Rt Hon Winston Peters

New Zealand First Leader

Member of Parliament for Northland
2 SEPTEMBER 2016

Two Local Authorities for All of South Island Being Considered

The South Island could end up with only two local authorities and the North Island only five under a government “agenda” being rushed through, says New Zealand First Leader and Northland Member of Parliament Rt Hon Winston Peters.

“It is well known within local government circles that the government is looking at reducing the number of local authorities

“Invercargill mayor Tim Shadbolt talks about this reduction taking the North Island down to five and the South Island to possibly two from the present total of 78 for the country.

“Alarm bells are ringing in local councils throughout New Zealand with fears they will lose control of their communities.

“It appears this government is determined to create more monsters along the lines of Auckland’s Super City basing their rationale solely on the basis of population.

“To prevent this happening the government’s Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 2) should be dumped immediately.

“Councils have not been adequately consulted about it and they will not be consulted in the future either – the bill seeks to give new powers to create council controlled organisations (CCOs) to manage a region’s assets or services without any input whatsoever from locally affected councils.

“The government has already done that with the soon to be elected Kaipara District Council. They have put in place two non-elected officers with the intention of undermining the soon to be democratic choice of the Kaipara ratepayers. One is a Crown Manager and the other is a Crown Observer who will be ‘guiding’ the council.

“This is frightening ‘big brother’ stuff and is totally undemocratic; the bill should be booted out,” Mr Peters says.

ENDS

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