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Speaker 1: Questions, answers, Thanks analysis, the drive show you trust for

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Speaker 1: the full picture. Brian Bridge on Heather Duplicy Ellen Drive

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Speaker 1: with one New Zealand let's get connected news talks.

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Speaker 2: That'd be good evening at a seven half for five.

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Speaker 2: The government changing the lord of force counsels to stick

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Speaker 2: to their knitting, stick to their core business. So there's

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Speaker 2: four wellbeing provisions that the previous Labor government introduced in

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Speaker 2: twenty nineteen, Social, economic, environmental and cultural, and this government

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Speaker 2: says nay, get rid of them. The law change will

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Speaker 2: also require counsels to regularly report on their financial performance. Hello,

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Speaker 2: I mean I thought that would have been a requirement anyway.

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Speaker 2: Forces them also to disclose what they spend on consultants

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Speaker 2: and contractors. Simon Watts is the local government minister with

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Speaker 2: me now, Hello, good.

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Speaker 3: Day Ryan, Thanks for having me.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, good to have you on. Hey. Can you give

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Speaker 2: us some example what exactly are we talking about here?

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Speaker 2: You know, the well being provisions? Some examples of what

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Speaker 2: councils were doing to meet them.

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Speaker 3: Well, look, I think the key issue is is those

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Speaker 3: well being four aspects. We're pretty vague overall what we've

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Speaker 3: done and the changes that we're making is saying, look,

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Speaker 3: there's five key areas or core services that you need

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Speaker 3: to deliver public transport, waste, civil defense, libraries, museums, and

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Speaker 3: network infrastructure, and those are the five things that you

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Speaker 3: need to do and what councils need to deliver. Before

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Speaker 3: it was all pretty vague, and as a result of that,

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Speaker 3: councils were doing a whole lot of stuff that weren't

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Speaker 3: core services.

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Speaker 2: So what happens if they provide something other than one

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Speaker 2: of those five things, what happens to them?

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Speaker 3: Well, look, the reality is now legislation that they are

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Speaker 3: managed under means that they have to deliver those core services.

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Speaker 3: If they are in breach of a then obviously that's

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Speaker 3: going to be something that through our additional reporting requirements

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Speaker 3: that we're putting on them will pick up and also

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Speaker 3: importantly RPE players will be able to see that as well.

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Speaker 3: But at the end of the day, you know, if

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Speaker 3: we have an instance where there's some blatant disregard around that,

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Speaker 3: at the end of the day, that will flows back

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Speaker 3: up through to the minister. We'll have to take a

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Speaker 3: look at that.

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Speaker 2: You said that the well being provisions were vague, aren't

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Speaker 2: these vague two. I mean, isn't it it's the eye

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Speaker 2: of the behold that whether they've done enough on transport

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Speaker 2: or whether they've done enough on waste.

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Speaker 3: Well, I don't think they are. I think the five

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Speaker 3: areas that we've designed of what you would expect, and

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Speaker 3: I think what most rate payers would expect their council

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Speaker 3: to deliver, you know, picking up the rubbish, making sure

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Speaker 3: that public transport services are available, water infrastructure, you know,

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Speaker 3: those are all civil defense, those are all things that

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Speaker 3: you are bread and butter, core services for counsel. You know,

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Speaker 3: previously you know terms like you know, social, cultural and

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Speaker 3: economic type activities. I mean, they were just all catch

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Speaker 3: all and as a result, as I said, some councils

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Speaker 3: across the country, we're doing stuff that that was basically

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Speaker 3: wasteful spending.

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Speaker 2: So some if a council moves from picking up rubbish

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Speaker 2: once a week to once a fortnite, are they in trouble?

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Speaker 3: Well, the reality is they're going to be judged by

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Speaker 3: their rate payers in terms of that. You know, different

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Speaker 3: requirements in different parts of the country. But I do

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Speaker 3: know that you know, people have an expectation of getting

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Speaker 3: those basic services right, and you know councils. Rate players

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Speaker 3: are pretty good at giving feedback back to council on

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Speaker 3: whether they're happy or not.

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Speaker 2: All right, Minister, appreciate you coming on the program tonight,

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Speaker 2: Simon Watt's local government minister.

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