Perfect time for major shake-up

Dame Fran Wilde has renewed calls for a law change to allow a single authority to take over the running of Wellington’s major projects.

Wilde, a former Wellington City mayor and Greater Wellington Regional Council chairwoman, said the time was right, in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, to enable a major shake-up of Wellington’s local government structure.

Unlike the failed super-city proposal Wilde supported a few years ago, this time she is suggesting local councils could be retained to look after their own patches, with a larger body appointed to run regional infrastructure. ‘‘I think now, after Covid, this is the time for central government to put in place something that enables us to have really fit-forpurpose local government going into the future.’’

The change would allow a regional body to oversee major infrastructure projects like transport, resilience and climate change initiatives, Wilde said.

She was not critical of local councils’ responses to the pandemic, but said the flexibility shown throughout highlighted there was now an appetite for change.

‘‘People have got out of their comfort zones. They know there needs to be change,’’ she said.

‘‘One of those is structural reforms, and this is where the Government should be looking at something a bit more appropriate

for Wellington.’’ Councils in Wellington City, Hutt Valley, Porirua and Wairarapa could be retained to make decisions for local communities, but a larger authority appointed to manage regional decisions.

Auckland’s super-city model had not worked because local boards did not have enough decision-making power, Wilde said.

‘‘People do want local decisionmaking. But when it comes to big infrastructure issues like climate change and resilience, that has to be done regionally.’’

The change would require amendments to the Local Government Act, and now was the time for those changes to happen, she said.

In March, Porirua mayor Anita Baker said she wanted to restart the conversation about amalgamating councils in

Wellington, Hutt Valley and Porirua, with some of them facing billion-dollar infrastructure bills.

‘‘You look at the region, and we have something like 329 plans over our nine councils, with nine CEOs and 500,000 people,’’ Baker said.

‘‘Nine councils, eight mayors, one regional council chair, 95 councillors, 57 community boards, and it goes on and on.’’

Porirua could not afford to grow because the city faced a $1.8 billion bill to maintain its water infrastructure in the next 20 years, she said.

‘‘People have got out of their comfort zones. They know there needs to be change.’’

Dame Fran Wilde