Local Government Reform

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26369, 13 March 1951, Page 6

Local Government Reform

The annual conference of the Municipal Association, which will open in Christchurch to-day, will discuss no subject more important than local government reform. It is to be hoped that there will be clearer thinking than there was at the association’s last conference, which voted first for reform and' then against the means of achieving it. It was agreed not only that there should be “ some form of “overriding authority. . . . with “sufficient powers to formulate “ means of reorganisation ”, but also that there should be some form of appeal from the Local Government Commission’s findings and that “the people affected

“should have the right of decision “by poll ”. At a later meeting with representatives of other local body organisations, the executive of the Municipal Association carried this policy to its illogical conclusion. There was unanimity among these organisations on the drafting of provisional plans by the Local Govemrrtent Commission and on the right of appeal, “for “final decision’’, to a tribunal presided over by a judge of the Supreme Court. But having agreed to this, the executive of the Municipal Association continued to maintain that even after the “final “decision” the electors should have the right to polls, and the meeting could not reach a decision on this point Just what purpose the addition of a costly appeal tribunal would serve if its decisions could be overridden by popular vote has not been explained. Nor, apparently, has much consideration been given to the attitude of the judiciary towards a system which would make a judge’s findings subject to reversal by electors’ polls; though there can be very little doubt what that attitude would be. If the association really wants reform, then the only sound course is to ask the Government to give effect to the commission’s findings. If the association would rather have the old inefficient process of piecemeal adjustments, it would be better to ask the Government to repeal the Local Government Commission Act and let the provisions in the old law, which still stand, take their laborious course. That would, at least, save the very considerable cost to the Government and to local authorities of preparing schemes and then abandoning them to the uncertain mercies of polls, at which it is all too likely that comparatively few electors would vote. The association should certainly not seek to add to the expense by setting up another tribunal with imperfect jurisdiction.

There is a middle way that the association may prefer—the holding not of a whole series of polls in all the districts concerned but the submission of the whole scheme to the whole district. This is the course the Government has proposed for Christchurch. If a vote is to be taken, this is the only way in which the views of the people as a whole can be clearly ascertained. This is obvious enough in Christchurch, but it would be even more obvious in Auckland, where a reorganisation scheme might affect 14 municipalities, several counties, two power boards, a drainage board, a transport board, and perhaps some other authorities. It is impossible to believe that a clear-cut decision could be obtained in 60 or so polls there. That is an extreme case: but it well illustrates the difficulty of polls in every district. The Government’s proposal for a single poll of the whole area affected is not likely to give such sound results in the strengthening of local government, and in the desirable enlargement of its influence, as the adoption of the commission’s judicial findings, made after expert investigation and the consultation of all parties. But it might have the merit of satisfying councillors who believe that polls must be taken.