Michael Ford: Manawatu Mayor on local government reforms, council amalgamation

A group of North Island councils is working on an alternative proposal to the Government's amalgamation programme.  

City and district councils were given until Sunday to pitch plans to create larger combined unitary councils. 

Manawatu, Whanganui, Ruapehu, Rangitikei, and Tararua councils have signed a memorandum of understanding to work on an alternative model.  

Manawatu Mayor Michael Ford told Ryan Bridge they're looking at a federation model.  

That would keep individual mayors for each council but would see a higher body to manage regional issues. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Let's go to local amalgamation news. Not every council is
happy about this attempted forced amalgamation by central government. By
current count forty eight councils of submitted proposals, seventeen of abstained.
Michael Ford is the mone or two mere joins me
this morning. Michael, good morning, Good morning Ryan now on here,
good to have you.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Now.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
On Friday, five councils, including yours, committed to move forward
together on a locally led regional work program. What on
earth does that mean? Michael?

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Right, So we're not ready for head Start. We never were.
We were never interested in the head Start program with
five councils. So that's Hongo Nui, Ruapehu, Rangatick Taraua and
ourselves making up about a fifth of the size of
the North Island. We've signed an MoU where we'll work
together on alternative models. So we have been working on

(00:50):
a number of models, one of them being the federation model,
and we're going to work together and come up with
a solution that addresses the governments can concerns, takes on
the regional functions, but hopefully retains as much local representation,
local decision making and local accountability as we can.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
What's the time frame here, Well.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
We're working through it till probably early next year, so
six to nine month timeframe.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
And what exactly when you know, you talk about the models,
the federation model for your average punter, what does that
actually look like?

Speaker 2 (01:27):
Sure? So, federation model, sometimes called the Manchester model, is
where you retain your individual councils with mayors, but you
have another level of governance above which takes on which
governs the regional functions. And over time, we have a
in the man Ortuo Wanganui region, we have a what
we call Mantle two Wogannui Local authority shared services organizations,

(01:51):
so we're actually work together a lot as as anyway
that could possibly slot in and govern some of the
regional functions.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
And over time, how many layers of council would we
go from and how many would we end up with.

Speaker 2 (02:08):
Well, it would be effectively the mayors would sit on
the on the higher level board, so it would be
removed the government's removing the regional council, so the regional
functions would be governed by a committee of which would

(02:29):
probably include the mayors. So it would be less than
we've got at the moment. So we have a local
district council, city council representation and then those the leaders
of those govern the regional function.

Speaker 1 (02:44):
Michael Ford one of two mayor. There's mud for more
from Early edition with Ryan Bridge.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
Listen live to News Talks. It'd be from five am weekdays,
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