Sharing the pain
Reports from Australia indicate the local government sector has reached a crossroads, where federal and state funding no longer covers the extra services and responsibilities...
Category : Local government reform
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Voting in the local body elections is in progress and we are already turning our attention to the national elections next year, with the three-year...
More transparency please
Image: The Tauranga City Council administration building. The Office of the Auditor-General says requests to inquire into spending decisions made by Tauranga City Council in...
Right to know – withholding information
Image: Birmingham City Council House. In our local government system, local authorities are served by two separate yet equally important groups: the elected councillors who...
The central-local government conflict a colonial legacy
Image: Julius Vogel After decades of the central government dictating to local councils under the 1989 and 2002 Local Government Acts, local authorities have danced...
Let us in on the discussion
Most countries have a form of regional administration for public and environmental services. Some things, such as river catchments, flood control, public transport services and...
Councils relieved of ‘well-being’ obligations
The Government is taking back central services from local councils, leaving them to “deliver essential services and core infrastructure”. “Earlier this year, the Prime Minister...
Removing well-being responsibility from local government
By Peter Dunne. The water pipe, which burst beneath Wellington’s Cambridge Terrace on Wednesday morning [21 August], could not have chosen a better moment to...
Responding to serious challenges TOGETHER
By Alan Pollard, Civil Contractors New Zealand, Chief Executive As I reflect on the increasingly challenging situation we find ourselves in – politically, economically, socially,...
RMA reform needs to be done right
By Simon Court, ACT party infrastructure and local government spokesperson, and civil and environmental engineer with 23-years’ experience in roles for the private sector and...