The newly formed Northland Regional Council at their meeting in December. Photo / Susan Botting
When our present system of local government was established in 1989, it took two years to finalise.
It was done following a well-identified consultation and implementation process.
The Local Government Commission, headed by Sir Brian Elwood, toured the country, hearing submissions and then came back to the Local Government Minister with its recommendations, which were guaranteed to be implemented.
That legal underpinning is the crucial difference from what might be currently proposed.
Sir Brian Elwood is a person of significant experience and stature, a lawyer and longtime mayor of Palmerston North, and subsequently Chief Ombudsman.
He didn’t need to waste a couple of years consulting and preparing a report and recommendations, which might have just sat on the shelf.
The guarantee of implementation from Local Government Minister Michael Bassett meant that local politicians and officials knew this wasn’t a game they were involved in.
This was serious business. Change was going to happen, and around 850 local bodies became 86 district and regional councils, with only Gisborne District Council becoming a unitary authority.
The change wasn’t without opposition. Locally, the Northland Harbour Board was fierce in its determination to remain intact, but the recommendations became the law and amalgamation took place with the 1989 elections.
We have been reasonably well served over the years by that process and outcome.
The process used back then could be a template for the Government proposal to abolish regional councils and reset local government in New Zealand.
By my reckoning, there is only one current Northland politician who was part of the original 1989 amalgamation.
The evergreen Crichton Christie has re-emerged as Whangārei’s elder statesman of local politics, and will have a great deal to contribute to the proposed mayoral “Combined Territories Board”.
In 1992, Nelson, Marlborough and Tasman councils were reconstituted as unitary authorities, and the supercity of Auckland was created as a unitary authority in 2010.
Unitary authorities are responsible for all local government functions within a designated area, which is a likely outcome when regional councils are abolished.
Northland though, has been through an amalgamation proposal before. In 2012, the National Government changed the Local Government Act to facilitate amalgamation.
The change provided for a council, or even a lobby group within a local authority area, to lodge an amalgamation proposal, which automatically triggered the process for the Local Government Commission to investigate and make recommendations.
Some individuals in Northland, Hawke’s Bay and Wellington put up their hands, and the Local Government Commission with an obvious agenda, chaired by Basil Morrison, set about trying to create one council for Northland, the same for Hawke’s Bay and for Wellington.
The commission called for submissions to its proposed Northland Council. We had 1800 submissions with around 90% opposed, and with time all the amalgamation proposals were withdrawn.
Northlanders it seems, do not like the notion of forced and nationally inconsistent amalgamation, with local democracy and council representation being very important to us.
This time it’s different. The minister has declared that regional councils have lost their social licence, and are past their use-by date.
With the major overhaul of the RMA in play now, much of the work driving regional councils specifically will be redundant. Important is that submissions on the regional council abolition proposal close on February 20, so have your say on that.
The proposal as well is for the regional mayors to get together in “Combined Territories Boards” to produce a plan for resetting local government in their region.
To me, that latter proposal is fraught. There are questions of who will chair the board, and how the voting on this board will be determined.
As well, there is the obvious patch-protecting nature that goes with democratically elected mayors and councillors.
There is an open question of the potential involvement of Crown commissioners in that process and whether they should have voting rights, and this is where the minister is kicking the can down the road.
The template provided by the 1989 amalgamation and the two-year process by which Auckland Council was established in 2010, should signal that taking the process out of local politicians’ hands would be a smart answer.
The Government should be providing a stronger direction about what is expected. That could involve a team of eminent people with judicial experience going region by region, with a clear change agenda and implementation guarantee. Behind all this though, is the relative lack of hard evidence that unitary councils are a better model for local government than the current setup.
We treasure cost effective delivery of services, reduced bureaucracy, democratic local decision-making and nice places to live. We like to have a say, so have yours by February 20.