November 26, 2025 • 10 mins
Southland District Mayor Rob Scott says proposed council amalgamations can only be seen as positives.
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Speaker 1 (00:13):
Rob Scott is the mayor of the Southland District Region
and joins us this afternoon. Of course, the news came
out in the last couple of days regarding the proposal
to get rid of a heap of counsels.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Supersitis and the likes will.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Occur in certain parts of the country depending on where
you're based, but Rob Scott was one of the drivers
of this about this time last year, even earlier, and
joins us this afternoon to give us a bit of
further comment. Good afternoon, Rob, you must feel rather vindicated.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Yeah, good afternoon, and yeah, it's quite interesting hearing some
of the interviews with the locks of Chris Bishop and
he's been using the same words that I was using
over a year ago. So yeah, it's the government's caught
up with with what Zappens was doing.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Why do you think this has come to the attention
all of a sudden.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
I think there's a number number effectives. But when you
look at I mean, I know the turnout that the
elections has sort of sparked a but as voter turn
out at the elections have sparked a bit of discussion
as well. But I think it's I mean, it's been
time for change for quite a while, and that's what
I've been saying, and I love the words the mirror.
What we've been saying was simplifying local government in the
(01:19):
country and actually trying to get stuff done and do
it efficiently and get that engagement app So yeah, I
think the government's recognized. I'd like to take all the
credit and say they've they've read sousand's proposal and gone, well,
this will work up and down the country, so let's
mirror that. But yeah, it's good to see that it's
been recognized.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Have you been talking across specially about all lately by chance.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Not not in the last couple of months. I didn't
see well I did see the announcement coming at some stage,
but yeah, we didn't have any heads up that it
was coming on us, so it was it was a
surprise to us as though, although yeah, not a huge
surprise that it was there.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
So yeah, we've talked about this before as well.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
I mean, over two hundred people were elected to local
body politics, whether there were mayors or councilors, unopposed, and
that's certainly got to be a catalyst for change. Though
just when it comes to wasteful spending.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
Yeah, yeah, that's well. In the other words that they've
been using that mirrored what we've been saying is their duplication,
the siloed kind of approach, all of those sorts of things.
We're just yeah, there's a much better way of doing it.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
As far as Ben Bell Core District mayor, I do
you remember Foule cheer of Environments Southland, Tom Campbell and
macagu Have you been in much dialogue of these people
regarding what's going on.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Yeah, we've had initial chests. I was actually at a
meeting with Todd McClay on, sorry, blust trek of days.
Now what day are we We're on Thursday Thursday, So yeah, Tuesday,
Tuesday night, so that the day of the announcement and
Mia Jeremy was there and had a quick catch up
with him and had a bit of a yet with
Ben afterwards. I'm going to try and have a chat
(03:03):
with Tom today to see where we all kind of said.
Jeremy was looking a bit understandably shell shocked. It's the
timing is not that great in terms of having just
gone through an election and then having that that bomb
bombshell drop that. Yeah, that all of the councilors are
going to be potentially out of a out of a role.
But yeah, I mean you can't carry on waiting for
(03:24):
these things to happen either, it's long overdue.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Well the y a human is there the timing stakes, Kevin,
We've just had an election a couple of months ago,
especially around environment Southland.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Yeah. Yeah, although when you look at it from the
Southern point of view, I mean we've been having this
discussion for a while now and just reading through the
full We had a council meeting yesterday so I didn't
have a chance until this morning to actually have a
good read through the full proposal. But when you look
at the outcomes of what they're wanting to achieve, we
can take all of them off with the vocal that
(03:54):
we sent through in February of this year. So it's
that that step of having the regional councils governed by
the three mayors, we could probably avoid that because that
to me doesn't sound like a simple approach and just
go straight to the final outcome of having the two
unitaries in South London that's going to deliver the best
(04:17):
bank for back for us, for our people, and the
most simple form of local governance as well, Rob, can.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
We afford the cost of amalgamation because there's a lot
of money going into consultants, YadA, YadA, YadA, you know
the drill, and there's going to be a heck of
a lot of coin change hands before this actually comes
to fruition.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
See. I don't actually think Andy, that we need to
spend a lot of money on it. We've done a
lot of the groundwork in terms of that proposal. We've
got really good local democracy for our community boards through
everything there. We've got systems in place already. I don't
think we need to make it. I think, following the
government rhetoric of keeping it simple, we can do a
simple amalgamation or reorganization as well. We don't need to
(04:59):
make that too complet cadd either. And if they're looking
at the roles and functions of local government at the
same time and where the duplication lies, we don't need
to get a whold of consultants. And the best consultants
are actually our rate payers in the community who we're
actually there to serve, and they'll have their expectations of
(05:20):
what we need to do. And Yeah, I don't think
we need to spend a whole lot of money on it.
