By Andrew Bydder, Hamilton City Councillor
National’s announcement of a shake-up for local government is starting with regional councils, which is directly connected to Resource Management Act reforms.
The RMA started out as a pretty good concept, but it became an industry dedicated to a gravy-train for bureaucrats and consultants amid ever-expanding regulations.
Regional councils, such as Waikato Regional Council, have a very different role to local councils, such as Waikato District Council. The regional council is focused on environmental issues across a large area, while local (district and city) councils provide services and infrastructure to support the local population.
Regional councils used a single line in section 5 of the RMA, intended for a broad-brush purpose, to give themselves power over farming and construction. “Safeguarding the life-supporting capacity of…soil” was part of a definition of “sustainable management” which section 5 merely had to “promote”, not enforce. “Sustainable” is to “enable people to provide for their social, economic, and culture well-being” and allowed for “mitigating adverse effects on the environment”.
Somehow, the “enabling” and “mitigating” got ignored, while the “safeguarding” was used to give council staff more and more power to control, i.e. charge for, normal everyday activities such as building house foundations. In doing so, regional councils have become an obstacle to people providing for their social, economic, and cultural well-being. All the good work – and there is a lot of good environmental protection being done – is lost due to the harm from 30 years of per capita productivity stagnation compared to Australia.
National’s proposal to place regional councils under the control of mayors of the local councils has two purposes. Initially, it is to allow local councils to enable more productivity by giving them the ability to direct and coordinate regional functions to work better with local development, hopefully removing some of the roadblocks and delays that are costing society too much.
The second purpose, which is unstated, is a big step towards amalgamation of local councils.
The first purpose could have been achieved by pulling apart regional functions and allocating them to local councils, but the regional entity is being retained and local mayors are required to work together.
My prediction is that the regional entity will become a hub for many local services being combined, and that local councils will end up smaller, in much the same way as has been done with water services. Libraries, roads, and building consents are ripe for picking. There is simply no need for every local council to duplicate library management and overheads, so cost savings can be achieved through economies of scale.
There are still some functions that are best run locally, so I expect local councils will remain, although some of the smaller ones, like Otorohanga (10,000 people) will be absorbed into adjacent councils.
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