Reform will lift rural voice

The Government intends to make councils focus on core business and less on peripherals. It wants them to be more fiscally responsible and to strengthen governance. A taskforce will drive efficiencies, aiming to reduce rates. A new system will monitor councils' financial performance and help sort out problems – in extreme cases appointing commissioners to run them.

Before his resignation, over an ACC letter he wrote for a friend, Smith told Dairy News that rural communities are poorly represented on councils because of rigid rules about the size of voting wards. These at present have to be virtually the same size, hindering fair representation.

"We intend to amend the Local Electoral Act to give councils and the Local Government Commission greater flexibility in determining the makeup of their councils and the rural boundaries to ensure rural areas get a fairer deal."

Flaws now bedevil the present legislation which sets the size of wards, Smith says.

"The present formula in rural areas... cuts across rural communities of interests and [those] communities have had a raw deal out of that. The changes... will make it easier for councils – in their representation review every five years – and the Local Government Commission to make ward boundaries in rural areas better match communities of interests and give rural communities a fairer voice."

Of particular interest to farmers is a law change making it easier to form Unitary Authorities (UAs) or combine existing regional councils and territorial local authorities into single entities. UAs already exist in Gisborne and Nelson/Marlborough; the new Auckland Council is also a UA.

"The government does not view bigger as better, but we view 'simpler as better'," Smith says. "Having two tiers of local government – regional councils and territorial local authorities (TLAs) – adds cost and complexity to local government. That's why we're making it easier to form unitary authorities."

But Smith acknowledges that with large river systems this can be difficult and he says while the Local Government Commission should lean towards the formation of UAs, it must satisfy itself that any new entity can manage water allocation and flood management.

The Government also plans to reform the RMA via a second parliamentary bill later this year. He says councils commonly complain central government forces them to make more regulations.