Matt Cowley: The local government system is broken

Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta has announced a review of the sector. Photo / File

Matt Cowley
OPINION

The local government system is broken and it's time for a change.

With the shake-up of Tauranga City Council and threats of government intervention in councils across the country, we're at an important crossroads and what government does now could make or break the future of our growing region.

An example is that Government is considering regionalising the three waters infrastructure from individual councils into a small number of organisations.

The cabinet report says the deficit facing local government water service providers is $30 billion to $50 billion against an annual spend of around $1.5 billion. Catching up on this deficit could take 30 years.

Locally, the three councils in the Western Bay established SmartGrowth in 2004 for joint strategic planning in the subregion, to successfully manage our anticipated population growth. We had a head start to address the issues and yet we still face crises for housing, traffic and infrastructure.

This has not been through a lack of strategic planning, but a lack of co-ordinated delivery from the three councils in conjunction with central government.

Over the years, SmartGrowth has held various local workshops to find new financing and funding solutions, and yet the three councils have released draft long-term plans that more or less rely on rates and debt. Very little progress has been made on new financing solutions over the past decade.

Our local government system does not have the right funding tools to address today's problems, and it must navigate its way through competing priorities set by different government legislation.

I warmly welcome the Minister's review of local government. Councils don't have the right tools or resources to fulfil their purpose, making them frustrated and ineffective.

I'm personally in favour of having strong local boards who have the power to make decisions on neighbourhood level issues, but we need a united regional authority that governs on the strategic issues such as infrastructure, land zoning, hazard management and, of course, funding.

The discussion on funding needs to include government taxes, user fees, better ways to invest the dividends from Quayside, and leveraging off private public partnerships to deliver infrastructure.

The Waikato Chamber of Commerce believes the Waikato region is over-governed with 12 councils for their 500,000 residents. The Bay of Plenty has nearly 340,000 residents across eight councils, meaning the Waikato and Bay of Plenty has the same ratio of 42,000 residents for each council in our region.

Our construction sector is frustrated with the different rules and ways of engaging with council officers when working across the Tauranga and Western Bay of Plenty boundaries.

Back in 1989, the focus was on whether Mount Maunganui Borough and Tauranga District Councils should merge, when really the Government missed an opportunity to merge Western BOP District Council as well.

We thought small in 1989 and I hope the government does not think small this time around when we consider the future governance of neighbouring areas such as the Eastern Bay of Plenty, Taupo, and Coromandel, as well as centralising the environmental regulatory roles of the regional councils.

• Matt Cowley is the chief executive of the Tauranga Chamber of Commerce