Brian Rudman: Wellington pours on the costs but offers no help

Ever noticed how MPs make themselves scarce each time ratepayers rise up against the latest double-figure increase in local government taxes? It's because they're more than happy to let someone else take the blame for costs which, in part, are their handiwork.

After all it was central Government that ordered local councils to insert electronic chips in dogs, to regulate brothels and to beef up building controls to prevent any more leaky homes being built. All ordered without as much as a please or thank you in local government's direction, or any offer of a dollar or three to cover the costs.

Central Government's attitude is that it's up to local authorities to cover the costs of these new impositions by making the user pay. But as local government consultant Peter McKinlay points out, "It doesn't always work out like that. For example, there's a very large resistance among dog owners to the full-cost approach and dog owners have this terrible habit of voting ..."

As a result, local authorities tend to try to absorb some of the costs of these new tasks into the overall council budget.

But shifting the cost and responsibility away from central Government is not the only incentive the bureaucrats have for palming tasks off on their local counterparts. For more than a generation, central Government officials wanting to sell a new policy initiative to their masters have had to identify equivalent savings somewhere else. In other words, to get the green light for the latest pet project, they have to agree to last year's pet being put down.

"The beauty of putting in place something where local government carries the cost is you don't have to find equivalent savings," says Mr McKinlay.

Whatever the motives, central Government's refusal to fund the extra burdens it imposes on local government is an inequity that needs remedying. And if Minister of Local Government Mark Burton is looking for any guidance he need only look across the Tasman. Just last April, a joint meeting of Commonwealth, state and local government representatives signed a historic agreement "establishing principles to guide inter-government relations on local government matters".

Along with promises to "respect" and consult each other, there was a key provision that if a state or the Commonwealth Government "intends to impose a legislative or regulatory requirement specifically on local government for the provision of a service or function, subject to exceptional circumstances, it shall consult with the relevant peak local government representative body and ensure the financial implications and other impacts for local government are taken into account".

The agreement followed a Commonwealth parliamentary inquiry into "local government and cost shifting". Committee chairman David Hawker, MP, wrote in the foreword of the Fair Share Report that "local government has, over a number of years, been on the wrong end of cost-shifting" and "it is the responsibility of all spheres of Government to address the matter".

Time will tell whether the fine sentiments are matched by action, but local politicians in Australia appear optimistic.

The Canadian province of British Columbia has an even stronger commitment, outlined in a statutory Community Charter. Among the key principles is "No offloading: the provincial government must not assign responsibilities to municipalities unless there is provision for the resources required to fulfil the responsibilities".

There's another called "Respect" in which the provincial government promises to respect municipal authority and vice versa. There's also a requirement for both sides to consult on matters of mutual interest.

On paper, these obligations read like a commonsense way of regulating life between two complementary governing bodies. But both the Australian and Canadian pacts are light years in front of the pugilistic, jelly-wrestling approach that rules inter-government relations in this country.

Can you imagine, for example, if such an agreement had been in force before central Government cooked up the secret deal with the Rugby Union and flew off to Ireland, committing Aucklanders to producing a $320 million, 60,000-seat stadium?

Maybe we would have agreed to it - yeah right - but at least, if we'd been living with the respect clauses of either of the above agreements, we would have been consulted.

Ratepayers can't blame central Government cost-shifting for all of their current woes. But it's a good place to start.