Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: The amalgamation plans are descending into chaos
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If you're a fan, like I am, of scrapping as many councils as possible because of how poorly the numpties on those councils are running the place, you're about to learn, as I am, that just because you and I like an idea doesn't mean everyone else does.
We are two weeks away from Chris Bishop's deadline for councils to submit their amalgamation plans so that we end up with a few large councils instead of dozens of small ones. And, two weeks out, the wheels are starting to come off.
Upper Hutt City Council has changed its mind. It doesn't want to amalgamate with Wellington anymore. By the looks of things, it made that decision this week.
That's a little worrying because the Wellington amalgamation felt like the slam-dunk, easy one. It's been talked about for such a long time, the boundaries are obvious, there should just be one council and the carve-up of a small region into so many councils is unbelievably stupid.
But despite all that, there's a problem. It doesn't look like it's going to happen easily.
Wairoa is flat-out refusing to amalgamate with anyone and it makes a good case for why. As the ever-sensible Mayor of Wairoa, Craig Little, says, the efficiencies would flow to the centres, not the edges. Wairoa is on the edge and, to be honest, he's right, isn't he?
Nelson wants to go with Tasman. Tasman doesn't want to go with Nelson.
Canterbury has five different options for how it could do this but it doesn't know which one to choose. Hamilton also doesn't know how to do it. "Megatron" is apparently one option. Kaipara doesn't want to join up with the other Northland councils, although they're happy to join up with each other.
Of course, this was always going to go this way when you think about it. Of course it was always going to descend into a fight.
Auckland descended into a fight. It still is a fight for some people. There are still people who moan about the Super City in Auckland and it's been nearly 20 years.
Spare a thought for Chris Bishop on this one because he's the minister responsible for all of this. His life already sucks. He's already breaking promises about Roads of National Significance. Auckland has already given him a good spanking over the density rules. Christopher Luxon has already taken away some of his favourite jobs. He's got the RMA reforms coming at him fast and those are going to be contentious as well.
And now he's got this drama, which, in the next two weeks, is likely to blow up in his face.
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