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Speaker 1: Thomas Coglin, the Herald's political editors, with us Alo Thomas.

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Speaker 2: Good afternoon.

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Speaker 1: Now, you reckon, everybody's got the wrong end of the

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Speaker 1: stick here, and it's not actually regional councils that are

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Speaker 1: going to get scrapped. The are the ones who get

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Speaker 1: to stay.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, well exactly. I think the language here is a

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Speaker 2: wee bit confusing and misleading. So the government has said

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Speaker 2: regional council laws are being abolished, and everyone's sort of

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Speaker 2: assumed that means that regional councils are going because I

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Speaker 2: guess you know, councilors. What do they do while they

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Speaker 2: sit around a council table? And if there are no

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Speaker 2: regional councilors, you don't have a regional council. And yet

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Speaker 2: the organization regional councils, they're sticking around Greater Wellington Regional Council,

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Speaker 2: Northern Regional Council, and I'm sorry, Shane Jones, Otiga Regional Council,

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Speaker 2: they are sticking around. Now, what is happening is that

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Speaker 2: when those councilors are gone, the regional mayors from their

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Speaker 2: territorial authority. So that's your city councilors they neat to

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Speaker 2: need in City Council, Wellington City Council. You get the idea.

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Speaker 2: They come around the table and they decide what they

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Speaker 2: want for their region going forward, and the government gets

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Speaker 2: to approve their plans and sets very high bars, a

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Speaker 2: very high bar for what plan those meors put forward.

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Speaker 2: Now fast forward a few years into the future. What

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Speaker 2: is very clearly happening, is it the Government is wink quink, nudge,

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Speaker 2: nudge with a bit of stick, telling these MEAs to

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Speaker 2: amalgamate either services amalgamate, water amalgamate. You know, maybe rubbish

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Speaker 2: and stuff, transports largely amalgamated already, start amalgamating that. And

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Speaker 2: you know what, maybe you should amalgamate everything and turn

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Speaker 2: most of New Zealand into Auckland style unitary authorities, one

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Speaker 2: council top to bottom. That is what's clearly happening here. Yes,

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Speaker 2: regional councils are the ones that stay.

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Speaker 1: Okay, now hold on a sec So I definitely am

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Speaker 1: on board with what you're saying. It clearly is an

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Speaker 1: amalgamation that's going to have to happen across the country.

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Speaker 1: But where I'm where I want you to explain to me,

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Speaker 1: is do you because we've got two layers here, we've

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Speaker 1: got the regional council above the city and district councils.

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Speaker 1: If those guys, the city and district councils amalgamate, do

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Speaker 1: they amalgamate with themselves and with the regional council like

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Speaker 1: is it horizontal and vertical amalgamation?

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Speaker 2: Yes? Yes, I believe that that is the most likely end.

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Speaker 1: So you've got so in a place like gosh, let's

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Speaker 1: say Wellington, where you've got Wellington Regional Council, you've got

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Speaker 1: hut City, Lower hut Port to a carpety and Wellington.

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Speaker 1: Are you telling me that you get all those those

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Speaker 1: councils to amalgamate and then they suck up the regional

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Speaker 1: council one as well, and it's just this one big entity.

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Speaker 2: Yes, I think that the endpoint is the Greater Wellington

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Speaker 2: Regional Council just subsumes those smaller councils into it, and

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Speaker 2: then you have, you know, the Wellington Super City Council

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Speaker 2: or whatever they want to put it.

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Speaker 1: This is semantics because because it's they all survive. They

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Speaker 1: all just survive in one It's not that regional councils

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Speaker 1: survive and the others die. They all just get sucked

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Speaker 1: up into one big thing, isn't it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's possibly a more accurate, accurate way of

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Speaker 2: putting it is that everyone survives just in the different different.

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Speaker 1: But you you would have to see efficiencies here, right,

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Speaker 1: You'd have to see people being fired left, right and center.

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Speaker 1: Otherwise you're just going to end up with huge numbers.

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Speaker 2: Perhaps you saw used today Wellington City Council alone, so

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Speaker 2: that would be the largest council in that Wellington group,

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Speaker 2: and I think they they were overstaffed by about three

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Speaker 2: hundred people. So that's just one of the councils. When

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Speaker 2: you put them that council plus another five councils into

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Speaker 2: another bigger council, you would expect some some efficiencies, quite

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Speaker 2: big ones, i'd imagine.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I want to see massive the thing, like

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Speaker 1: I want to see seventy percent efficiencies. Do you know

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Speaker 1: what I mean? Or am I just dreaming?

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Speaker 2: Oh? Look heither a. As a Wellington resident, I would

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Speaker 2: be lying if I said it I was not reminded

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Speaker 2: on a very regular basis of their efficiencies to be

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Speaker 2: found our local government.

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Speaker 1: Can I play you something? This is Nikola Willis on

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Speaker 1: Nick Mills, Wellington Morning show National.

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Speaker 3: We haven't come up with what our party position will

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Speaker 3: be after the election, so you could be as well.

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Speaker 3: We haven't ruled out repealing it either.

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Speaker 1: Wow, that's not been talked about.

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Speaker 3: Well, we haven't taken a position yet, but it's not

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Speaker 3: impossible that we would go to the campaign trail saying

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Speaker 3: yes we met our coalition commitment, we supported that into law,

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Speaker 3: but actually we agree with the concerns of some people

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Speaker 3: and operated as we hoped, and we want to repel it.

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Speaker 3: We haven't come to a position yet, but we're not

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Speaker 3: ruling it out.

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Speaker 1: Thomas. This is about the Regulatory Standards Act. Does she

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Speaker 1: just spitballing or is National doing exactly the same thing

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Speaker 1: New Zealand first did, having voted for the thing last

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Speaker 1: week and passed it. Now they're changing their minds.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a bit of both. I think the holding

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Speaker 2: their cards very close to their chest. David Seymour last week,

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Speaker 2: after Winston said that he was he was thinking, well

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Speaker 2: he was going to campaign on repealing it. He said

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Speaker 2: that that was, you know, effectively Winston pivoting towards going

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Speaker 2: with Labor again. Now National's saying hold on, David Seymour,

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Speaker 2: Actually you know, the Coalition agreement binds us for one term,

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Speaker 2: but as we said around the coalition negotiation table in

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Speaker 2: twenty twenty six, to form a new government, actually, you know,

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Speaker 2: anything's back on the table. And if you really think

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Speaker 2: this Act is working, and we don't think that it

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Speaker 2: is working, and we've campaigned on saying that it isn't working,

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Speaker 2: well actually we need to have a discussion at that

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Speaker 2: point about who gets their way. So I think it

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Speaker 2: is a very a very real prospect. Perhaps not you know,

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Speaker 2: it's not sixty forty or seventy thirty. It's a bit

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Speaker 2: fifty to fifty eight to say that that National does

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Speaker 2: actually campaign on either changing it or repealing it. And

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Speaker 2: then David Seymour has to fight for the fight for

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Speaker 2: their Act, which is a very big part of act

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Speaker 2: sort of history. They've wanted it for decades or a

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Speaker 2: decade to keep it. So I think what you're seeing

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Speaker 2: here is the very start of coalition negotiations twenty twenty six.

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Speaker 1: Oh dear God. All right, Okay, thank you, thank you.

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Speaker 1: Thomas Thomas Coglan, The Herald's political letter. Up for more

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Speaker 1: from Heather Duplessy Allen Drive Listen live to News Talks.

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