Mahé Drysdale: Tauranga Mayor on the Government's local government amalgamation ultimatum

Tauranga Mayor Mahé Drysdale's accepted the Government's three-month challenge in order to control the region's local government destiny.  

Councils have been given a few months to come up with amalgamation plans or face having to do it under the Government's system.  

Drysdale told Ryan Bridge efficiency can be achieved better, and they've been elected by their communities to make decisions, so that's what they'll do.  

He says the challenge will be convincing the community it's a good idea in three months, but it's an opportunity they need to grasp. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Councils have been given an ultimatum by the government. You've
got three months to come up with a plan to
merge or restructure yourselves or government will come in and
do it for you.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
There is a clear carrot which is a three month
window for councils to shape their own destiny and the
future of their own local governing arrangements. And if that
opportunity is not seized and grasped by local government, then
the government will act and do it for those communities.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
Mahe Drysdale Totong amir with me this morning. Mahay, good morning,
good morning. Do you want amalgamation?

Speaker 2 (00:32):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (00:32):
Look, I think we need to change the way we
do things. The local government system was designed in nineteen
eighty nine and needs to change. I think everyone's agreeing
on that. So yeah, I welcome the opportunity to do that.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
Do you will you be able to get this done
in three months? Put something in it.

Speaker 3 (00:49):
Look, that's going to be tough. You know, We've got
to work with seven different councils around our region to
come up with a plan. But I will definitely be
advocate with them that we should do it ourselves. We've
been elected by our communities to make decisions for our communities,
and I think that's a better way than waiting for
the government to doing whatever they want up to us.

Speaker 1 (01:13):
Regional council's gone, what is the you know, you've got
seven councils to deal with. What what sort of structure
would be ideal do you think for your area?

Speaker 3 (01:23):
Look, I'm not exactly sure. I think it's less and
you know, the government have set some pretty clear guidelines.
You can have a maximum of three unitaries in a region,
so you know that that's potentially something that works pretty well.
You know, we've got some natural kind of boundaries, I
guess if if you kind of think about the Bay

(01:45):
of Plenty with us in Western Bay being very aligned
in our geography and basically one economy, you know, you've
got rot R and you've got sort of the Eastern councils.
So look, I'm not sure exactly where the boundaries end up,
but you know that's a conversation that we'd have to

(02:06):
have and going to have to do it very quickly,
because three months is a tight time frame to get
a proposal together.

Speaker 1 (02:12):
No, it's not long at all, but it's sort of
something has to be done. With it because it's been
a mess for a very long time. As you pointed
out at the start of this interview, how much do
you reckon we would realistically save from doing something like this.
I mean, rape payers hate spending money on councils, no
matter which level they are at. Do you think we'd
actually save a huge amount?

Speaker 3 (02:31):
Yes, I do if we do it right. And you
know that's where we've got to start doing a lot
more sort of shared services, et cetera. So I think
there's probably two facets to this. There's a partly a
region and there's going to be a whole lot of
things that we deliver as a region. And then and
then we're going to have the sort of local councils
doing a lot more. And I guess you know, Local

(02:53):
Water has done well, has showed us that our community
is going to save about two hundred million dollars over
over ten years. That's what the modeling says. So yeah,
I think the opportunities for saving are significant if you
think that's their few percent of our business. So yeah,
I think I think you could be looking at at
hundreds of millions. But you know, it's it's that efficiency

(03:17):
ultimately that that is something that can be achieved better
and and you know it, that's going to be the
challenges is getting all that and getting all that data
in three months, selling that to our communities, showing them
why this is a good thing. But look, we've got
an opportunity and now we've got to sort of try

(03:37):
to grasp it. And you know we've heard the backstop.
The government will do it. So you know, I'm certainly
an advocate of holding our own destiny and I think
that's what we've been elected to do.

Speaker 1 (03:49):
Mahe drives down to amir Good TV on the show.

Speaker 2 (03:52):
For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge.

Speaker 1 (03:55):
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Speaker 2 (03:56):
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