Changes in local government

Press, 26 August 1977, Page 12

Changes in local government

While some people place great obstacles in the way of major changes in the country’s system of local government the need for such changes becomes more pressing year by year. Setting up united councils to deal with regional planning and civil defence, leaving existing local bodies otherwise unaffected, will certainly not, alone, give the country a satisfactory system of local government. If the united councils prove to be ineffective in discharging even these limited functions, their establishment may even discredit the whole notion of local government reform and impede further necessary changes. At the recent meeting of the Canterbury Regional Planning Authority it was suggested that the districts of the united councils which the Local Government Commission has proposed are too small to ensure that the councils will be able to plan properly for their regions.

These should be the only arguments which the Local Government

Commission heeds when it considers objections to its proposals. For setting up united councils in Canterbury can only be welcomed if it is indeed a first step, however modest, towards more sweeping reform of the local administration of the province. Such reform would embrace the formation of a single city of Christchurch, a reduction in the number of local bodies with special purposes, and the drawing of county boundaries to reflect present economic and social patterns. Many of the objections heard at meetings in Canterbury this week against the Local Government Commission’s proposal for a united council were raised by individual local bodies which are unhappy with their representation on the council or the amount they will have to pay to support its work. Most of these objections the Local Government Commission should ignore. Nor should citizens be misled by such objections. Eventually local government reform will have to be imposed on those existing local bodies which continue to resist.