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Source The Bay of Plenty Regional Council has released its final list of candidates for the upcoming local body elections in October 2025. Governance Manager Steve Groom says he is pleased with the diversity and number of nominations received this year, noting that every regional council constituency will now hold an election. “We have . . . → Read More: Article: Bay of Plenty Regional Council Confirms Candidates for 2025 Local Elections “If you’re on the dormant roll, your record won’t show up on vote.nz, but you’ll be re-enrolled as soon as you fill in an enrolment form with your current address. “If you’ve got any concerns about your enrolment, please get in touch with our enrolment team on 0800 36 76 56 or enquiries@elections.govt.nz and they can check your enrolment.” . . . → Read More: Article: How to check your enrolment after concerns from voters In a statement yesterday, Local Government Minister Simon Watts said some households were getting frustrated by unfair rate hikes during the cost-of-living crisis. It followed comments at the recent Local Government NZ (LGNZ) conference, where Watts compared councils to children and suggested that letting them do what they wanted might lead to bad choices. Olds, who attended the conference, told his colleagues and LGNZ representatives that he was disappointed that councils continued to get “beaten up by central government” over things that were out of their control. Councils had defended rising rates as they were dealing with increased infrastructure costs, unfunded mandates, insurance, and inflation. LGNZ chief executive Susan Freeman-Greene said tensions between local and central government were “a challenge”, and that councils bore the impact of frequent changes to government policy. . . . → Read More: Article: Councillors tired of being ‘beaten up’ and blamed by central government  Comments are closed  Election 25, From The Press, News Clippings, RNZ  council reform, LGNZ, rates increases, whakatane v wellington 
Source Dave Stewart PDF I want to thank Peter Minten for his opinion piece (Where is your research?, Beacon. July 25) and acknowledging that the forces of conservatism are lining up our community owned assets for sale in order to pay for our 3 Waters infrastructure. Honesty like that needs to be applauded. At a . . . → Read More: Opinion: A mature conversation about unaffordable rates Comments are closed Election 25, From The Press council reform, rates, rates increases, tax cuts, whakatane v wellington “There are some steps available to central government such as the appointment of an observer or the replacement of a council with commissioners … but that tends to be used as a last resort and only after ministerial intervention.” The agency he suggested would be set up like the Public Service Commission, “with the ability to provide early, proactive support for local government and effective advice to ministers when issues arise” . . . → Read More: Article: Calls for ‘department for local government’ to oversee councils The cost of water services would be going up a lot, Kircher said, but less so under a joint model. Now, keeping the services in-house, his council’s total rates take would have to increase by 25% next year, and a further 30% the year after. The council would be reviewing its long term plan to find savings and lessen this. . . . → Read More: Article: About 40 water entities emerging in Government water regime Comments are closed Election 25, From The Press, News Clippings, Three Waters rates, rates increases, whakatane v wellington If the truth is that the reason our council debt has ballooned is caused by their unidentified and unnamed core group of councillors, can WAG now explain how this villainous core group has managed to also balloon the debt on 14 councils above us on the Taxpayer’s Union list, and I guess those below us as well. . . . → Read More: Letter: Whakatāne Action Group’s ‘Core Group’ Conspiracy Theory Exposed? “We all want lower rates increases. I want lower rates increases, I know you want lower rates increases, I hear from my community they want lower rates increases. But it can’t be at the expense of our children picking up the tab because of our negligence today.” The Selwyn mayor tells Newsroom a key problem is councils have few alternatives to raise money. The best tool the Government could give councils, in his opinion, is to return GST spending on new houses locally. “That would be a game-changer for us,” he says, noting between 1000 and 3000 houses have been built each year in Selwyn over the past five or six years. . . . → Read More: Article: Govt winds up council reform storm OPINION: What do we do about 78 councils, rising rates and the need to improve efficiency and focus on the basics? Some argue the Government should simply pass a law to cap rates and let ‘the market’ sort itself out. But history tells us blunt interventions often generate unintended consequences. When councils have focused purely on rate minimisation in the past, they’ve generally cut infrastructure maintenance, inspections and deferred capital investment, contributing to a significant proportion of New Zealand’s $200 billion infrastructure deficit. Government wants to grow the economy and speed up housing development. Yet, ironically, it needs councils to enable housing growth, through investments in roads, water, transport and other essential services. Capping rates without addressing the funding model simply kneecaps councils’ ability to invest. Without money, projects don’t proceed and assets deteriorate. . . . → Read More: Article: The argument against council rate caps Comments are closed Election 25, From The Press, News Clippings, Other council reform, rates, rates increases, whakatane v wellington “Having created a situation where councils are being forced to put up the rates to pay for things like water infrastructure, the government’s now trying to blame them for doing something that they really don’t have a choice but to do. “Ultimately if the government don’t want councils to increase rates, they’ve got to find another way of funding the water infrastructure that