Hawke's Bay Amalgamation Decision Should Be Based on Evidence, Not Hope

The Taxpayers’ Union is calling for both sides of the Hawke’s Bay amalgamation debate to act with cool heads and ensure their public statements can be backed-up after yesterday’s release by the Local Government Commission of its final proposal. Taxpayers’ Union Executive Director, Jordan Williams, says:

“The claims being made by ‘Better Hawke’s Bay’ that amalgamation is likely to bring efficiencies by removing duplication are simply wrong. The economic evidence both here and in Australia is that once you hit around 40,000 there is no further economies of scale.”

“The Hutt City Council hired TDB Advisory to do a thorough economic and literature review of the optimum size of local Government. The results show that bigger is not necessary better."

“There might be good reasons for amalgamating the Hawke’s Bay councils, and we applaud Better Hawke’s Bay’s objectives, but it was sloganeering and undisciplined analysis which lead to Auckland’s Super City disaster.”

“As head of Local Government New Zealand, Laurence Yule defends Auckland Council’s 9.9% annual rates increases. In Auckland, the Super City bureaucracy is now bigger than the sum of the original parts, that would seem an unlikely recipe for economic progress if repeated in Hawke’s Bay."

“Likewise, advocates need to show how the region will speak with ‘one voice’ with a proposal that is likely to make the councillor’s role full time, include 37 local board members and have three tiers of Maori representation, which are presumably unelected."

ENDS

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