Are we approaching council mergers the right way?

Nights · Jul 14, 2026 · 8m

Earlier this year the government unveiled a plan to shake up local government by merging many of New Zealand's 78 councils into fewer, larger ones. The preferred option is to have one council, known as a unitary authority, running each region. Exactly which councils will be merged, and the boundaries they'll cover, is still to be decided. Not everyone agrees the government is thinking about this change in the right way, including Dr Kirdan Lees an economist at Sense Partners. He says there are about 32 real economic regions of New Zealand, drawn not by politicians or history but delineated by…