EDS not opposed to LG reform but concerned about the impetus and speed
The Environmental Defence Society (EDS) submission on the government’s ‘Simplifying Local Government: A Draft Proposal’ concludes that issues in the discussion document “would be better addressed by establishing a gradual process for creating unitary authorities”. It suggests that these: be directly elected; organised on freshwater catchments, and informed by communities of interest; encompass urban and rural communities; provide a suitable rating base; be designed in conjunction with tangata whenua; encompass local representation, (funded and with the power to make decisions); have ringfenced funding streams for environmental functions; and be overseen by a retooled EPA responsible for advising on/ensuring compliance with environmental limits.
At one point the submission expresses concern that the true reason behind the proposal for reform “is that regional councils are perceived to be performing environmental functions in a way that is slowing development. That is a crucial function, and it should not be lost from the system.”
Greg Severinsen PhD, LLB (hons), BA is reform director for the Environmental Defence Society and provides the lead on EDS's environmental system reform projects*.
He feels local government (LG) reform is necessary, not least for reasons of efficiency (too many small territorial authorities with wildly different capacity and rating bases).
“Small councils are too often expected to do an enormous amount of heavy lifting protecting nationally significant environments, e.g. think of the Mackenzie Basin, but without the financial means to do it or the boundaries that encourage proper integrated management. Scale is important.”
However, he says, the principles for reorganisation (and any wider local government reform) should have the environment at their heart.
“The Head Start pathway for reform, and the earlier combined territories board (CTB) models, really didn’t have proper (or any) environmental principles guiding them.”
The EDS submission on LG reform lists the idea to replace elected regional councillors with CTBs (mayors) as deeply flawed for both practical and conceptual reasons – whether an interim measure or permanent solution.
Any new unitary bodies would also need to integrate well with the new resource management system, says Severinsen.
“For example, regional issues like spatial planning need to be dealt with at a regional scale – which may be really challenging to achieve if the result is a patchwork of small unitaries. “Growing cities need to be managed at a metropolitan level. There seems to have been very little thought given to the fact that regions are now going to be responsible for all rule-making for biodiversity (e.g. for SNAs) and whether they are actually equipped to do so given that districts have been largely responsible for that under the RMA.”
Catchment boundaries
The most important thing, he says, is that any council reorganisation should recognise the importance of having freshwater managed along catchment lines.
“It can’t just be left to councils to decide a patchwork of sub-regional unitary authorities that reflect community identity, but which don’t allow integrated management of waterways, many of which are in a dire state and need a coordinated effort (eg alignment of rules and funding). “This would be a particularly bad outcome in the Waikato/Taupō given the importance and environmental state of the catchment, as well as the Tiriti perspective/engagement with tangata whenua.
“That said, I think unitisation at a regional (catchment) scale would be a sensible way forward, as long as there were provision for genuinely local input into local issues (eg a meaningful local board model) and appropriate checks and balances for environmental decision-making (eg an oversight role for the Environment Court or even the EPA).
Economics vs environment
“Checks and balances are really important because otherwise there’s a risk that unitary councils focus on development and economics, with regional environmental functions being watered down where they conflict. And it’s doubly important to have strong environmental oversight of any council model because the new Resource Management legislation gives massive scope for councils to set really weak environmental protections.”
Broader local government reform is probably needed as well, he says, notably its funding.
“Rates are a pretty questionable way of funding important environmental outcomes, especially if they’re being artificially capped. Not least is the fact that regulatory relief under the new RM system is going to require councils to pay compensation to landowners for public interest biodiversity and landscape protections, but they’re really going to struggle given all the other pressures on ratepayers and rates caps.
“So, councils on the one hand are being expected to protect biodiversity, but because of how they’ve been designed institutionally, they’re not going to be able to do it properly. Playing around with boundaries and institutional structures isn’t going to address these deep issues.”
Reorganisation process totally disorganised
The reorganisation process has been absolutely chaotic, he says.
“It’s not aligned with RM reform, it’s put form (council structures) before function (broader questions about who should do what things and why), it’s largely ignored underlying problems with how councils are funded, it’s flip flopped between different processes (top-down vs council-led), councils have been expected to come up with Head Start proposals with no understanding of whether the Minister would accept it or what a Back Stop would look like, and the whole thing has been set up in a way that would create a patchwork of different council models across the country (hardly amenable to the greater consistency the government has said it wants).”
Reform fatigue
Nor is implementation clear.
“Everything is happening at once. Councils are going to be expected to implement a massively complex and different RM system at pace while also not knowing if they will continue to exist (or exist in a fundamentally different form). Resources will be stretched incredibly thin, institutional knowledge may be lost or diluted, and leadership will change.
“The same thing is happening in central government with the standing up of MCERT**, which will be struggling with limited resource to do more heavy lifting across both the RM reform and local government portfolios. We need reform, but it needs to be properly thought out and work as a coherent package.”
*Severinsen has practised in resource management law at a major law firm and worked as a policy analyst at the Ministry for the Environment. He has published, presented and taught on a range of resource management and environmental law topics.
**MCERT – the new Ministry for Cities, Environment, Regions and Transport, lead by Chris Bishop with eight supporting Ministers.
Above article written by Chris Marshall. Funding for this work was provided by BayTrust.