Wellington Mayor Andrew Little on council amalgamation

Wellington Mayor Andrew Little, chair of the Wellington Mayoral forum, chats with Nick Mills to discuss talks of amalgamating. Talks between the councils in the greater Wellington region have begun, Nick asks when will it happen and what is the latest update on progress.

Mayor Little also discusses the upcoming premiere of Avatar, and the big weekend Wellington has coming up. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Wellington Mornings podcast with Nick Mills
from News Talks B.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Andrew Little wanting to mayor as chair of the Local
Regional Group and he joins us. Now, good morning Andrew,
Good morning Nick. So everyone excited what happened so quickly
that we had this forum and away we go.

Speaker 3 (00:27):
Well, the forum was already set up, so the Mayor's
meet periodically. In our first meeting was last week. We
just went through what's happening, particularly the government's announcement on
Reach Council reform, and we knew that the RMA reform
was coming up at that time. Was announced this week
and we looked at it and thought, well, you know,
we know what the object was are We've we've got

(00:48):
to make local government affordable. We've got to make things
like planning and consenting and stuff much more streamlined and
efficient than actual get get stuff done. And the best
way to do that is to sort of work on
what it might look like to come together. But no
that this is just a meor's talking, so a better
work to do. You've got to get get counsel and

(01:08):
gas in it and ultimately residents and involved in it.
These things have a process to go through, but there
was a commitment by Meres to actually narratively explore all
of us.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
What was the.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
Vibe Like was the vibe you know when you know
in those meetings you either have a vibe where everyone
goes yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, well they go I'm
not sure what was that described to our listeners what
that vibe was like when algamation came.

Speaker 3 (01:32):
Up, Like, I think, I think everybody wants to be constructive.
Everybody gets the picture that, you know, local government's struggling
to do its job. That's kind of the way things
are at the moment. And also things like you know,
there's actually better technology to do a whole lot of
stuff that at the moment is pretty manual inside local government.
But I think the Governt's objectives are everybody's objectives. We've

(01:54):
got to we've got to make government affordable. We've got
to keep that downward pressure on rates, but we've got
to do the stuff that's also going to get things done,
get buildings built, get roads built, get facilities looked after
and maintained, and all those sorts of things, and to
do so in a way that that you know, keeps
them affordable. And everything. So everybody gets that, and it's
about organizing ourselves in a way that's going to make

(02:15):
sure that we can do that in a way that's
not going to price local governments off the planet.

Speaker 2 (02:20):
I don't want to call them out, but was any
of the mayors, were any of the mayas sort are
sitting there going no, no, no, not like it just
you know, just their body whole body language was against it.
Was there anyone like that or was it all like
this is the way that the government wants it, this
is the way that people want it, so let's get
it done. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:36):
I think that. I think that that's that's the led
up thing. I think people just thought, look that the
world is changing, we've got to do out that. And
you know, we're all leaders and leaders of our communities.
We've got to provide some leadership here. And I think
there's different Different councilors have historically had different views about
the sort of stuff. But Point had referendums at the
last election and they got a pretty clear steer that
icually their people are keen keen to explore this. So

(03:00):
in a combination of you know, what's happening with the
change of the government's been talking about that's gonna that's
going to force counselors to talk about the stuff more
and come together. Anyway, there's a there's sort of an
inevitability about bringing bringing organizations together, and so within that
spirit that I think we kind of got to the
point we got to do you.

Speaker 2 (03:19):
Reckon that that I'm dreaming if I thought that we
could do it at the next election or is it
you think it's two elections or three elections away.

Speaker 3 (03:26):
Well it's good. There might be three elections away. And
look what we'll see how we go, and a lot
of it will depend on the public feedback as well.
There are some people who say that localism is everything.
It's going to be as local as possible. But we've
got to think about economies of scale, and it's there's
a there's sort of a midpoint. There's somewhere where you
structure it that you get the cost efficiencies of local government,

(03:47):
that you keep that local voice as well, because I've
got to work out what that looks like it But look,
you know, I think I think there's there's a keenness
by the region's me is to get on and and
make the difference because you know, we can wait longer
and longer and things just get difficult. Obstacles continue to
be in place, and we've actually just got to get
on and build the city, build the region and make

(04:09):
a difference.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
Did you get out at lunchtime yesterday?

Speaker 3 (04:11):
I will walk around, Yeah, amazing, you know, just and
then the beautiful thing is an amazing perrd a car
blooming at the moment and just adding vibrancy and life.
But just getting out. I went on that the graduates
raw marching for the University of the graduation ceremony, So
I did all that. It just feels really good at
the moment. So look at it. And everybody's looking forward

(04:33):
to the premiere tomorrow of their fire and ash so
all that stuff. It just it's helping people just feel
really good about the place. You know.

Speaker 2 (04:40):
When I walked through the city, I walked down the
waterfront with no fences and hundreds of beautiful people. I
just wanted to stand in the middle of them and go, hell, yes,
that's what I wanted to do, you know. I just
the emotion was, I had a tear in my eye.
I got an I just said what we've been through?

Speaker 3 (04:56):
Hell yes, yeah, And I went down. I walked down there,
just out next to whit King Pack to the boulevard
of bod of Cowtry. Then I just could not believe
it. It just honestly, you know, you could something could the
picture and they think, yeah, well that never happened in
real life, and there it is. It's just it looks beautiful.
This is a beautiful city. We're very lucky and.

Speaker 2 (05:14):
People all dressed up for graduation. Beautiful people, beautiful city,
beautiful day. We're lucky, aren't We were blessed.

Speaker 3 (05:21):
We're very lucky that we are very lucky, that we're
amazing city.

Speaker 2 (05:25):
Keep up the good work. Great to talk to you.
Hopefully we'll talk before Christmas, but if I don't marry Christmas.

Speaker 1 (05:31):
Thank you for more from Wellington Mornings with Nick Mills.
Listen live to news talks It'd be Wellington from nine
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