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December 16, 2024 3 mins

A mayor doubts removing wellbeing measures from the Local Government Act will change much.  

The Government's removing references to social, economic, environmental, and cultural well-being in a push to get councils to focus on core services.  

Council performance will be benchmarked and a yearly report published.  

Local Government New Zealand Vice President Campbell Barry told Heather du Plessis Allan the four wellbeing pillars have come and gone two or three times in 14 years.  

He says exercises like benchmarking and looking at how they can be more transparent makes more sense, and will make a tangible difference. 

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
So Cabinet has agreed to pass law to force counsels
to go back to focusing on their actual jobs. The
law changes will include making councils publicly report in very
simple terms what they're spending money on from mid next year.
Local Government New Zealand Vice President Campbell barriers.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
With us more than Campbell, good morning.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
You won't have a problem with this, will you.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
I think there's a lot of potential good things that
can come from benchmarking, seeing wherever councils sit alongside yourself.
It's not necessarily a bad thing. I think we're just
going to make sure that we're measuring the right things
and that we are comparing apples with apples when we
do this exercise as well. But I think transparency for
rate payers are focus on bringing rates down as something
that all councils are pretty keen on.

Speaker 1 (00:42):
And what about taking away the full wellbeing pillars at
the labor government put in You're happy to see the
back of them.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
Oh, look, this has come and gone from my time
in local government of the last fourteen years two or
three times now, so I would say it's probably not
actually going to make a huge difference. The purpose of
the Life Government Act. I think exercises like benchmarking, looking
at how we can be more transparent with rate payers
around where we actually are investing in what we're doing,

(01:08):
so ultimately they can hold us accountable, not the government.
I think rate payers are the ones who should be
holding us accountable is the most important thing. So I
think that's something that councils will be open to and
seeing how we can do things better.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
I thought that the well Being pillars were part of
the reason and part of the problem with the well
Being pillars were that they were forcing councils to start
considering all these other things like cultural wellbeing and social
wellbeing and economic well being and so on, and they
were being used to justify a lot of the stuff
that was kind of outside the scope of traditional council work.
If we take them away, does it not force the
councils to actually focus a little bit more carefully on

(01:41):
the original nuts and bolts.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
Well, I mean you just have to look at it back,
you know. The John Key government removed the full well
Beings from the Local Government Act. I actually don't think
it made a real difference in regards to how councils operated.
That the Labor government brought them back and I just
don't think that actually may a real difference. So for me,
I think exercises like the benchmarking, looking at how we

(02:05):
can be more transparent makes more sense and it's actually
going to make a tangible difference on the ground. The
reality is, regardless of the four well beings and are
in there, that's always going to come into play in
some form, even when it comes to our delivery of
our basic infrastructure for councils.

Speaker 1 (02:22):
Yeah, so it sounds like you guys are still bristling
a little bit of the fact the government's getting involved here.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
Yeah, look at the government's made their expectations pretty clear
at the Local Government conference of where they were hitting.
We're actually supportive of benchmarking if it's done well. If
it's not done well, then there's a real problem there.
For example, if you're comparing get per head of population
or rates increases in a growth council like Hamilton versus
Central Books day, you are comparing the apples and oranges.

(02:49):
So you know, there is some work that needs to
be done to make sure it is something that is
actually effective and will make tangible differences on the ground.

Speaker 1 (02:57):
Campbell, Thanks very much, Campbell, Barry, local Government, New Zealand President.
For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to
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