Andrew Dickens: We Want Less Bureaucracy—Until We Don't

I find it ironic that the government and the electorate are once a gain keen on getting rid of some of the layers of our council bureaucracy.

First NZ First’s Shane Jones publicly questioned the role of regional councils, pondering whether “there’s going to be a compelling case for regional government to continue to exist”.

Then Prime Minister Christopher Luxon told Mike Hosking that the Government was looking at local government reform.

On Friday Matthew Hooten wrote a piece about Regional Councils reiterating Chris Bishop’s question that he’s been asking many local councillors. 

Is there any point in having regional councils. 

So it's on the table. 

Of course the battle against bureaucracy is alive and well around the world. Duplication of services and excessive layers of governance means that savings could be made easily and safely and it's something we've always discussed.

Last term the government reformed District Health Board from 20 boards into a single entity Health New Zealand or just that reason but the new government has taken against that and they've announced a return to locally delivered healthcare because they believe that in regional decision making is the best way to go.

We're still waiting to see what that will look like. 

Meanwhile reform of regional councils looks awfully like the formation of Auckland's Super City.  

A reform that has a heap of enemies because of it's devolution of power away from communities. 

As Hooten says the reason we hate the Super City are the Council Controlled Organisations a move that was supposed to replicate State Owned Enterprises.  

But the problem there is that we can't but shares in CCOs so they become the worst of things. A mongrel hybrid of Council bureaucracies and Private Monopolies. 

So we seem to like amalgamating public bodies but then when it happens we moan that our voices are no longer heard and that bureaucracies have become too huge and out of control.

So, what is it people.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So I find it a bit ironic that the government
and the electorate are once again keen on getting rid
of some of the layers of our council bureaucracy. The
irony is this, First we've got New Zealand, first, Shane
Jones publicly questioning the role of regional councils, wondering whether
there's going to be a compelling case for regional government
to continue to exist. Then the Prime Minister, Christopher Leuxan
told Mike Hosking that the government was looking at local

(00:22):
government reform, and on Friday, Matthew Houghton wrote a piece
about regional councils, reiterating a question Chris Bishop has been asking,
is there any point in having regional councils. So it's
on the table, and of course the battle against bureaucracy
is alive and well around the world. Duplication of services
and excessive layers of governance means that savings could be
made easily and safely, and it's something we've already discussed.

(00:45):
So look last term the government reformed district health boards
from twenty boards into a single entity Health New Zealand
or and that was just because that's gone now or
is going because the new government has taken against it.
They want to return to locally delivered healthcare because they
believe in regional decision making being the best way to go,

(01:06):
so they're unlike that amalgamation. Meanwhile, reform of regional councils
looks awfully like the formation of all consupercity, a reform
that has heaps of enemies because of its devolution of
power away from communities, and as Houton says, the reason
we hate the super city are the cco's council controlled organizations,
which was supposed to replicate the state owned enterprises. But
the problem there is we can't because there are no

(01:29):
shares in CCOs, so they become the worst of things,
a mongol hybrid of council bureaucracies and private monopolies. Anyway,
it looks like we want to amalgamate public bodies. But
in the past, as I pointed out, we don't like it.
We moan that our voices are no longer heard and
that the bureaucracies have become too huge and out of control,
so let's just centralize it. So what is it? People?

(01:53):
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