Andrew Dickens: We Want Less Bureaucracy—Until We Don't

I find it ironic that the government and the electorate are once a gain keen on getting rid of some of the layers of our council bureaucracy. First NZ First’s Shane Jones publicly questioned the role of regional councils, pondering whether “there’s going to be a compelling case for regional government to continue to exist”. Then Prime Minister Christopher Luxon told Mike Hosking that the Government was looking at local government reform. On Friday Matthew Hooten wrote a piece about Regional Councils reiterating Chris Bishop’s question that he’s been asking many local councillors.  Is there any point in having regional councils.  So it's on the table.  Of course the battle against bureaucracy is alive and well around the world. Duplication of services and excessive layers of governance means that savings could be made easily and safely and it's something we've always discussed. Last term the government reformed District Health Board from 20 boards into a single entity Health New Zealand or just that reason but the new government has taken against that and they've announced a return to locally delivered healthcare because they believe that in regional decision making is the best way to go. We're still waiting to see what that will look like.  Meanwhile reform of regional councils looks awfully like the formation of Auckland's Super City.   A reform that has a heap of enemies because of it's devolution of power away from communities.  As Hooten says the reason we hate the Super City are the Council Controlled Organisations a move that was supposed to replicate State Owned Enterprises.   But the problem there is that we can't but shares in CCOs so they become the worst of things. A mongrel hybrid of Council bureaucracies and Private Monopolies.  So we seem to like amalgamating public bodies but then when it happens we moan that our voices are no longer heard and that bureaucracies have become too huge and out of control. So, what is it people.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.