Councils may get more power

Press, 13 June 1986, Page 25

Councils may get more power

By

PATRICIA HERBERT

in Wellington

Territorial authorities may be given much greater powers and responsibilities, says the Minister of Local Government, Dr Bassett. He has told the Counties’ Association that a number of his colleagues had expressed interest in the concept, particularly his Under-Secretary, Mr Woollaston, and the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Palmer.

idea may become a

“longer-term objective” if the response was good, he said. Dr Bassett cited foreign policy, defence and the fixing of national standards for health, education, and housing as the areas that local governments may want to be involved in. “At the other extreme, I don’t think the Government hankers much after managing local reserves, determining policies in relation to roads and streets or dog control,” he said. “In the how-

ever, is a vast grey area of functions into which the Government has intruded over the years — some say too much.”

But Dr Bassett warned the association that it would not be “all beer and skittles," that the “exciting possibilities” inherent in having more power would be matched by new demands. “If the Government and its agencies were to draw back from their current level of intervention in local government, individual councils

would be left to face their electors alone, without the ability that many of you exercise from time to time when you blame the Government for this or that failure,” he said. "You would have to act more on your own initiative and exercise rather greater judgment. The range of issues that you would be confronting would be rather wider than at present, and councils would have to contend with higher levels of public pressure and scru-

tiny than have generally been evident in the past,” said Dr Bassett. “I think it is almost certainly true that councillors would heed to spend more time at their work, and there would need to be a substantial lift in your levels of remuneration.” Dr Bassett indicated also that there would have to be some amalgamation to produce stronger units of local government, certainly fewer than the 231 New Zealand bad.