It needs to be done
It is a bad joke that the Wellington Region is split into competing councils when so much of the infrastructure and lives of its people are spread throughout the entire area.
Why?
The current setup pretends that every city is a standalone being that has no deep connection to neighbouring areas. This cannot be any further from the truth. People throughout the region commute to other parts of the region for work or education. Businesses operate across all councils, not just one. We travel throughout the region for recreation.
Already transport and water infrastructure is handled at a regional level with little direct control from each local council.
The aim of Amalgamation must be to better use what resources we have. Enabling us to get more done while listening to just as many or more as decisions are made.
How?
The biggest risk of amalgamation is it is done shortsightedly and pretends that we can just take one council's systems and apply it to the whole. We have to carefully examine and compare how each council handles different functions and select the best.
We can even use this a chance to address Te Tiriti reparations through giving hapu direct representation on such a regional council as well as local influence over land.
Amalgamation should not be used as a cudgel to stupidly cut staff numbers and representation. Any simplification in processes should be used to free up the hardworking staff to focus on the needed services that local government provides. Amalgamation must free up resources so that council staff can experiment with improvements instead of being penny-pinched and forced to use systems that are useless at best. Amalgamation must free up representatives to focus on more topics instead of fighting the same discussions in parallel 5 or 6 times.
Authorised by James Sullivan. James@TFG.nz