Faced with the choice between designing their own reorganisation plan or having the Government impose one, our five councils this week made the obvious call … they each decided to sign a MOU committing to collectively explore developing a plan.

Whew!

Note that this decision doesn’t commit any council to agreeing to and submitting a joint plan of any kind. Just to explore the prospects.

Our councils have until 9 August – about 9 weeks – to develop a plan if they wish to do so. The key groundrule set forth by the Government for this so-called ‘Headstart’ process is that any plan must come from any combination of territorial authorities representing a majority of the region’s population, but not the Regional Council, which participates in the process essentially as an advisor.

So HB’s four mayors will drive the process, helped by their senior staffs and consultants Lawrence Yule and Wayne Eagleson.

In their consideration of adopting the cooperation MOU, discussion amongst councillors this week surfaced three basic themes …

• Councils would be nuts to leave HB’s governance fate to a bunch of Government Ministers. I heard the term ‘no-brainer’ several times. As Napier Mayor McGrath, not known as a keen advocate of reorganisation, put it: “Change is coming whether we want it or not. It’s essential that we take this chance to tell the Government what we believe is best for Napier. It is far better to have a say in the solution than to have a standardised solution forced on us.”

• Although not required by Government, it was deemed imperative, despite the compressed timetable, that councils undertake some element of public consultation in deciding to submit a Headstart reorganisation plan of any form.

• And more specifically, engagement with Māori around their role in any future HB governance arrangements needed to be especially thorough, in recognition of existing legally binding commitments stemming from Treaty settlements and other legislation like the Resource Management Act.

Regarding public consultation, councils will not be floating any particular structure or plans for reaction, but rather seeking comment on broad priorities or themes.

For example, Napier citizens are being asked to rank these principles by 18 June:

Hastings District citizens are being asked to comment until 16 June on ‘what matters most’:

Go here to participate:

Napier: https://www.sayitnapier.nz/ncc/simplifying-local-government/

Hastings: https://www.myvoicemychoice.co.nz/hdc/councilchanges/

Waiting to hear what CHBDC and Wairoa Council have in store.

BTW, for your purists, the Government actually has no current legal/legislative basis to require local reorganisation per its newly hatched groundrules. The existing process for initiating local reorganisation, used by HB amalgamation advocates the last time around, is set forth in Schedule 3 of the Local Government Act. Enabling legislation will be required at some point to legitimise the Headstart process and isn’t expected pre-election. So far as I am aware, no councils/regions have yet been brave enough to tell the Government to get stuffed on this.