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Michael Ford: Manawatu Mayor on local government reforms, council amalgamation · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Let's go to local amalgamation news. Not every council is
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: happy about this attempted forced amalgamation by central government. By
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: current count forty eight councils of submitted proposals, seventeen of abstained.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Michael Ford is the mone or two mere joins me
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: this morning. Michael, good morning, Good morning Ryan now on here,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: good to have you.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: Now.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: On Friday, five councils, including yours, committed to move forward
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: together on a locally led regional work program. What on
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: earth does that mean? Michael?
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: Right, So we're not ready for head Start. We never were.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: We were never interested in the head Start program with
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: five councils. So that's Hongo Nui, Ruapehu, Rangatick Taraua and
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: ourselves making up about a fifth of the size of
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: the North Island. We've signed an MoU where we'll work
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: together on alternative models. So we have been working on
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: a number of models, one of them being the federation model,
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: and we're going to work together and come up with
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: a solution that addresses the governments can concerns, takes on
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: the regional functions, but hopefully retains as much local representation,
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: local decision making and local accountability as we can.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: What's the time frame here, Well.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: We're working through it till probably early next year, so
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: six to nine month timeframe.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: And what exactly when you know, you talk about the models,
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: the federation model for your average punter, what does that
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: actually look like?
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: Sure? So, federation model, sometimes called the Manchester model, is
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: where you retain your individual councils with mayors, but you
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: have another level of governance above which takes on which
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: governs the regional functions. And over time, we have a
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: in the man Ortuo Wanganui region, we have a what
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: we call Mantle two Wogannui Local authority shared services organizations,
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: so we're actually work together a lot as as anyway
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: that could possibly slot in and govern some of the
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: regional functions.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: And over time, how many layers of council would we
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: go from and how many would we end up with.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: Well, it would be effectively the mayors would sit on
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: the on the higher level board, so it would be
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: removed the government's removing the regional council, so the regional
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: functions would be governed by a committee of which would
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: probably include the mayors. So it would be less than
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: we've got at the moment. So we have a local
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: district council, city council representation and then those the leaders
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: of those govern the regional function.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Michael Ford one of two mayor. There's mud for more
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: from Early edition with Ryan Bridge.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: Listen live to News Talks. It'd be from five am weekdays,
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio