I’ve been thinking about Rodney Hide that it was a case of someone stop him before he kills again. Having made a hash of the Super City, and now wreaking havoc with ACC, the prospect of his review of the Local Government Act began to seem like one act of mayhem too many.
I’d heard via officials that his paper to be discussed at Cabinet tomorrow contained draconian proposals to curb Council activities. But then Bernard Orsman reports in today’s Herald that Hide has backed off from his core services agenda:
Mr Hide yesterday said he was conscious of working with a centrist, pragmatic National Party and needed its support to pass changes to the Local Government Act 2002. That meant he was no longer pursuing the removal of the social, environmental and cultural “wellbeings” in the act that, he previously said, had pushed councils into providing services beyond their core role.
Sounds like his coalition partner has told Mr Hide to pull his head in. Instead of the core services agenda, the Minister wants to make Councils open their books before elections much like Treasury’s pre-election fiscal update. No mention in the story of the idea he flagged back in April of Councils being required to hold referenda on significant or irreversible decisions. But given his opposition to referenda on the Super City, and on privatisation, maybe he has gone off the whole referendum thing?
In any case Hide is hoping his proposed changes to the Local Government Act, whatever they are, will turn back the rising tide of rates increases. No one likes to see rates going up endlessly, and no one is going to quibble with a bit more transparency and accountability in the local government sector. But if Hide, in spite of his soothing words in the Herald, persists with the nutty rate-capping and core services agenda he floated in April then he will surely have a fight on his hands.
The softening up began at the Local Government and Environment select committee on Thursday when officials presented a report showing councils’ operating costs will increase 39 per cent over the next 10 years. Over the same period councils’ planned capital expenditure will total $31.4 billion, and total debt is forecast to rise to $10.8 billion. The report met with synchronised oohing and ahhing from the Government members.
I have to say I was pretty relieved to read Orsman’s article today. Hopefully Rodney has abandoned his plan to gut local government altogether.
Maybe his Mum got grumpy at him?
Isn’t the whole idea of the LTCCP process to identify priorities and decide what can be afforded and what can’t? I would ahve thought rodney would have been in favour of that sort of process. Councils plan as well as they can for the future, the problem for them is Central Government foisting extra costs or reneging on funding promises.
It’s good news, but I’m not sure that this is the end of the plans to gut local government.
TopCat, yes that is very true. A number of additional tasks have been put onto local government over the past few years by central government – that have added significant cost.
I have wondered whether local government should get a share of GST that is raised from within the area. That happens frequently in US cities.
Before he kills again? FFS.
Tim Way off thread – suggest you email darien.fenton@parliament.govt.nz She looks after transport safety for the Labour Party here in NZ. Trevor
You want a fight?
Bring it on.
You’ll lose, and NZ will be better for it.
I have come to think that Rodney Hide plays quite a big part in John Key’s continued popularity, despite his having done little or nothing so far to deserve it. Rodney puts forward a draconian idea, John insists on its modification, everyone breaths a sigh of relief & NZ is winched incrementally rightwards without noticing. Along the lines of “Help, help! There’s an axe murderer at the door.” “No, wait a minute, it’s just the bailiff.” “Phew, what a relief.”
Well put Olwyn.
If anyone thinks Hide’s ‘back down’ on core services means local government can relax, they need ECT. Wait until folks see what his cabinet papers have in store for them. This is the oldest trick in the book, propose a bunch of evil ideas, drop the nastiest, and everyone, including the MSM, can roll over and go back to sleep. Fact his Hide’s crazy ‘core services’ nonsense was never going to fly, but real kicker is the financial stuff that will strangle local government funding to the point that the his ‘core services’ nightmare will be delivered via the back door.
If he makes them cap rates, the councils will just put up fees, charges and levy’s. If they get capped, they will find ways to put off the cost until the cap limit comes off. If they can’t do this they will start selling assets until they can raise rates. Or alternatively they will reduce rubbish collections, let there roads crumble or put off maintenence programs until the cap goes.
Every local politician knows that taking away community services (whether they be environmental programs, libararies, festivals, art galleries, community policing, town centre upgrades etc) which are the face of council activities is political death. Proactive councillors with the ideas are the ones who always get elected.
Rates caps are a short term fix- councils have thousands of ways to get around them and when they end rates go up by what they would have anyway. Rodney is barking up the wrong tree on this one.
As regards future rates increases it has nothing to do with right wing or left wing, it is that giant elephant in the room… Leaky buildings…
The national liability is $11 billion, I don’t see councils getting away with paying much less than half which means all our large city councils are technically insolvent or we’re going to have large rate rises… If you live in Auckland get ready for it…
If were going to pay for it anyway, the government should fork out to help those in need, the occupants, their constituents, and then go after the councils and poor builders…
Don’t forget the government approved the products causing much of the damage…
I think the last National government can hang it’s head in shame for removing much of the regulation for building and Labour can for not dealing with the problem when it first arose and disbanding the BIA to cover the governments backside…
Look at the legacy we’ve got now, technically insolvent councils which allow a nutter like Hide to run his game…
Jeremy Harris, disbanding the BIA is irrelevant because any Crown liability would have remained, but the Court of Appeal found there was no Crown liability, so end of story. It is only the Nats who should hang their heads.