It's the money that we're spending in a broken system
that I'm worried about. In the money that we're wasting.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
All right, payers voicing a few people actually saying in
the last couple of days rather as well that there's
not going to be a lot of money saved if
amalgamations occur as well.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Yeah, it's if you do amalgamation for amalgamation's sake, you're
not going to save any money. And it's important to
get the end result, right. I mean, you look at
that intermediary model, but the government's proposed with the i
think god A CTB or whatever it's called. The mayor's
sitting on that board, you're still going to be running
through and having the regional Carencil there with a duplicated
(06:01):
kind of services and planning and all of that kind
of stuff. So the model that we propose does actually
have savings because we're removing a lot of that duplication.
You're still going to have a CEO of the regional
council under that intermediary model. If we jump straight to
the outcome, we're removing a lot of those overheads and
those costs as well, including the planning, so getting too
(06:24):
those nitry authority outcomes as where we will get the
savings and we'll get them a lot faster if we
skip that intermediate step.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Okay, let's use Tapanui as an examples in the material
licensing trust boundaries. Although it comes under a Targo regional
council jurisdiction, there could be a stickler.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Yeah, it could be. And it's interesting. I saw in
one of the pages of their twenty nine page document
this morning that they're not going to look at the
regional boundaries as part of this, and there have been
some people that have said, look, you can include the
sort of the Blue Mountain area around into South End,
and I mean it starts to complicate it a little
bit when you sort of cross those regional council boundaries.
(07:10):
But yeah, it's going to be a few little nuances
in there, but I'm sure we can work through those
as they go through. But the bigger picture of getting
the model right I think is the most important part.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
So as far as close the district council, would you
be keen to get them involved as well?
Speaker 3 (07:31):
Oh, I can have conversations. I think one of the things,
and of having a look at the national map yesterday
that the government flit forward, which has got all the
boundaries and everything on. And when you look at the
Southend District it's essentially it's like I'm just talking about
our current area as a district council. It's bigger than
a lot of the regions south, so we're effectively a
(07:54):
region already from a size point of view, and you
don't want to go too big from a geography point
of view, and it's one of the risks we just
focus on population, we end up getting too big geographically
and then we end up getting the bloated staff levels
because you've got to have additional staff to cover the
(08:15):
area because one person can't cover that entire space, and
then you end up getting extra managers in and you
get all that kind of stuff that we're trying to
avoid in that piece, and you don't get that same
connected kind of democracy. And when you look at the
voter turnout, Auckland's probably got the worst in the whole country.
And that's a very big, unitary authority covering quite a
(08:36):
wide area, but the people are very disconnected from their
elected members, which puts some off voting. When you look
at the voter turnout down South and I know Gore
did very well and Stuart Island actually got sixty something percent.
So when you get that smaller connected area, you get
a much better engagement. So it's getting that balance right
(08:57):
between your population and your geograph feet and your representation
and sort of linking it all through. So it's quite
important to look at those boundaries and how it all
ties them together.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
It's all hypothetical at this stage, Rob, But then you
look at the area like Gorth, it's debt loading, historical debt, etc.
This comes under the equation as well. It's got to
be I don't know, distributed fairly.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Yeah, no it does. And those are the sort of
details that we can work out. But again, you don't
need consultants to do that. You've got really good staff.
We've got really good governance, good information, good insights. Yeah,
we can do a lot of it ourselves locally.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Is there a risk that that amalgamations though, don't work
and what happens then, well, if you get it right.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
You design it to succeed, not to fail. And I
guess that's one of my reasons for not involving something
designed by Wellington. It needs to be designed locally by
our people for our people, and if we do that,
it's got a very high chance of working where it's
going to fail, as if the government actually tries to
(10:02):
design everything and do a Wellington top down and do
it to us. So it's really important that as the
Southern Region we focus on the outcomes for our communities
and we all work together, even if it means some
of us are going to be out of our jobs,
but we've got to work towards those outcomes for our
people and never be designed by the people.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Good owner, I always appreciate your time on the muster.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
No worries, Thanks Andy, Rob Scott.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
South and District Council Mayor or South and District Mayor
for that matter. About council amalgamations back on the table
all of a sudden after Chris Bishop's announcement on Tuesday evening.
