Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Nick Clark: New Zealand Initiative Senior Fellow on the report looking at whether merging councils will solve the issues with local government

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Nick Clark: New Zealand Initiative Senior Fellow on the report looking at whether merging councils will solve the issues with local government · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: An expert says merging councils might not be the golden
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: solution to our local government problems. This is in a
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  Speaker 1: report out today from the New Zealand Initiative. Nick Clark
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  Speaker 1: New Zealand Initiative Senior Fellow with us Nick, good.
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  Speaker 2: Morning, Good morning Ryan.
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  Speaker 1: So we want more localism or less localism.
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  Speaker 2: We should have more localism, not less localism. Unfortunately, the
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  Speaker 2: government's head start approach, which is where it's sort of
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: urging councils to merge. If it's not done properly, it
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: will result of less localism.
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  Speaker 1: Right, So you want to be Andy Burnham this morning.
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  Speaker 1: Basically you want us to bring back local.
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  Speaker 2: Well, I mean it's not just Andy Burnham. There's a
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  Speaker 2: lot of countries around the world that do it this way.
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  Speaker 2: We're one of the most centralized countries in the developed world.
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  Speaker 2: You know, our local government is very constrained. It is
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  Speaker 2: we have. They're big, they're big by international standards, especially
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  Speaker 2: for countries of our size, and you know the bigger
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  Speaker 2: is better then we would see a lot better results,
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  Speaker 2: and we're not seeing a lot better results. You know,
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  Speaker 2: rates have continued to arise rapidly. You know, we've got
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  Speaker 2: dysfunction in councils, We've got disengagement with voters. So you know,
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  Speaker 2: going to a more local approach, A localist approach is
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  Speaker 2: wood by the international evidence, and indeed in New Zealand,
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  Speaker 2: where smaller councils tend to have higher levels of engagement
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  Speaker 2: with their communities, is a better approach than merging.
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  Speaker 1: But see, I'm confused because we've got like seventy eight
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  Speaker 1: local and territorial authorities. But in New Zealand is a
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  Speaker 1: small country. I've always thought it's too many. Are you
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  Speaker 1: saying it's more about the size of them. Have more,
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  Speaker 1: You can have more of them, but they need to
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  Speaker 1: have like a little area that they look after.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, look, we used to have. We used
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  Speaker 2: to have a lot more than seventy eight. And if
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  Speaker 2: you look at countries like Switzerland, for example, they have
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  Speaker 2: four thousand what you call territorial authority, similar to our
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  Speaker 2: territorial authorities for nine million people. You know, Germany has
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  Speaker 2: tens ten thousand. You know, we're at seventy eight. Might
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  Speaker 2: sound like a lot, but in the country is diverse
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  Speaker 2: and as large geographically as New Zealand. Then you know,
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  Speaker 2: and some of these councils cover very large areas tens
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  Speaker 2: of thousands of square kilometers and also have large numbers
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  Speaker 2: of people about seventy nine thousand people per council in
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  Speaker 2: New Zealand. That is large by international standards.
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  Speaker 1: Really, Nick Wood, in my mind, this would just mean
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  Speaker 1: more councils, would mean more rules, more time to make rules,
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  Speaker 1: more people making rules, more stuff not getting done.
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  Speaker 2: I've actually think it's more likely the opposite. And the
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  Speaker 2: Infrastructure Commission did some work five years ago that looked
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  Speaker 2: at that asked the question as bigger better and it
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  Speaker 2: actually said no, it doesn't. There's no relationship that they
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  Speaker 2: could find. But most of council services that said that
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  Speaker 2: bigger councils are more efficient than smaller councils. Auckland super City,
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  Speaker 2: it was a lot of savings were promised. They weren't
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  Speaker 2: necessarily as delivered to the extent that people expected. There
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  Speaker 2: was no post implementation reviewed ever done. It was promised,
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  Speaker 2: but it was never done. So the savings that were
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  Speaker 2: promised at the time in twenty ten were never tested.
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  Speaker 2: But yet so spinning is up rates us up, you know.
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  Speaker 2: The voter turnout in Auckland was dismal the last elections,
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  Speaker 2: so you know, just to say that things are going
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  Speaker 2: to you've got to have bigger to be better, is
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  Speaker 2: just not backed up by the evident.
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  Speaker 1: That's interesting stuff. Mcclark New Zealand Initiative Sing You Fellow.
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: For more from Earlily Edition with Ryan Bridge, Listen live
• 3:45
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• 3:48
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