John MacDonald: It's time we had less local councils

The Government thinks it’s getting all tough on it with local councils, but I think Christopher Luxon and Simeon Brown are just tinkering around the edges and they need to go harder.  

Instead of just telling the councils what they expect of them, they should be telling councils that, for some of them, their days are numbered.    

But essentially what the Government’s doing is it’s waving the stick on behalf of ratepayers, saying that legislation changes are on the way that will force councils to focus on “the basics” as the Government likes to call them.  

Which, on the face of it, most people who pay rates will love the sound of.  

And I’m no different. I look at the ratepayer money that seems to go out the door from all these councils in all different directions and wonder what happened to all those promises about “zero rates increases if you vote for me”.  

Not that I ever fall for that cheap talk.  

And I think we know what the basics are that the Government wants these councils to focus on. It’s all the non-flashy things like making sure there’s safe water coming out of the taps, fixing the pipes, fixing the roads, building new ones, picking up the rubbish.   

All the stuff that doesn't make council life all that exciting but is essential for every one of us, every day.  

As for the flashy stuff —or the nice-to-haves— that’s what the Government wants councils to put the brakes on. One of the ways it’s going to make that happen is it’s going to make changes to the laws that councils operate under.  

A big change is going to be removing the need for councils to think about these so-called social, economic, environmental and cultural “pillars” – because the Government thinks they’ve got councils involved in all sorts of non-essential stuff.   

So, you know, “drop any big ideas about pouring ratepayer money into a big flash convention centre. Instead, stick in the ground, buy some new water pipes, get stuff done.”  

That’s the message from Wellington.   

Which the 2IC at the outfit that represents most councils in New Zealand —Local Government New Zealand— was sounding pretty diplomatic about it when he spoke to Newstalk ZB this morning.  

Campbell Barry’s his name. It seems to me that any concerns he does have centres around this idea the Government has of bench-marking all the councils - comparing them against each other to see which ones are doing things the way the Government wants them to and which ones aren’t.  

But all this is going to do is it’s going to create a truckload of dashboard reports, more admin and do you really think councils are going to be able to achieve what the Government wants?  

Of course they’re not, because councils being councils, they get pulled in all sorts of directions by people demanding this and demanding that, and all your local councillors care about is not brassing people off so much that they stuff their chances of getting re-elected.  

67 councils in a country the size of New Zealand is sometimes portrayed as a very good thing because it means you have people sitting around the council tables who really know their communities.  

But I don’t see that as a virtue at all. In fact, I see that as an impediment. And the fact we have so many councils is something the Government should be doing something about.  

Forget about your benchmarking and dashboard reports and big sticks - we are overdue in this country for some serious amalgamations of local councils.  

Why do Napier and Hastings need their own councils? Answer: they don’t. Why does Christchurch need three councils? Answer: it doesn’t.  

In Auckland, maybe the super city model hasn’t been everything it was cracked up to be, but it looks a much better option than a truckload of tinpot councils all being corralled by central government and told to get back to basics.  

The Government needs to show some fortitude and it needs to reduce the number of local councils we have in New Zealand, because 67 is way too many.  

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