we need.” Local Government New Zealand president and Selwyn District mayor Sam Broughton said rates capping could be “disastrous for communities” and leave councils without the means to fund essential infrastructure. . . . → Read More: Article: Capping rates rises would make things ‘worse not better’ – Chris Hipkins Comments are closed Election 25, From The Press, Podcasts, RNZ LGNZ, rates, rates increases, whakatane v wellington Councils are getting around 10% of their budgets from Crown grants when in other countries it’s more like 15-20% or more. Or, as the S&P analyst says, “you’re told to do more infrastructure spending, and you’re getting less support”. This is the opposite of localism and resetting the relationship between central and local government that Christopher Luxon and National campaigned on two years ago. Instead, giving the housing minister the power to override democratically elected council decisions, even if it’s an interim measure ahead of new RMA laws, smacks of subverting the democratic process. And it’s those changes to the Resource Management Act that the coalition Government is itching to get completed because it presents a compelling reason to get rid of the country’s 11 regional councils. . . . → Read More: Article: Coalition finds a handy distraction in council bashing 
Source Tangi Utikere, MP for Palmerston North. 25 June at 13:01 via Facebook Today the Government tried to stop me talking about a local example 🚌 of the Government attempting to get councils to pick up the tab for services that have previously been Government funded 👇 but I will not be silenced when raising . . . → Read More: Government Telling Councils How To Spend Ratepayer’s Money Must Stop! “I care for our district and I want to see thriving communities for all peoples – and this means making difficult, thoughtful, future-focused decisions within a constrained council budget. These decisions are never black and white. Good decision-making relies on balancing competing priorities for the benefit of all.” “I have a solid understanding of local government through Community Board work, and through my time on the National Community Boards Executive Committee. We’ve been advocating for community boards to be harnessed and supported to be a more effective tool for better local decision-making.” . . . → Read More: Article: Council or bust for community board stalwart The other major issue is the whole funding structure for local government. Which is why I think the Government is taking a very narrow approach here. How on earth the Government thinks it could put a cap on annual rates increases without looking at the wider issue, I don’t know. And that wider issue is the fact that local councils are being asked to do more and more under their own steam, without any extra funding to make it happen. Example: the Government wants more tourists coming here, but what about the infrastructure needed to support that growth? The Government doesn’t pay for that. Local councils do. . . . → Read More: Article: John MacDonald: Capping council rates isn’t a solution “After the local body election the successful Whakatane District Council candidates will have to work together so we’re saying, ‘why wait?’ “Let’s get things started before the election and show Whakatane we can work together despite our differences.” . . . → Read More: Article: Working together despite differences 
So essentially they’ve made central government smaller, dumped a shipload of work onto ratepayer funded councils, and now they’re going to make sure councils spend ratepayers money doing the government work so said government can look good? . . . → Read More: PM Christopher Luxon open to scrapping regional councils amid RMA reform For a prime minister who is often accused of having no ideology, localism is one thing Luxon deeply believes in. “Centralism over localism doesn’t work,” he told parliament last year. He described centralisation as “a robbery of power and control from local communities.” He reiterated it in his impressively boring speech at Waitangi this year: “We, like you, believe in localism and devolution, not centralisation and control.” Localism is a belief that unites all three parties in the coalition. It’s arguably the biggest point of difference between this government and the previous Labour government, which made moves to centralise health, polytechnics, water and the public service. . . . → Read More: Christopher Luxon loves localism, until locals have the wrong opinions Many of the managerial techniques that have arrived in the public sector over the austerity years – such as results-based pay, corporate contracting, performance management or evaluation culture – have their origins in a budgetary revolution that took place in the 1960s at the US Department of Defence. In the early 1960s, Defence Secretary Robert McNamara was frustrated with being nominally in charge of budgeting but having to mediate between the seemingly arbitrary demands of military leaders for more tanks, submarines or missiles. In response, he called on the RAND Corporation, a US think tank and consultancy, to remake the Defence Department’s budgetary process to give the secretary greater capacity to plan. . . . → Read More: Despite decades of cost cutting, governments spend more than ever. How can we make sense of this? Simon Watts at the Future Proofing New Zealand forum, hosted by The Post and Infrastructure NZ, in Wellington on Wednesday. Source 19 June 2025 PDF Local Government Minister Simon Watts is “working at pace” on a rates cap model, revealing to the The Post/Infrastructure NZ Local Government Forum there are concerns about the . . . → Read More: Local Govt Minister ‘working at pace’ on rates cap model Government to give itself power to override councils on housing in RMA changes Chris Bishop Source June 18, 2025 PDF The government will take back power from local councils if their decisions are going to negatively impact economic growth, development or employment. In a speech to business leaders at the Wellington Chamber of . . . → Read More: Wellington Takes Big Brother Approach To ‘Localism’ |
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