Waikato Regional Council maintains support for single unitary authority

Waikato Regional Council has reaffirmed its support for a single unitary authority and publicly released a draft proposal showing why it’s the model best suited to meeting the future needs of Waikato communities. 

At their 30 July meeting, councillors heard that the Simplifying Local Government Head Start process had focused on the form of local government, rather than an understanding of functions.

Waikato Regional Council Chair Warren Maher said, “A single unitary authority makes the Waikato region strategically stronger and best reflects the reality that some functions are more effectively delivered at scale.”

While regional councils were excluded from submitting a proposal to Head Start, the voluntary fast-track pathway for local government reorganisation, a cross-council working group had started to draft a single unitary proposal, supported by Waikato Regional Council.

The draft proposal makes the case for a single unitary authority and is publicly available for communities to read and consider: waikatoregion.govt.nz/simplifying-local-government 

Cr Maher said the proposal reflects a long-term view of what will best serve the Waikato region.

“Waikato people are already connected through business, family, friends, sports. Our transport network, labour markets, housing pressures, and economic opportunities cross council boundaries. The need to plan well for growth and deliver better infrastructure is pressing. 

“These are regional-scale issues and they need regional-scale governance, capability and investment. 

“Regional funding supports many community needs and interests such as surf lifesaving and community biodiversity groups. The region’s prosperity depends on the combined performance of Hamilton city, rural towns, coastal settlements, tourism destinations, river communities, productive farming areas and industrial hubs. The city needs the region, as the region needs the city – our strength is our diversity,” said Cr Maher.

“This proposal sets out why we believe a single unitary authority provides the strongest governance platform for the future, while still ensuring communities retain a meaningful voice in decisions that affect them locally.

“The Waikato is too strategically important to New Zealand to get this wrong,” he said.

During the meeting, councillors highlighted the importance of robust analysis and evidence about the options being considered and implications of different governance arrangements for the region’s future.

The draft proposal concludes that a single unitary authority offers the strongest platform for meeting the region's future governance, planning and service delivery needs. It demonstrates that a single authority is the simplest structure, providing the greatest opportunity to achieve economies of scale, improve efficiency and promote more equitable access to core services across the region.

The proposal also identifies benefits including:

• creating a single organisation accountable for regional outcomes
• better supporting the implementation of resource management and planning reforms
• accommodating overlapping iwi and hapū interests and providing the strongest platform for upholding Treaty settlement arrangements and partnering with iwi
• keeping local decisions local while enabling authority-wide decisions where regional coordination delivers the greatest benefit
• better aligning governance arrangements with the Waikato region’s natural, economic and community systems
• supporting integrated catchment management and better connecting land use, water, infrastructure, transport and natural hazard planning
• strengthening the region’s ability to work in partnership with central government
• enabling continuity of service delivery and maintaining public confidence during any transition process.