Too Many Local Bodies?

New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 60, 16 August 1940, Page 6

Too Many Local Bodies?

THINK that much of the trouble outlined by Professor Hudson, a lack of public conscience regarding the importance of the land .. . is a question of administration, especially local administration. This is a new country and it lacks a sense of local patriotism. It has developed in three generations from isolated pioneer settlements to a highly centralised state, but it has done this at a price-we have drift to the towns, rapid transfer of land ownership, dislike of labour for farming pursuits, You cannot, of course, force man to live and work on the land but you can make life there attractive so that it has a greater appeal. You can do that by making your local administration a vehicle to consciously develop community life. Let it make both the utilisation of the land and the provision of social amenities its particular and continual concern. Local government in New Zealand is an administrative hotchpotch. We have 693 local bodies including 129 counties. They fall over themselves with overlapping duties, complete absence of plant and extreme weakness in finance, status and initiative. I would divide New Zealand into not more than 40 counties on a regional basis, that is, every.county as far as possible should be a geographical unit. I would have the planning of county affairs done by committees and use the full council only as an approving or vetoing body. These committees would have the assistance of experts. Lastly, I would have the whole work of

the county co-ordinated by a county manager who would head a staff which would perform the work planned by the committees and approved by the council. (From " Microphone Rourdtable"; ‘ Second Century Prospects," 3Y A, July 24.)