News Release
Tuesday 3rd September, 2013
One Waikato group says ‘No supercity’ for Waikato
The One Waikato group standing for Waikato Regional Council says it does not support a ‘supercity’ approach for the
Waikato region.
Coromandel-Thames Valley regional councillor and deputy chair, Simon Friar, says the ‘supercity’ approach is not one
which would suit the Waikato region.
“Our proposal is to save ratepayers money through much more cooperation and collaboration between the councils of the
region, not by amalgamation,” Mr Friar said.
He said that various commentators, including One Waikato’s political opponents, had tried to portray the group as being
in favour of a unitary council for the Waikato.
“That is totally wrong – nothing could be further from the truth,” he said. “We support retaining local democracy
throughout the region.
“In fact we are the only ones proposing a solution to the costs of local government with Councils sharing a wide range
of services rather than every council duplicating the services of every other council.
“It is a ridiculous state of affairs that every council in the region has its own IT systems, HR departments, engineers,
procurement departments and the like when we could simply all share the same service.”
Mr Friar said that with the 11 city and district councils plus the regional council, millions of dollars of ratepayers
money could be saved by the councils working more closely together in this way.
He said the Mayoral Forum has identified savings of something in excess of $200 million across the region which could be
achieved with shared services.
He said the attraction of shared services is that it can be implemented immediately - there is no need for re-structure.
“We believe that local decision making must be retained but we must have more efficient governance. The present system
is not efficient - in the main every council is doing its own thing.”
Mr Friar said there are several hundred local authority plans in the region which needs to be streamlined.
“A simple example of this is recent the farce of councils having different rules for election signs. We can't even get
that right.”
The One Waikato group is fielding eight candidates for the Waikato Regional Council in this year’s election all of whom
support more cooperation between local authorities across the region to achieve saving for ratepayers.
“If we can do things more efficiently and save money by doing so that means we will be better able to provide better
value to ratepayers with improved environmental outcomes and a stronger economy,” said Mr Friar.
He said there is a need for local government reform in the Waikato but that it should be done through “evolution not
revolution”.
“I believe that there is a need to engage with all the communities of the region and explore the various options for
re-structure with them rather than just supporting one particular model that has been foisted on the people of Auckland
through legislation.”
Ends