John MacDonald: Ngāi Tahu's lesson for our local councils

Author: John MacDonald,
Publish Date: Fri, 14 Aug 2026, 12:21pm

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Instead of mucking around and asking local councils to come up with ideas on how to re-arrange themselves, the government should have just gone straight to Ngāi Tahu.

Because, even though the iwi wasn’t asked to put forward a proposal, it has. And I think it’s brilliant.

It’s one of those ideas that the councils themselves were always going to be incapable of coming up with. Because, what Ngāi Tahu has done, is it’s looked at the South Island and thought about what is best for the South Island.

Which none of the South Island councils have done. Because they only care about what’s in it for them.

In a nutshell, Ngāi Tahu is saying that, instead of having 24 councils in the South Island, we should just have five bigger ones.

One area that isn’t covered in the plan is the very top of the South Island. That’s because it’s not part of Ngai Tahu’s tribal area.

But the vast majority of the South Island would, generally, be divided by river boundaries.

So Christchurch, Selwyn, Waimakariri, Hurunui and Kaikōura being merged into one council. With the boundaries pretty much being the Clarence River to the north, the Rakaia River to the south and the Southern Alps.

Each council area would have a number of local boards, which people would be elected to and they would make decisions about really local things like pools and libraries.

And there’d be a South Island-wide shared services entity which would be responsible for things like consents and planning. Which, to me, sounds something like a South Island-wide version of ECan.

What is there not to like?

My only criticism is that I think Ngāi Tahu might have left its run a bit late.

It should have been coming out with this way before now. Because it might just have encouraged our councils to think beyond their own doorstep.

Because, when you look at what the councils around here have come up with, their own doorstep is pretty much where their thinking has started and finished.

Christchurch has decided it wants to stay as it is, the only change being adding ECan’s responsibilities to its workload.

Selwyn is exactly the same. And Waimakariri says it’s prepared to merge with Hurunui. But we know it’s doing that reluctantly, because it had to come up with something to keep the government happy.

What’s more, the government isn’t obliged to take any notice of what Ngāi Tahu is saying here, because it’s not a council and wasn’t asked to put any ideas forward.

But I think this would be a way better way of arranging local government in the South Island than the hotchpotch of ideas from local councils that have landed on the government’s desk.

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