Rush to reform will cost ratepayers says Whakatāne Mayor, Nándor Tánczos

Thursday, 9 July 2026

The Government has told the 78 city, district, regional and unitary councils they have until August 9 to submit merger proposals.

If they don’t put forward a proposal, change will be forced on them.

Whakatāne mayor Nándor Tánczos says the reform is being rushed and will heap more costs onto ratepayers.

Most councils have several merger options prepared and are seeking public feedback.

Former MP and current Whakatāne mayor Nándor Tánczos says the Government’s push for local body reform is rushed and will dump even more costs on to ratepayers.

He also questioned whether the Government knows what it wants from the reforms, apart from abolishing regional councils.

“Everyone is really concerned about the timeframes involved because it just doesn’t allow the community a chance to really engage and understand what the issues are and have a proper conversation about it,” Tánczos said.

The three-term MP said a lack of clarity from the Government was also an issue. “It’s not at all clear what the Government is trying to achieve here.

“There is only one objective that is clear and that is that they want to get rid of regional councils across the country. What happens after that is a bit of an afterthought.”

Local Government Minister Simon Watts and RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop told the 78 city and district, regional and unitary councils in May that they had three months to come up with amalgamation plans or the Government would do it for them.

The deadline for submissions under the Hard Start Pathway is August 9. Endorsed proposals will then be developed in detail and signed off in 2027, with changes implemented ahead of the 2028 local government elections.

“Our message to councils is simple: lead your own reform, or we will do it for you. Either way, change is coming,” Bishop said when the reform was announced in May. He said reform was needed because the local government system was “too complex, too costly and too hard to navigate”.

Watts said proposals should focus on creating “larger, more efficient unitary authorities that streamline functions, reduce duplication, and improve decision-making”.

Tánczos was in Tāneatua on Monday for the fifth and final public session that sought to explain the three options the council was putting forward under the Government’s Head Start Pathway.

The options are a Bay of Plenty Council that covers the whole region including Tauranga and Western Bay; an Eastern Bay council made up of Kawerau, Whakatāne and Ōpōtiki districts; and an expansion of that council to include Rotorua.

The overwhelming response from the first four meetings was that the people of Whakatāne did not want to merge with Tauranga.

“The population and the scale of the issues around Tauranga, particularly, mean people are worried that, here in the east, we won’t really get a voice,” Tánczos said.

“Our issues will be seen as so minor compared to the issues in Tauranga, we won’t get the service that we need as well.

“There is a clear identity in the Eastern Bay and people want to hold on to that.”

Tauranga Mayor Mahé Drysdale was in favour of mergers that brought greater efficiency and better services for ratepayers. He said their natural merger partner was Western Bay District Council whose head office is in Tauranga, a short drive from the Tauranga City Council’s own office. That office is almost adjacent to the Bay of Plenty Regional Council’s head office.

But Drysdale said Tauranga was open to a range of merger options - as most councils are.

Thames-Coromandel, to the north of Tauranga, has three options it will present during a series of road shows around the Coromandel this week.

Taupō has four options it is considering, while further afield, Timaru District Council is considering nine and Northland has two.

Western Bay District Council has trimmed its five options to two - a Bay-wide council that includes Western Bay, Tauranga City, Rotorua, Kawerau, Whakatāne and Ōpōtiki, or merging with just Tauranga.

“What we heard from our community was an openness to exploring change, but with some concerns expressed that need to be addressed,” Mayor James Denyer said.

“Around 45% of people supported a merger with other councils, with a further 28% indicating they were open to exploring it. Only 27% did not support such a merger. That is a strong signal from our community to continue assessing what these options could mean in practice and start development of a potential Head Start proposal.

“At the same time, there were clear and consistent expectations around representation, protecting local voice, and ensuring our communities are not taking on debt from other areas.”

Tánczos, who was a Green MP, believed the attitude of the current Government toward local government was poor. “And it’s undeserved. We can all throw rocks at each other about what' s been done wrong, but we need to work together and recognise that we are different but all parts of governance in this country.

“We need to have a respectful and mature relationship which currently is not there - certainly not coming from Wellington.”

The costs of change will be significant, Tánczos says, and the Government has said it won’t help financially. “So all of that cost, for reform being driven by central government, is going to fall on our ratepayers again.”

That cost burden and lack of community voice was an issue for Ōpōtiki mayor David Moore.

“The real question is, why are the mergers being asked for, because if somebody can prove scale actually brings savings for ratepayers I would love to have that shared.

“Scale certainly will mean less community voice especially in rural and provincial communities.”