This is the master up next peter Gard and farming
Antdale
Rob Scott is the mayor of the Southland District Region
and joins us this afternoon. Of course, the news came
out in the last couple of days regarding the proposal
to get rid of a heap of counsels.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Supersitis and the likes will.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Occur in certain parts of the country depending on where
you're based, but Rob Scott was one of the drivers
of this about this time last year, even earlier, and
joins us this afternoon to give us a bit of
further comment. Good afternoon, Rob, you must feel rather vindicated.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Yeah, good afternoon, and yeah, it's quite interesting hearing some
of the interviews with the locks of Chris Bishop and
he's been using the same words that I was using
over a year ago. So yeah, it's the government's caught
up with with what Zappens was doing.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Why do you think this has come to the attention
all of a sudden.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
I think there's a number number effectives. But when you
look at I mean, I know the turnout that the
elections has sort of sparked a but as voter turn
out at the elections have sparked a bit of discussion
as well. But I think it's I mean, it's been
time for change for quite a while, and that's what
I've been saying, and I love the words the mirror.
What we've been saying was simplifying local government in the
(01:19):
country and actually trying to get stuff done and do
it efficiently and get that engagement app So yeah, I
think the government's recognized. I'd like to take all the
credit and say they've they've read sousand's proposal and gone, well,
this will work up and down the country, so let's
mirror that. But yeah, it's good to see that it's
been recognized.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Have you been talking across specially about all lately by chance.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Not not in the last couple of months. I didn't
see well I did see the announcement coming at some stage,
but yeah, we didn't have any heads up that it
was coming on us, so it was it was a
surprise to us as though, although yeah, not a huge
surprise that it was there.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
So yeah, we've talked about this before as well.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
I mean, over two hundred people were elected to local
body politics, whether there were mayors or councilors, unopposed, and
that's certainly got to be a catalyst for change. Though
just when it comes to wasteful spending.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
Yeah, yeah, that's well. In the other words that they've
been using that mirrored what we've been saying is their duplication,
the siloed kind of approach, all of those sorts of things.
We're just yeah, there's a much better way of doing it.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
As far as Ben Bell Core District mayor, I do
you remember Foule cheer of Environments Southland, Tom Campbell and
macagu Have you been in much dialogue of these people
regarding what's going on.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Yeah, we've had initial chests. I was actually at a
meeting with Todd McClay on, sorry, blust trek of days.
Now what day are we We're on Thursday Thursday, So yeah, Tuesday,
Tuesday night, so that the day of the announcement and
Mia Jeremy was there and had a quick catch up
with him and had a bit of a yet with
Ben afterwards. I'm going to try and have a chat
(03:03):
with Tom today to see where we all kind of said.
Jeremy was looking a bit understandably shell shocked. It's the
timing is not that great in terms of having just
gone through an election and then having that that bomb
bombshell drop that. Yeah, that all of the councilors are
going to be potentially out of a out of a role.
But yeah, I mean you can't carry on waiting for
(03:24):
these things to happen either, it's long overdue.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Well the y a human is there the timing stakes, Kevin,
We've just had an election a couple of months ago,
especially around environment Southland.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Yeah. Yeah, although when you look at it from the
Southern point of view, I mean we've been having this
discussion for a while now and just reading through the
full We had a council meeting yesterday so I didn't
have a chance until this morning to actually have a
good read through the full proposal. But when you look
at the outcomes of what they're wanting to achieve, we
can take all of them off with the vocal that
(03:54):
we sent through in February of this year. So it's
that that step of having the regional councils governed by
the three mayors, we could probably avoid that because that
to me doesn't sound like a simple approach and just
go straight to the final outcome of having the two
unitaries in South London that's going to deliver the best
(04:17):
bank for back for us, for our people, and the
most simple form of local governance as well, Rob, can.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
We afford the cost of amalgamation because there's a lot
of money going into consultants, YadA, YadA, YadA, you know
the drill, and there's going to be a heck of
a lot of coin change hands before this actually comes
to fruition.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
See. I don't actually think Andy, that we need to
spend a lot of money on it. We've done a
lot of the groundwork in terms of that proposal. We've
got really good local democracy for our community boards through
everything there. We've got systems in place already. I don't
think we need to make it. I think, following the
government rhetoric of keeping it simple, we can do a
simple amalgamation or reorganization as well. We don't need to
(04:59):
make that too complet cadd either. And if they're looking
at the roles and functions of local government at the
same time and where the duplication lies, we don't need
to get a whold of consultants. And the best consultants
are actually our rate payers in the community who we're
actually there to serve, and they'll have their expectations of
(05:20):
what we need to do. And Yeah, I don't think
we need to spend a whole lot of money on it.
