Tuesday, June 09, 2015



Ding dong, the supercity's dead

Which old supercity? The Wellington supercity:

Some Wellington mayors believe a controversial plan to roll the region's nine councils into one is being thrown out today.

[...]

Those mayors, from Porirua, Lower Hutt, Upper Hutt, Masterton, and Wellington's deputy mayor, all said they had heard the supercity proposal was out.

"[The announcement] will set aside the current proposal for one regional council across all of Wellington, and will look to change that, and back to the drawing board to come up with a new proposal," said Justin Lester, Wellington's deputy mayor.

Lower Hutt's mayor, Ray Wallace, had heard the same thing.


Good riddance. The only people who wanted a Wellington supercity were local body politicians who wanted to be its mayor, and businesses who wanted to remove democratic representation. The actual people who would be subject to it don't want a bar of it, and for good reason: it would have removed their say in the government of their own region. What's surprising though is that the Local Government Commission appears to have listened to them...