Thomas Coughlan: NZ Herald political editor on the Government's plan to replace regional councils

The Government recently unveiled their plans to make changes to local Government, and it's prompted additional speculation.

It's proposing replacing the country's 11 regional councils with boards made up of local mayors.

NZ Herald political editor Thomas Coughlan speculated about some further changes.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thomas Coglin, the Herald's political editors, with us Alo Thomas.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Good afternoon.

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Now, you reckon, everybody's got the wrong end of the
stick here, and it's not actually regional councils that are
going to get scrapped. The are the ones who get
to stay.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Yeah, well exactly. I think the language here is a
wee bit confusing and misleading. So the government has said
regional council laws are being abolished, and everyone's sort of
assumed that means that regional councils are going because I
guess you know, councilors. What do they do while they
sit around a council table? And if there are no
regional councilors, you don't have a regional council. And yet

(00:31):
the organization regional councils, they're sticking around Greater Wellington Regional Council,
Northern Regional Council, and I'm sorry, Shane Jones, Otiga Regional Council,
they are sticking around. Now, what is happening is that
when those councilors are gone, the regional mayors from their
territorial authority. So that's your city councilors they neat to
need in City Council, Wellington City Council. You get the idea.

(00:51):
They come around the table and they decide what they
want for their region going forward, and the government gets
to approve their plans and sets very high bars, a
very high bar for what plan those meors put forward.
Now fast forward a few years into the future. What
is very clearly happening, is it the Government is wink quink, nudge,
nudge with a bit of stick, telling these MEAs to

(01:13):
amalgamate either services amalgamate, water amalgamate. You know, maybe rubbish
and stuff, transports largely amalgamated already, start amalgamating that. And
you know what, maybe you should amalgamate everything and turn
most of New Zealand into Auckland style unitary authorities, one
council top to bottom. That is what's clearly happening here. Yes,
regional councils are the ones that stay.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
Okay, now hold on a sec So I definitely am
on board with what you're saying. It clearly is an
amalgamation that's going to have to happen across the country.
But where I'm where I want you to explain to me,
is do you because we've got two layers here, we've
got the regional council above the city and district councils.
If those guys, the city and district councils amalgamate, do
they amalgamate with themselves and with the regional council like

(01:56):
is it horizontal and vertical amalgamation?

Speaker 2 (01:59):
Yes? Yes, I believe that that is the most likely end.

Speaker 1 (02:03):
So you've got so in a place like gosh, let's
say Wellington, where you've got Wellington Regional Council, you've got
hut City, Lower hut Port to a carpety and Wellington.
Are you telling me that you get all those those
councils to amalgamate and then they suck up the regional
council one as well, and it's just this one big entity.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
Yes, I think that the endpoint is the Greater Wellington
Regional Council just subsumes those smaller councils into it, and
then you have, you know, the Wellington Super City Council
or whatever they want to put it.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
This is semantics because because it's they all survive. They
all just survive in one It's not that regional councils
survive and the others die. They all just get sucked
up into one big thing, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
Yeah, that's that's possibly a more accurate, accurate way of
putting it is that everyone survives just in the different different.

Speaker 1 (02:46):
But you you would have to see efficiencies here, right,
You'd have to see people being fired left, right and center.
Otherwise you're just going to end up with huge numbers.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
Perhaps you saw used today Wellington City Council alone, so
that would be the largest council in that Wellington group,
and I think they they were overstaffed by about three
hundred people. So that's just one of the councils. When
you put them that council plus another five councils into
another bigger council, you would expect some some efficiencies, quite
big ones, i'd imagine.

Speaker 1 (03:14):
I mean, I want to see massive the thing, like
I want to see seventy percent efficiencies. Do you know
what I mean? Or am I just dreaming?

Speaker 2 (03:20):
Oh? Look heither a. As a Wellington resident, I would
be lying if I said it I was not reminded
on a very regular basis of their efficiencies to be
found our local government.

Speaker 1 (03:31):
Can I play you something? This is Nikola Willis on
Nick Mills, Wellington Morning show National.

Speaker 3 (03:36):
We haven't come up with what our party position will
be after the election, so you could be as well.
We haven't ruled out repealing it either.

Speaker 1 (03:44):
Wow, that's not been talked about.

Speaker 3 (03:47):
Well, we haven't taken a position yet, but it's not
impossible that we would go to the campaign trail saying
yes we met our coalition commitment, we supported that into law,
but actually we agree with the concerns of some people
and operated as we hoped, and we want to repel it.
We haven't come to a position yet, but we're not
ruling it out.

Speaker 1 (04:04):
Thomas. This is about the Regulatory Standards Act. Does she
just spitballing or is National doing exactly the same thing
New Zealand first did, having voted for the thing last
week and passed it. Now they're changing their minds.

Speaker 2 (04:15):
Yeah, it's a bit of both. I think the holding
their cards very close to their chest. David Seymour last week,
after Winston said that he was he was thinking, well
he was going to campaign on repealing it. He said
that that was, you know, effectively Winston pivoting towards going
with Labor again. Now National's saying hold on, David Seymour,
Actually you know, the Coalition agreement binds us for one term,

(04:36):
but as we said around the coalition negotiation table in
twenty twenty six, to form a new government, actually, you know,
anything's back on the table. And if you really think
this Act is working, and we don't think that it
is working, and we've campaigned on saying that it isn't working,
well actually we need to have a discussion at that
point about who gets their way. So I think it

(04:56):
is a very a very real prospect. Perhaps not you know,
it's not sixty forty or seventy thirty. It's a bit
fifty to fifty eight to say that that National does
actually campaign on either changing it or repealing it. And
then David Seymour has to fight for the fight for
their Act, which is a very big part of act
sort of history. They've wanted it for decades or a
decade to keep it. So I think what you're seeing

(05:19):
here is the very start of coalition negotiations twenty twenty six.

Speaker 1 (05:24):
Oh dear God. All right, Okay, thank you, thank you.
Thomas Thomas Coglan, The Herald's political letter. Up for more
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