Poll: Canterbury’s Super City problem - Selwyn and Waimakariri don’t like Christchurch’s debt

Monday, 11 May 2026

Councils have just three months to come up with proposals for amalgamating, otherwise the Government will do it for them. Could the big three in Canterbury merge? SINEAD GILL reports

Selwyn and Waimakariri residents don’t want to cover Christchurch’s debts or see their communities forgotten while the city plays catch-up on its infrastructure, residents say.

But with central government giving councils three months to come up with an amalgamation plan, they may have little choice.

With no defined model or proposal on the table, neither Selwyn or Waimakariri’s mayors can say what their districts’ bottom lines are, but several community leaders have told The Press they fear amalgamation will reduce local voices and increase their debt burden.

A recent Taxpayers’ Union ratepayers report found council debt per household was nearly $16,500 in Christchurch - more than double the $8000 in Waimakariri. Selwyn’s debt was about $9800 per household.

Taxpayers’ Union spokesman Tory Relf said while Christchurch had lower rates than Selwyn, the city had the highest debt burden of the region and a council workforce of 2470 full-time equivalent staff.

“Bigger does not mean better… Auckland’s Super City should be treated as a warning about bureaucracy and lost accountability, not a model to copy,” Relf said.

Hypothetically, if a Greater Christchurch council had 20 councillors (as Auckland does), Waimakariri would have two representatives, Selwyn three, and Christchurch 14.

Business Canterbury chief executive Leeann Watson says it’s time to put a serious amalgamation proposal on the table.

She argued, in an opinion piece in the NZ Herald, growth did not respect council boundaries; but planning, consenting, transport and infrastructure investment did - creating a disconnect.

Amalgamation promised economies of scale, streamlined governance and stronger balance sheets.

However, she said questions remained about whether it would tangibly reduce duplication and costs, the risk of creating a behemoth bureaucracy, and revenue sourcing.

“Without addressing how councils are funded, we risk a different form of rearranging deckchairs rather than creating real change.

“Our councils no longer have a choice on amalgamation. The option they now have is whether they choose to participate in shaping what that amalgamation might look like and be part of the change.”

Will a Super City spend up in Selwyn?

Mark Alexander, a former Selwyn district councillor, believed the government’s timeframe was purposely short so councils did not have the option to get feedback. He believed that feedback would be overwhelmingly against.

A Greater Christchurch merger would be “a disaster” he said, saying there was nothing positive about Selwyn helping cover Christchurch’s debt.

“Money would go to pay for a stadium that it didn’t have a choice in. Christchurch is not going to spend money on developing facilities in Selwyn.”

He said Selwyn would be lucky to get two wards in a super council structure.

Darfield Residents’ Association president Harvey Polglase worried rural communities could become “a cog in the wheel” of Christchurch.

Darfield was on the verge of a population boom, he said, and needed more services like public transport and sports or community facilities to keep up. Young people had nothing to do except “get in to trouble”, but he was worried their needs would pale in comparison to those in more densely-populated Christchurch suburbs.

Waimakariri’s former deputy mayor Neville Atkinson said the district, well-managed, in “good shape” and would not benefit from teaming up with Christchurch.

Atkinson, who was otherwise a supporter of the government, said RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop had spoken like “a dictator” when he gave councils a three-month ultimatum.

“This is not the way to do things, it should be up to the people,” Aitkinson said.

He challenged ministers to prove how efficiencies would be gained given rates continued to rise and infrastructure worsened after the last suite of amalgamations in 1989 when 850 local bodies were reduced to 86 — 73 territorial and 12 regional.

“It’s forced amalgamation so they look good in the polls,” he said.

He said the problem with local government was funding. Without alternative revenue streams, councils relied on rates to keep swimming pools and libraries open.

“Am I struggling to pay as a pensioner? Yes. But I don’t want to live in the Bronx … that is not what I worked my whole life for.”

A risk was the loss of local control over decisions. If there was a problem in his area, he had four out of 11 local councillors to turn to.

Stronger against developers?

David Nixon, a property developer from Ohoka, didn’t support amalgamation but saw the logic of a Greater Christchurch amalgamation, if no wasn’t an option - given many residents in Waimakariri and Selwyn travelled to Christchurch for work.

One benefit, he said, was that developers may not be able to bully a more powerful local authority into permitting unpopular developments, as he believed had happened to the smaller councils.

Local government expert Jeff McNeill said the reforms were a move in the opposite direction to what other countries were doing.

“We’re too centralised already,” he said.

While cases like merging Selwyn and Christchurch could be made, he said for much of provincial New Zealand councils were spread out, poor, and had a small ratepayer base.

He said if he was the neighbour of the Mackenzie District, for example, whose 5500 ratepayers face a future bill of $47 million to cover essential wastewater upgrades to handle tourists, he said, “I’d say, ‘no, not on your nelly [would we amalgamate]’.”

He said, if anything, local government reform should be about decentralising central government, giving regional councils more of a mandate to manage a region’s public health, education and economic development.