The Government, through RMA Reform and Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop and Local Government Minister Simon Watts, has given councils a three-month ‘Head Start’ ultimatum to submit proposals to merge local government authorities in their regions.
Driving this is the Government’s RMA reforms and its new planning systems, with Bishop claiming our local government system, which has been in place since 1989 following sweeping reforms consolidating 850 local organisations into 86 and setting up a two-tier structure of regional and territorial councils, is “too complex, too costly, and too hard to navigate” and “tangled in duplication, disagreements, and decisions that defy common sense”.
“Councils are critical to delivering the new planning system, which will pass into law this year, enabling housing growth and supporting infrastructure investment. We gave careful thought to sequencing this work after resource management reform, but the benefits of doing it now are too large to ignore.
“These reforms are tightly linked. Fixing the planning system while leaving local government untouched would just lock in the same problems. We’re not prepared to do that. It makes far more sense to tackle both together so councils can plan once, adapt once, and get on with delivering. A simpler, more efficient local government system will make it easier to deliver those priorities.”
Bishop says that in November last year, his Government put forward a proposal to simplify local government and remove the elected regional councillors and require councils to work together on region-wide plans. After completing consultation on that proposal (with 1100 submissions), he says there is a consistent strong support for change.
Many councils want more flexibility to get on with reform in a way that works for their region, he says. “Several mayors have told us they’re ready to move now, with clear ideas about what should change and how to do it. We’re giving them the opportunity to get on with it through a ‘Head Start’ pathway.”
This opportunity “won’t sit open forever”, he warns. “If councils don’t step up and put forward credible proposals, the Government will step in and make those decisions.
“Our message to councils is simple: lead your own reform, or we will do it for you. Either way, change is coming.”
Watts says the Head Start pathway will enable councils to pitch their own reorganisation ideas and they have three months to work with others in their region and put forward proposals on creating larger, more efficient unitary authorities that streamline functions, reduce duplication and improve decision-making.
“We’re giving councils real flexibility. Proposals don’t need to cover an entire region, but they must show clear support, strong leadership, and real benefits for communities.”
Officials will assess proposals against clear criteria, including the following:
- Can it actually be done? The proposal needs to be realistic and able to be delivered on time.
- Does it support the new planning system? It should make it easier, not harder, to roll out new planning rules and plans.
- Does it simplify things? It should reduce duplication and make decision-making clearer and more efficient.
- Will it deliver better value? It should improve efficiency, save money over time, and support better infrastructure and services.
- Are communities still well represented? It needs to keep a strong local voice and fairly represent different communities, including urban and rural areas.
The Cabinet will then decide which proposals to progress, says Watts, with decisions later this year. Endorsed proposals will then be developed in detail and signed off next year, with changes implemented ahead of the 2028 local government elections, should the Government retain power after the election this November.
Watts says some councils are already progressing this work after saying they support and want reform, “but they also want a bigger role in shaping it”.
“This is about Government not getting in the way. With the Head Start approach, those ready to move can get on with designing arrangements that better serve their communities, without waiting for others.
“For areas that do not come forward through the Head Start pathway, the Government will implement a backstop process to ensure reform still happens across the country. This will involve a standardised approach, including transitional governance arrangements while changes are put in place.”
Reform must serve those it represents
Former council and local government reform advocate, Gwynn Compton, notes that the Government’s Simplifying Local Government reform programme has shifted from consultation to acceleration, with a clear intention to get councils to make hard decisions now ahead of this year’s general election.
“The preferred direction is now much clearer: larger unitary authorities that combine regional and local council functions, with a goal to reduce duplication and improve efficiencies (even if the evidence on this happening is mixed at best), while simultaneously aligning with the incoming new planning system. Interestingly, regional councils have been largely forced to the sidelines in this new Head Start process.”
This ‘clarity’ is welcome in one sense, he says. “One of the weaknesses of the Coalition’s original proposal was that it appeared to nudge councils toward regional amalgamation or unitary-style reform, while leaving too much room for every region to interpret the goal differently. That risked recreating the very complexity the reform was supposed to fix.”
The Head Start process removes much of that ambiguity, he notes, and may be politically useful and even necessary. “Both local and central government have a long record of talking about reform, commissioning reports, defending boundaries and roles, and then finding reasons not to change.”
However, speed and clarity are not the same as good design. “The big unresolved question is whether this process will produce structures that strengthen local democracy or simply centralise decision-making in a different form.”
Compton notes that regional councils cannot submit Head Start proposals as the process is led by groups of territorial authorities. “That matters, because the reform is not just about council back-office functions. It goes directly to regional responsibilities such as transport, catchment management, environmental planning, civil defence, infrastructure coordination, and more.
“There is also still a real risk of patch protection. If councils are invited to design their own future, some will inevitably think first about institutional and political survival, mayoral influence, and local boundaries. The Government’s backstop may counter that, but it does so by increasing ministerial leverage rather than creating a genuinely independent regional design process as I’ve advocated for on numerous occasions.”
Although the Government’s Head Start pathway announcement included criteria around maintaining a strong local voice to represent communities, as well as trying to balance urban and rural interests, ‘criteria’ are not the same as ‘mechanisms’.
“The hard part will be designing representation models that keep local decision-making close to communities, while giving new unitary authorities enough scale to act regionally as the Coalition desires them to do.”
There is also the question of timing, he says. “The Government says it considered waiting until after resource management reform, but decided the reforms are too closely linked to delay. Its view is that councils should ‘plan once, adapt once, and get on with delivering’.”
For councils already dealing with water and planning reform, financial pressure, infrastructure deficits (and possible rate capping), this will be a major test of capacity, he says, especially if done in haste.
“As a former district councillor and a passionate advocate for local government reorganisation, I know this is not an easy task for anyone involved,” says Crompton.
“The devil, as always, will be in the detail. But that is exactly why the process matters. The goal cannot simply be fewer councils on a map. It has to be local government that works better for the people and places it serves.”
Brass neck approach
Henry Cooke, the deputy political editor at The Post, notes that “Chris Bishop can sometimes display an incredible brass neck” with his new three-month ultimatum to councils while admitting his Party had not campaigned on it and nor did he discuss the issue with Labour.
“He is also at least honest about the fact that central government needs councils to do some amalgamating if his reforms to the Resource Management Act (RMA) are going to work properly, and deliver all the new housing, development, and economic growth that many in this country clearly desire,” says Cooke.
However, he notes that the Government is about to carry out the “ultimate referendum on its plan” with an election coming soon. “None of these forced amalgamations by government would be ready by then… Perhaps that is just political ingenuity to get action where action has long been delayed, but it could rub more than just overworked councillors up the wrong way.”
Cooke also notes that the PM, Christopher Luxon, was National’s Local Government spokesperson in 2021, and stated at the time that Labour’s review into councils was a push towards “centralisation”, and that it was “crucial that outcomes are led by communities, not by central government.”
Luxon also campaigned on “localism” at the last election and National has attacked Labour’s centralising impulse in health, tertiary education and water services. National promised voters repeatedly it would put them back in control of local matters, Cooke says.
Looking at the general lack of interest in local government elections, Cooke doesn’t think it seems likely that amalgamation will be the defining issue for many at the election.
“But that does not mean there will not be a backlash to such a bold push from central government to change the way another bit of government operates, made so soon after it campaigned on putting the local voice first. It is easy to argue that this is the right thing to do, but far harder to say that this is the only way to do it.”