Royal Commission Report Only a Starting Point

Royal Commission Report Only a Starting Point

“The Royal Commission’s report is a starting point for reforming local government in Auckland, but more work needs to be done”, Roger Kerr, executive director of the New Zealand Business Roundtable, said today.

The Business Roundtable had submitted that the first issue for policymakers is to determine the proper functions of local government, which it believed were essentially to ensure the provision of public goods – goods and services that could not be provided commercially.

The next issue for Auckland was to decide on which functions were regional and which local.

Regional facilities such as parks should come under a regional body. Other regional functions such as roading and water should be structured as publicly owned utilities at arm’s length from a regional council. Council commercial investments such as those in ports and airports should be divested – perhaps by giving shares to ratepayers.

Local public good functions should be assigned to local councils with grass-roots accountability to ratepayers.

Such an approach would do most to encourage badly needed improvements in productivity and economic growth in Auckland and New Zealand as a whole.

“Against this template, the Royal Commission report falls short”, Mr Kerr said. “It does not have a clear focus on the proper role of councils. The report seems to reflect more the perspectives on local government of the government that appointed it than the policy directions of the present government.” “Positive features include the collection of regional functions under a unitary council (the Auckland Council) and the recommendation to establish a water utility.

“However, the Commission seems to have overlooked the importance of ‘local’ in local government – it seems to be recommending Clayton’s local councils without real roles, independent funding and accountabilities.” Mr Kerr added that the recommendation that Auckland councils become involved with social spending would be strongly opposed by business groups, for the reasons explained in a Local Government Forum report being released next week.

“For those reasons, the government’s willingness to receive further feedback is welcome”, Mr Kerr said. “Beyond an initial round, the Royal Commission did not have formal consultations. The government’s thinking can only benefit from broader inputs”, Mr Kerr concluded.

ENDS

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