Mark Hooper Joins NZPork Board as Independent Director
Rural leader Mark Hooper has been appointed as an independent director to the NZPork board, bringing extensive farming, governance and advocacy experience to the role.
However, they are rightly demanding their local district, city and regional councils come with amalgamation plans that meet the needs of rural communities and don't allow urban councils to dominate.
This follows central government putting local authorities on notice to come up with substantial, realistic, cost-effective plans for amalgamation within the next three months or else government will intervene.
Farmers generally support reforms provided they lock in strong representation for provincial communities.
After all, rural communities and towns don't want to be paying for city projects that deliver little benefit to them.
If decisions are made without proper rural input, they risk creating policies that don't fit or support the needs of farming families and rural businesses.
There's no doubt NZ's local government system is too complex, too costly, and too hard to navigate.
Currently, there are 78 city and district, regional, and unitary councils across the country - a high number for a council of our size.
Federated Farmers proposes that metropolitan unitary councils centred on cities of around 50,000-plus, and provincial unitary councils that merge the district councils.
This modelling could see the current 78 councils redue to less than half that number.
It also achieves the streamlining, economies of scale and capability to shoulder the regional spatial planning the Government wants.
Councils shape the places we live and the services we rely on. But for farmers, too often the system is tangled in duplication, disagreements, and decisions that defy common sense.
Getting a simple resource consent renewal is a costly, time consuming and a drawn-out affair for some farmers.
Farmers need a simpler, cost-effective system that just lets them get on with farming.
The next three months will be interesting to see how local authorities respond to the Government's deadline and whether the issue of equity between rural and urban can be achieved.
