northland chamber

Food for thought!

Over the last few weeks community groups and ratepayers have had the opportunity to submit to District and Regional Council Draft Annual Plans.

This is one of our privileges and responsibilities that come from living in a democracy.

One of the interesting aspects of living in Northland is seeing District Councils and regional councils make submissions to each others annual plans.

In the lead up to the Annual Plan process this year the Far North mayor started the discussion on unitary authorities.

He is of the opinion that the Far North could manage its own affairs. This would mean taking the responsibilities and roles away from the Regional Council and bringing these under the Far North Council operations.
The Northland Chamber of Commerce is all for consolidation of services where we can see a clear direct benefit to us the ratepayer and initiatives that add value to the economy, community and infrastructure of the region ensuring rigorous scrutiny to ensure that the community and environment are protected.
We would like to open the debate up wider and suggest that the whole Northland Region look at operating as a unitary authority. We have a large geographical area but a resident population of only 153800. Why do we need Four separate local Government entities and two layers of Government for this?

Whenever we have bought this concept up in the past we have been very unpopular. Lets face it there are lots of patches to protect. The truth is however that both District Councils and the Regional Council operate under the Local Government Act 2002.

These are arguments for and against the restructuring of the whole Region to a unitary authority structure or a Super Council.

The advantages for a one Northland council would be:
Consolidation of resources – Infrastructure, Staffing and Physical localities
Co-ordinated Region wide focus on infrastructure and development
Potentially Less Politicians and bureacracy

The major disadvantage would be that people would perceive that a ‘super council’ would not represent them and their locale fairly.

Remember that we are saying that we should start the discussion. If the Status Quo is proven to be the most effective and efficient way of Governance than by all means stick with it!

What do you think?

Log on to our blog site at www.northchamber.blogspot.com and leave a comment


The Northland Chamber of Commerce is the networking, education, advocacy and marketing group for Northland business, and is part of a nationwide network of 30 and a world-wide movement of 21,000 chambers. Subscription to the free fortnightly chamber e-news can be arranged on info@northchamber.co.nz. Enquiries to 09-4384771 or www.northchamber.co.nz, www.kaiparachamber.co.nz and www.farnorthchamber.co.nz

You can have a say on this by going to the Northland Chamber of Commerce Feedback website on www.northchamber.blogspot.com