Ministers want mayors to take over regional councils, as they pitch amalgamation

Tuesday, 25 November 2025

The Government has confirmed its plans to abolish regional councils, with step one being to replace elected regional councillors with panels of mayors.

This proposals represents the largest reform of local government in New Zealand for decades, and could eventually lead to fewer mayors, and fewer councillors, if district councils agree to amalgamate during this process.

It will be a years-long reform process, with ministers admitting that it’s likely this law change won’t pass until after next year’s election. However, the ministers in charge of this work - Chris Bishop and Simon Watts - said they did expect that regional councils could be gone within two years.

What’s going on?

The Government has proposed replacing elected regional councillors with a panel of mayors from people elected to the district councils in the catchment of each regional council.

The regional councils will continue to operate under the governance of those mayors, while they work on a bigger plan to amalgamate or restructure their local government set ups.

The Government wants each territory to propose its own models for the future of local government in its region.

These plans could involve councils merging, or councils setting up jointly-owned organisations that manage water, or transport, or rubbish collection, across districts.

Why make the changes?

The Government has made no secret about its plans to shake up local government.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has repeatedly chastised councils for what he deemed wasteful spending, saying the system was inefficient. On Sunday, he promised a “major shake up” of local government was on the way.

Regional Development Minister Shane Jones had also compared regional councils to Russia’s Kremlin, and said earlier this year that their time was coming to an end.

On Tuesday, after the substance of this had already been widely reported, Bishop said there was too much “duplication” and too much confusion in the current system. He said voters did not support regional councils, and in most regions voter turnout was below 50% for local government elections.

“Right now, the system is tangled in duplication, disagreements and decisions that defy common sense. The Government's belief is that local government has lost its social license and that New Zealanders have lost faith in local government,” Bishop said.

Bishop said this could save ratepayers money, in the long run.

“Forcing councils to make plans for their own wider reforms - by finding smarter ways of working together, sharing back office services, or forming joint agencies for roading and recycling - this can cut duplication and could unlock economies of scale and make ratepayer dollars go further,” he said.

Any concerns?

Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer described any attempt to scale back regional councils as a “power grab”.

“This is not just tinkering with local government, this could rewrite who has power over our water, our whenua, our climate resilience, and our future.

“If these reforms go ahead, councils may lose their authority at the exact moment ministers acquire unprecedented fast-track powers,” she said.

The proposal document, which would go out to the public and councils for consultation, did suggest placing Government-appointed people on the panels alongside mayors. It did not include any guarantee that Māori and mana whenua representatives would be on these panels.

Bishop said the suggestion of having ministerial appointees on the panels was “an option” put out for discussion.

“It’s not a power grab. This is about making local government fit for purpose and delivering values for ratepayers,” he said.

Labour local government spokesperson Tangi Utikere said National was breaking its promise to back “localism” and local decisions.

“Christopher Luxon talked a lot about empowering local communities, yet these changes strip away a key layer of local decision-making,” he said.

What, exactly, do regional councils do?

Not every region has a regional council.

Some areas, such as Marlborough, have one single unitary council that does all local government work. Auckland operates with its own, special, council system that doesn’t involve a “regional council”.

For those with regional councils, their smaller district or city councils manage things like parks and rubbish. The regional council manages things such as public transport and the environment.

Bishop argued that most people didn’t really understand the difference between those two layers of local government.

“Mayors are the ones who are directly elected, and they've got a strong mandate. They're often quite well known, which does make a difference,” he said.

Local Government NZ regional sector chairperson, Dr Deon Swiggs argued there was good understanding about the differences between district and regional councils.

“If I go out to my region, everybody knows who's on your regional council,” he told Stuff.

He said it was important that local communities submitted, and that the Government welcomed bespoke solutions for each region.

The regional councils were ECan in Canterbury, which was chaired by Swiggs, Horizons in Manawatū, and the Greater Wellington Regional Council, alongside the Bay of Plenty, Waikato, Hawke’s Bay, Northland, Otago, West Coast and Southland regional councils.

Where to from here?

This proposal would be open for consultation until February.

A key question for this reform would be how much say each mayor on a regional board would have.

For instance, in a region like Wellington the Wellington City Council has a far larger population than other districts, such as Carterton. Should each mayor have the same vote, or should they have a greater say if they represent a larger population?

The Government’s preferred option was for the mayors votes to be weighted to their protection, but with some sort of measure so that small communities would still have a voice on regional councils.

“We've put forward our ideas, and we put forward our preferred model, but we're open to feedback,” Bishop said.

That feedback could take a while to process. Bishop said this was a complicated law change, and it was likely it would need to continue to after the election.