Rural Communities Minister Mark Patterson says the current local government system is broken and reform is overdue, but warns the changes must be tested by the electorate before being pushed through.

The government announced last week that councils have until 8 August to submit reform proposals. Patterson says the three-month window is not long enough to reach a final outcome, but will establish a direction of travel.

“We’re trying desperately not to dictate this from Wellington.

“We’re obviously driving the mechanism for doing this, but not necessarily the outcome.”

The key tension for rural communities is representation, Patterson says. Rural people want their issues governed by people who understand rural concerns, he says, but larger urban ratepayer bases contribute to catchment management and environmental protection work that rural communities rely on.

“How we strike that balance is going to be the real guts of the issue.”

Patterson says regional boundaries are not sacrosanct. Clutha could conceptually move into Southland or a wider Canterbury and South Canterbury arrangement, but care is needed not to stray too far from the river catchments that originally defined those boundaries.

From a New Zealand First perspective, Patterson says the party is considering incorporating a catchment board and pest board model into the new structure, giving people with specific rural knowledge governance over matters that directly affect them.

“It’s really important that farmers and the people who have a vested interest in those assets actually have some say over them.”

He says the public has not yet grasped the scale of what is being proposed. With resource management reform reducing council plans from 84 down to 17 regional plans, the question of what governance sits over those plans, and which region they cover, adds further complexity.

“The magnitude of these changes hasn’t really resonated out into the public yet, but it will.

“We’re going to have to test whatever comes back from this August deadline against the wider electorate.”

CountryWide CONNECT with Andy Thompson & Sarah Perriam-Lampp is our daily rural show livestreamed from 11am-1pm. Visit country-wide.co.nz on how to watch/listen or download the CountryWide CONNECT mobile app, available on Apple iOS and Android.