It's the money that we're spending in a broken system
that I'm worried about. In the money that we're wasting.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
All right, payers voicing a few people actually saying in
the last couple of days rather as well that there's
not going to be a lot of money saved if
amalgamations occur as well.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Yeah, it's if you do amalgamation for amalgamation's sake, you're
not going to save any money. And it's important to
get the end result, right. I mean, you look at
that intermediary model, but the government's proposed with the i
think god A CTB or whatever it's called. The mayor's
sitting on that board, you're still going to be running
through and having the regional Carencil there with a duplicated
(06:01):
kind of services and planning and all of that kind
of stuff. So the model that we propose does actually
have savings because we're removing a lot of that duplication.
You're still going to have a CEO of the regional
council under that intermediary model. If we jump straight to
the outcome, we're removing a lot of those overheads and
those costs as well, including the planning, so getting too
(06:24):
those nitry authority outcomes as where we will get the
savings and we'll get them a lot faster if we
skip that intermediate step.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Okay, let's use Tapanui as an examples in the material
licensing trust boundaries. Although it comes under a Targo regional
council jurisdiction, there could be a stickler.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Yeah, it could be. And it's interesting. I saw in
one of the pages of their twenty nine page document
this morning that they're not going to look at the
regional boundaries as part of this, and there have been
some people that have said, look, you can include the
sort of the Blue Mountain area around into South End,
and I mean it starts to complicate it a little
bit when you sort of cross those regional council boundaries.
(07:10):
But yeah, it's going to be a few little nuances
in there, but I'm sure we can work through those
as they go through. But the bigger picture of getting
the model right I think is the most important part.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
So as far as close the district council, would you
be keen to get them involved as well?
Speaker 3 (07:31):
Oh, I can have conversations. I think one of the things,
and of having a look at the national map yesterday
that the government flit forward, which has got all the
boundaries and everything on. And when you look at the
Southend District it's essentially it's like I'm just talking about
our current area as a district council. It's bigger than
a lot of the regions south, so we're effectively a
(07:54):
region already from a size point of view, and you
don't want to go too big from a geography point
of view, and it's one of the risks we just
focus on population, we end up getting too big geographically
and then we end up getting the bloated staff levels
because you've got to have additional staff to cover the
(08:15):
area because one person can't cover that entire space, and
then you end up getting extra managers in and you
get all that kind of stuff that we're trying to
avoid in that piece, and you don't get that same
connected kind of democracy. And when you look at the
voter turnout, Auckland's probably got the worst in the whole country.
And that's a very big, unitary authority covering quite a
(08:36):
wide area, but the people are very disconnected from their
elected members, which puts some off voting. When you look
at the voter turnout down South and I know Gore
did very well and Stuart Island actually got sixty something percent.
So when you get that smaller connected area, you get
a much better engagement. So it's getting that balance right
(08:57):
between your population and your geograph feet and your representation
and sort of linking it all through. So it's quite
important to look at those boundaries and how it all
ties them together.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
It's all hypothetical at this stage, Rob, But then you
look at the area like Gorth, it's debt loading, historical debt, etc.
This comes under the equation as well. It's got to
be I don't know, distributed fairly.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Yeah, no it does. And those are the sort of
details that we can work out. But again, you don't
need consultants to do that. You've got really good staff.
We've got really good governance, good information, good insights. Yeah,
we can do a lot of it ourselves locally.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Is there a risk that that amalgamations though, don't work
and what happens then, well, if you get it right.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
You design it to succeed, not to fail. And I
guess that's one of my reasons for not involving something
designed by Wellington. It needs to be designed locally by
our people for our people, and if we do that,
it's got a very high chance of working where it's
going to fail, as if the government actually tries to
(10:02):
design everything and do a Wellington top down and do
it to us. So it's really important that as the
Southern Region we focus on the outcomes for our communities
and we all work together, even if it means some
of us are going to be out of our jobs,
but we've got to work towards those outcomes for our
people and never be designed by the people.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Good owner, I always appreciate your time on the muster.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
No worries, Thanks Andy, Rob Scott.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
South and District Council Mayor or South and District Mayor
for that matter. About council amalgamations back on the table
all of a sudden after Chris Bishop's announcement on Tuesday evening.
This is the master up next peter Gard and farming
Antdale
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