Anita Baker: Porirua mayor voices support for proposed Govt changes to local councils

At least one Wellington mayor says it's time district councils combined into one.

The Government's proposing replacing regional councillors with boards of district mayors. 

They'll have two years from establishment, to put up a regional plan for future local Governments.

Porirua mayor Anita Baker says the Wellington region should grab this opportunity. 

She explained Hutt City and Porirua residents have already said yes to amalgamation, and Wellington city mayor Andrew Little doesn't seem opposed either. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Together do for Sea Ellen.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
Since the government announced it is scrapping regional counselors yesterday,
mayors have started piping up and largely complaining about the
extra work that they will have to do because they're
going to be asked to fill in the place of
those counselors. Anita Baker is the mayor of Portador. Hi, Anita, Hello,
are you complaining about the workload?

Speaker 1 (00:17):
No, we do some of it already. I don't see
the problem. I think that the Wellington region need to
grab this opportunity and move forward and look at our amalgamation.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
You want amalgamation. Do you think the start's of algamation?

Speaker 1 (00:29):
I think it does start. I think we could do
it in the three years. I think you get rid
of regional Council and the four of us get together
with the five of the s get together and we've
become a tlc SO an authority. So I think it's
the right way to go.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
I mean, your famous for famously obviously support the SUNA.
But what about the other mayors? Do you think they'll
be on board with them?

Speaker 1 (00:48):
That's renew meors, So I'll catch up with them and
find out Hot city did the amalgamation question to the
residents like we did and they passed it. So I
know that the hot city's up for it. I've heard
Andrew be up for it online, you know, speaking to
the media. So I think we just need to get
in a room and sort it out.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
Do you think it is a good idea when you
look at what is going on? This is so the
start of it being the scrapping of the council is
asking the mayors to step up, then presumably the amalgamation,
and then later on down the track the RMA reform
that makes everything work faster. Do you like what you're
seeing here?

Speaker 1 (01:22):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:22):
I do.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
I do. I'm for it. I think change. It's good.
It's long over Gyman local government. We all double up,
do we do things? One finds the other one. We're
not working together, you know, we all do the same
thing and we have twenty minutes away from each other,
so it just seems silly.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
Yeah, all right. I need to thank you very much,
always appreciate your time. That they need to bake it
The Mirror of Portada. For more from Heather Duplassy Alan
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