The Future of Local Government

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21111, 12 March 1934, Page 8

The Future of Local Government

The Mayor of Christchurch. in an interview printed in " The Press' last week, looked lorward to the time when a reorganised and revitalised local government system would take over many functions now performed by Parliament and the departments of State. That is a reform the need for which becomes more obvious and more pressing every day. Yet the discouraging truth has to be faced that the present tendency in New Zealand is not to decentralise the functions of government but to add to the work of an already overloaded Parliament. The evil consequences of this centripetal movement, which has been going on steadily since the abolition of the provinces, can be seen in the dead uniformity of the education system, in the complex administrative machinery for supervising the activities of local bodies, in the lessened vitality of the local bodies themselves, and in the growing practice of legislating by orders-in-council and of delegating legislative functions to ministers and officials. It is the fashion to regard centralisation as the product of a bureaucratic conspiracy to gather the threads of power in Wellington; and no doubt centralisation, by reason of its simplicity and superficial efficiency, makes a strong appeal to the official mind. Nevertheless, it is the present hopelessly confused and clumsy system of local government that has, more than anything else, led to the concentration of administrative power in Wellington. For instance, the inability of the counties, with their small areas of control and their inadequate resources of plant and expert advice to deal with the roading problem, has compelled the government to centralise the control of main highways in the Main Highways Board. Similarly, although officials of the Department of Health have frequently admitted the need for a decentralisation of health services, the lack of a set of local authorities competent to administer health services has left the department with no option but to carry on with the present system. Before there can be any extensive devolution of the functions of government in New Zealand it will be necessary to reduce the number of local bodies, to establish larger areas of control, and to eliminate overlapping. And as the Mayor ot Christchurch points out, it is no use leaving these tasks to the local bodies themselves, since every local body is, to its members and to- its employees, a vested interest. The work of reform must be undertaken by the central government; and it will only be undertaken by the central government when the public realises more fully that the present profusion of local authorities is inefficient and wasteful.