63 Counties Instead Of 118 Advised

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30155, 12 June 1963, Page 16

63 Counties Instead Of 118 Advised

(hew Zealand Press Association)

ROTORUA, June 11.

Sixty-three instead of 118 counties were all that would be necessary for efficient and economic county administration in New Zealand, the Minister of Internal Affairs (Sir Leon Gotz) said in Rotorua today.

“I am concerned that local authorities appear to be tending to concentrate on regional local government as a means of avoiding reform of our territorial structure,” he said before officially opening the annual conference of the Counties’ Association.

"The need for this reform cannot be ignored. There are far too many separate territorial authorities in New Zealand."

Sir Leon Gotz said there were 129 counties seveh years ago in New Zealand Now, as a result of amalgamation, the number stood at 118. “This marks the only effective reorganisation that has taken place in the territorial structure to date." Sir Leon Gotz said the original Counties Act, 1876, provided for the constitution of 63 counties at a time when communications were much more difficult than they were today. “To my mind, this number of 63 counties, or possibly even less, is all that would be necessary for efficient and economic county administration today. “We are still faced with

many local authorities which are obviously too small and too weak financially effectively to administer their multifarious local government functions.

"Since I became Minister of Internal Affairs, I have heard numerous assurances, both from local authority administrators and from the territorial associations, that local government can and will achieve by its own efforts and agreement the reorganisation necessary to strengthen territorial local government. I regret that these assurances have not been matched by action.” The Government had decided to bring down legislation at the coming session of Parliament to protect employees in the event of amalgamation or merger or the creation of new local authorities.