Local Government job could be Paula Bennett’s biggest challenge.

It is a long time since a Minister of Local Government was as high as number 5 in the Cabinet, together with the appointment of an Associate Minister outside Cabinet.

Paula Bennett and Louise Upston have a heavy workload ahead

There are huge pressures building in Local Government generally as ratepayers and businesses begin to react strongly to many issues which local councils appear less able to resolve, especially in the areas of financial management, planning controls and effective representative governance.

Funding for local councils has been a challenge for many years and. despite several inquiries and reviews, nothing has been produced which is radical enough to reform the present unfair system.

The re-organisation of Auckland’s local government system was quite a radical move, but experience is now showing that the in-built democracy deficit of fewer elected representatives and huge increases in bureaucrat numbers is raising tensions in many of the local communities which form the SuperCity.

Auckland issues involving debt and financial management, urban planning and the controversial Central Rail tunnel, are likely to draw in more central Government involvement, and to attract loud calls for amending legislation to remedy the democracy deficit.

Similar SuperCity proposals are under consideration around the country, and, with a biased Local Government Commission, such proposals could well be forced on unwilling participants. New amalgamation proposals are proving divisive and suggested advantages are being ridiculed in the light of Auckland’s financial woes.

National Governments have traditionally been loathe to interfere with the independence of local councils, but more recently the present administration has introduced legislative changes which give a range of Ministerial interventions aimed at keeping councils on track in terms of fiscal management and responsibility.

These are big problems to be dealt with, and the appointment of a strong senior Minister to the Local Government portfolio should bring some hope to overburdened ratepayers that the Government has recognised the problems and intends to address them.

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