The rates question
Candidates in this year’s local body elections will no doubt be tempted to campaign on promises of low or even zero rate increases, given the...
Author : LG magazine
Lessons in the building approval processes
In a recent decision of the Christchurch High Court, the Christchurch City Council successfully defended a summary judgment application, writes Sarah Macky, Partner at Heaney...
Non-consented small stand-alone dwellings
Love or hate the idea, changes to the consent regimes are aimed at allowing the building of tiny homes and granny flats without council consent....
Improving Government asset management
Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop spoke at the 2025 Infrastructure Asset Management Professionals Association (Apopo) congress in Christchurch about our infrastructure asset management challenge. “We need...
Are councils ‘Treaty’ partners?
By Mike Doesburg and Emma Burns, lawyers specialising in local government and environmental law at Wynn Williams. This year, considerable debate has been had about...
Wellington’s mayoral prospects
There was an old saying doing the rounds in Rome when the Cardinals gathered to elect a successor to Pope Francis: “He who enters the...
Parliamentary game-playing
A tense and intriguing political chess game is currently being played in Parliament’s Privileges Committee, explains Peter Dunne. On the face of it, the issue...
The case for a smaller government executive
Based on a speech David Seymour gave to the Tauranga Business Chamber last month where he floated an idea about how we could transform government...
It won’t happen overnight
According to Aggregate and Quarry Association (AQA) CEO Wayne Scott, councils face some interim, if not longer-term, challenges with supplying quarry materials for local roading...
Rates will never be enough
Councils need the power to raise money in other ways, writes Guy Charton, Associate Professor at Auckland University of Technology. Republished from the Conversation, April 2025,...