Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, AUGUST 3, 1943. MODERNISING LOCAL GOVERNMENT.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 August 1943, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, AUGUST 3, 1943. MODERNISING LOCAL GOVERNMENT.

.ADDRESSING the Counties Conference last week, the Minister of Internal. Affairs (Mr Parry) spoke of the need 01. loca bodies being prepared with far-seeing plftns for the development of the localities under their control, “not merely as works ol rehabilitation, but as the basis tor the new’ order lying x\ i yn our grasp if we have the vision and courage to work lor 11 now. He said also that the intervention of the war had prevented him from proceeding with some of his ideas lor the reform ol lota government.

But (the Minister added) I am still convinced that basically my ideas were sound. We must have some form of reconstruction i local government is to be placed in its proper sphere in tio i - ning and the reforms to take place in the future of this country. • still intend, when conditions permit, again to take up the question of translating some of those ideas into reality.

‘With the aims thus broadly expressed, many thinking people will feel a great deal of sympathy, but it is unfortunately true also that in this country no problem has had more talk expended on it and with less effect, than that of loca) government reform. There is nothing novel, so far as talk is concerned, about the idea of reconstructing local government by reducing the num tei of local bodies and organising them, and enabling them to organise themselves, to bettor advantage. Proposals to these ends have been put forward by a series of governments dm mg the last twenty years or more, but in spite of an enormous amount of talk New Zealand still has trimmed only to a very minor extent, and has in no way radically reorganised, its local government system of the pioneering and horse and buggy days.

To a great many unprejudiced observers it must be selfevident that in continuing in existence far too many local bodies we are denying ourselves fully efficient engineering and operative services where a great deal. of. necessary work done in the Dominion from vear to year is concerned. At the same time, with local bodies split into needlessly petty units, working up to, in so many instances, a purely imaginary 7 dividing line, the State, through its Works Department, is tending more and more to usurp, in highway’ and other undertakings, the place that ought to be taken by large local bodies well organised and adequately equipped.

There are development and other works —the construction of railways, where these are necessary and justified; hydro-elec-tric undertakings, and river protection and related works are conspicuous examples—which are best carried out by a national authority and organisation. Road works of all kinds, however, including highways, probably could be carried out most economically by large and well organised local bodies working with full responsibility to national standards where arterial roads and related undertakings are concerned.

One effect of organisation on these lines would be to permit economy and efficiency to be brought to bear upon minor as well as major works in enlarged local body districts. Another would be to remove from the more or less nominal control of the Government and Parliament a vast amount of working and financial, detail and to give Parliament an opportunity it evidently needs of developing into a truly national assembly.

Any consideration of this question must return to the point that, failing some extraordinary effort, yet another attempt to reconstruct, local government and bring it abreast of the times, with a working system based on well-considered regional planning, will probably end, as so many others have, in talk. The obviously desirable reform of local government is impeded by public apathy, by the deadweight, conservative opposition of members of existing local bodies, and by the strong ruling trend to undue centralisation under State and bureaucratic control. These obstacles to action might be overcome if the opposed parties in Parliament agreed to act unitedly in promoting a comprehensive measure of local government reform and in awakening the country to the need of carrying it into effect. This the parties might do very reasonably, since successive governments, as has been said, have tried individually am! unsuccessfully to institute a reform of local government.