Council changes proposed by central government - will they affect Tasman district?

Did you know that Tasman District Council is a Unitary Council? This means, despite our name saying ‘district council’ we are both a district and regional council in one.

Yesterday Central Government announced a number of changes to the Local Government sector, in particular, the way Regional Councils are governed.

Most places in Aotearoa New Zealand have two separate councils – a regional council, and a city or district council (sometimes called ‘territorial authorities’). Each has a separate set of elected councillors who look after separate (but often similar) things.

There are 11 regional councils that govern services such as environmental management, regional transport planning, and civil defence.

There are 61 city or district councils that govern services such as roads, water infrastructure, rubbish collection, libraries, parks, and land use planning.  

There are 6 unitary authorities that combine the two roles. Tasman is a Unitary Council.

There has been no mention as to how this affects unitary councils like us, and Nelson, Marlborough, Gisborne, Chatham Islands, and Auckland.  

Essentially, the Government proposals remove the recently elected Councillors on Regional Councils to be replaced by the Mayors of the Councils within the boundaries of those Regional Councils; ie Greater Wellington Regional Council will now be governed by the Mayors of Wellington, Hutt City, Upper Hutt, Porirua, and the Wairarapa Councils.

The announcement currently affects those elected members of Regional Councils. It does not affect the function or roles of the Councils – they still exist and will continue to be managed under the new governance structure.

Once the legislation is passed, either next year or after the Central Government election, the mayors will have two years to develop a reorganisation plan for each region. These plans may lead to amalgamation of a number of councils – possibly similar to the Unitary Councils that exist already.

This announcement affects Regional Councils specifically and directly. These are: Northland, Waikato, Bay of Plenty, Hawke’s Bay, Taranaki, Manawatū/Whanganui, Greater Wellington, West Coast, Canterbury, Otago and Southland.

Here is a link to the full proposal: https://www.dia.govt.nz/simplifying-local-government(external link).