After several false starts, it seems as though the Wellington region’s local governments are to amalgamate. What form this takes is still uncertain, but it is necessary to address form, function and funding, write Andy Asquith, Adjunct Research Fellow at Western Australia University and Jeff McNeill, Honorary Research Associate at Massey University.
The quick and cheerful model championed by Ministers Chris Bishop and Simon Watts, or the still-to-be-determined outcome of a more considered process as advocated by Wellington Mayor Andrew Little?
Much will depend, we suggest, on the outcome of the next general election. Should the Coalition be returned to office, then the cheap and cheerful model will likely be adopted and legislated for.
However, under a new government of a different political persuasion, Little’s advocacy could find a more sympathetic hearing. Regardless, we advocate the latter. Further, if Wellington is to have a viable, sustainable and credible long-term solution, the process needs to simultaneously address the 3Fs of any reorganisation: form, function and finance.
Whichever model is adopted, much comparison will undoubtedly be made with the creation of Auckland Council in 2010. In our research published in 2021, we reviewed the work of the organisation created by the John Key government, following the Royal Commission on Auckland Governance report (2009). We suggested that only one of the two key terms of reference of the Royal Commission had been met.
Some five years after the publication of our paper, we feel no need to modify these conclusions. The Royal Commission had two key terms of reference: to provide the region with strategic leadership and to reconnect the institutions of local governance with Aucklanders. Whilst the former has undoubtedly been achieved, the woeful levels of voter engagement in successive elections to Auckland Council offer a sobering indication of the extent to which people are increasingly disengaged.
In 2022 and 2025, Wayne Brown won the Auckland mayoralty with the support of around 180,000 voters – representing just 15 percent of those entitled to vote – meaning 85 percent simply didn’t vote for him. This is hardly the mandate he claimed!
Indeed, after a spectacular turnout of 50 percent in the inaugural mayoral election in 2010, turnout since has generally followed a downward spiral. This does not suggest a model Wellington should simply cut and paste.
Despite the popular myth, New Zealanders are generally underrepresented: we have significantly fewer councillors representing bigger numbers of citizens than those of most other Western democracies. The trend in amalgamations reinforces this. One bizarre result is that Aucklanders are represented in Parliament by more list and electorate Members of Parliament than there are councillors around the Auckland Council debating table.
Hence, we would suggest a radical and very un-Kiwi approach to amalgamation. Greater Wellington’s constituent territorial local authorities – four cities and four districts – currently have a combined total of eight directly elected mayors and 84 elected councillors. Additionally, there are 14 elected Wellington regional councillors. In any amalgamation process, given past experience, we can expect something like half of the number of councillors to be removed.
Against that statistic, we propose that the new Greater Wellington entity contains the same number of councillors as found today in the eight territorial councils to ensure full representation of Wellington’s diverse communities of interest. Alternatively, if the total number of elected members to the new Wellington-wide unitary is to be reduced, each existing local authority area should have its own local board, akin to the Auckland model.
But frankly, the Auckland model is no great improvement on current arrangements. Urgency should not be mistaken for importance. Much better again, we suggest, is that the Ministers and local government have a cup of tea and together draw up a strategy for enduring local government reform, one that addresses form, function and finance simultaneously.
A reform that the Ministers will be remembered for over the next decades for all the right reasons.