Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Deon Swiggs: Local Government New Zealand Regional Chair on Government delaying amalgamation plans

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Deon Swiggs: Local Government New Zealand Regional Chair on Government delaying amalgamation plans · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Government decided to put the council amalgamation, just shelve it,
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: put it on ice for a while. The mayors aren't
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: too happy about this.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: This council put incredible effort and energy and investment into
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: putting together a Head Start proposal. I think local government
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: has done everything that central government asked of it and
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  Speaker 2: we've been let down and that's very disappointing.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: So it looks like Cabinet couldn't quite agree on how
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: to move forward. Let's go to Dion Swiggs, Canterbury Regional
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  Speaker 1: Council Chair. Dion, good morning.
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  Speaker 3: Good morning.
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  Speaker 1: How are you? Good, thanks. So Andrew Little reckons they've
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  Speaker 1: wasted millions. Collectively, councils would have wasted millions. How much
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  Speaker 1: have you guys spent? Did you get external advisors? Have
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  Speaker 1: you spent a bunch of money on this?
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  Speaker 3: Yes, sir. I mean, we were a regional council, so
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  Speaker 3: we decided really early on that we weren't necessarily part
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  Speaker 3: of developing those plans. But I know that I've got
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  Speaker 3: 11 councils in Canterbury. And we worked with every single
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: council to tell them exactly what our functions were, how
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  Speaker 3: we potentially would transition those into new entities, considerable amount
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: of staff time, a considerable amount of our member time.
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  Speaker 3: But my TAs, those district councils and the city councils,
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  Speaker 3: I think collectively potentially over half a million dollars that
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  Speaker 3: was spent on consultant fees in our region to set
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  Speaker 3: up these Head Start proposals that they have put into
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  Speaker 3: the government. And they've just been put on on ice
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  Speaker 3: at this stage, which is really not good enough.
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  Speaker 1: But you guys didn't want them in the first place,
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  Speaker 1: did you? So does it give you a chance to
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  Speaker 1: go back and have a natter?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, what this does is it allows us
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  Speaker 3: to have more time to go, hey, look, how can
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  Speaker 3: we do this better? I think one of the risks
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  Speaker 3: of the whole process that the government has been putting
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  Speaker 3: forward is they've been rushing this on a particular political timeframe.
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  Speaker 3: Now we do have a little bit more time to go, hey,
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  Speaker 3: is there some good outcomes that can come out of
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  Speaker 3: potential amalgamations or doing things differently? Everybody knows that local
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: government needs to do things a little bit better. We've
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  Speaker 3: heard that message time and time again. So what does
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  Speaker 3: that look like? How can we do that? We've had
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  Speaker 3: some real good conversations through these Head Start processes. Are
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  Speaker 3: there opportunities now to go and look at how we
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  Speaker 3: can do things a little bit differently so we get
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  Speaker 3: better outcomes for our communities, do things more efficiently, get
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  Speaker 3: better things delivered on the ground?
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  Speaker 1: You know, Dion, people listening to this are going, oh, shush,
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  Speaker 1: there's another there's another councillor saying, how can we look
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  Speaker 1: at maybe doing things like, come on, you know? That's
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  Speaker 1: why you're a political football, and that's why central government
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  Speaker 1: political parties can kick you guys around.
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  Speaker 3: Yep, but we've been forced into this situation that I
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  Speaker 3: don't think is going to go away. So that's the
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: reality of this. It's not going away. So we've got
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: to do this. And there are a lot of good
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  Speaker 3: ideas that have come out of those Head Start proposals.
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  Speaker 3: One of the good things down here in the South Island,
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  Speaker 3: we're talking to all of the other regional councils. There
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: is better ways to deliver some of the regional functions
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: that we have, such as that really important flood protection. Now,
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: if we have disruption of that flood protection, we've got
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  Speaker 3: life risk. We can't have life risk. So we've got
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  Speaker 3: to make sure that we're setting our organisations up so
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  Speaker 3: that can continue. But there are better ways to govern
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  Speaker 3: these things, potentially, that actually make sure that it gets
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  Speaker 3: the results on the ground. And people, just as you
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  Speaker 3: were saying, don't actually think that we're just going to
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  Speaker 3: be that political football that rolls around all the time.
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  Speaker 1: Dion Swiggs, Canterbury Regional Council Chair.
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  Speaker 3: For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge, listen live
• 3:23
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• 3:27
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