenance.
Apparently regional councils as distinct democratically-elected organisations will be disbanded, while regional councils as larger bureaucratic organisations will be maintained (at least until Step 2 of the proposed reforms).
The mayors of local councils will form the proposed new “Combined Territories Board” in order to provide some level of democratically-elected governance in the proposed reforms. The mayors may also be able to appoint their city or district councillors to committees for the regional council.
This will effectively make the elected representatives for city councils and district councils responsible for monitoring/governing two large bureaucracies, instead of one. If you think that part of the problem with local government is that council staff are sneaking extravagant spending and unpopular projects past councillors, then reducing the numbers of elected representatives will make that aspect of the problem worse.
If this is a game of ‘team council staff’ vs. ‘team elected representatives’, then halving the number of players on ‘team elected representatives’ will likely allow ‘team council staff’ to score more ‘points’. By scoring ‘points’ we are talking about things like getting one of those costly ($300,000-$700,000) speed bumps installed, hiring more communications/PR staff, or build one of those lost-making convention centres.
Step 2 of the Draft Proposal involves the new boards each developing a “regional reorganisation plan” which is directed towards amalgamation of councils or shared services. While economies-of-scale could result from such reorganisations, it is likely that creating merged councils and jointly-owned council controlled organisations will result in additional roles for well-paid bureaucrats. Transferring water services to new companies is currently providing many examples of how creating a larger entity leads to creating a new CEO role and hiring more senior managers.
The Draft Proposal tends to side with enhancing the power of the executive branch and reducing the influence of local democracy on decisions. The “regional reorganisation plans” are each to be approved by the Minister and not a popular referendum. Although not the preferred option, replacing the board of mayors with Crown Commissioners is also floated as an alternative option in the draft proposal. The public is to be consulted on the changes, however the proposal generally reflects an official reluctance to let the public vote on the changes to their local government system.
Central government is at least acknowledging most of the major problems with local government.
In the Ministerial Foreword to the Draft Proposal the Ministers state…
Local government is meant to serve communities, not confuse them. But right now, the system is tangled in duplication, disagreements, and decisions that don’t make sense. No wonder over half of New Zealanders don’t vote in local elections.
Unfortunately the proposed reforms look like they are designed to retain the bureaucracy, while reducing democratic representation in decision-making.
The smaller, more rural councils tend to have smaller bureaucracies, higher voter turnout, and more accountability. Smaller councils can be much more responsive to their communities.
Local government does have major problems and needs serious reforms. I doubt that creating larger bureaucratic organisations with less democratic accountability is the best way to fix those problems.
[The content of any Opinion pieces represents the views of the author and the accuracy of any content in a post labelled Opinion is the responsibility of the author. Posting of this Opinion content on the CityWatch NZ website does not necessarily constitute endorsement of those views by CityWatch NZ or its editors. CityWatch NZ functions to provide information and a range of different perspectives on New Zealand’s cities and local councils. If you disagree with or dispute the content, CityWatch NZ can pass that feedback on to the author. Send an email to feedback@citywatchnz.org and clearly identify the content and the issue.]
