LGNZ isn't perfect, but it's a lot better than the alternative of councils going it alone
Western Bay of Plenty District Council has become the latest local authority to vote to end its membership of Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ), joining Auckland Council, Christchurch City Council, Kaipara District Council, Westland District Council, Grey District Council, and West Coast Regional Council in departing the organisation.
The first wave of councils to part ways with LGNZ did so largely as a result of lingering tensions over the position LGNZ got itself into over the previous Labour Government’s Three Waters reform. LGNZ sought to exercise influence on behalf of the sector to get them the best deal possible given the circumstances. That obviously put them at odds with a lot of communities and their councils who fiercely opposed those reforms for a variety of reasons. As an organisation is was caught between two fires.
The genesis of Western Bay of Plenty’s reasoning, led by Councillor Tracey Coxhead who proposed the motion, seems to be rooted in climate change denialism if her train wreck of an interview on RNZ this morning is anything to go by. So it’s somewhat different to the previous departures of other councils.
As a former councillor and having worked in and with a few membership/industry bodies, I get the tensions that are at play in these situations when they’re trying to advocate to central government on behalf of whatever sector/group of members they’re representing.
It’s extraordinarily difficult for such organisations to get genuine consensus from all their stakeholders on what you’d think should be relatively simple matters at the best of times. Chuck in a politically contentious issue at a time of heightened political rhetoric and you have a recipe for people to fall out. Given that the governing bodies of local authorities are deeply political (even if they don’t necessarily caucus with or belong to a specific political party), LGNZ is perpetually walking a tightrope where they’re guaranteed to never satisfy everyone.
Along with the myriad of views within the local government sector, LGNZ has to also navigate the changing views and priorities of the shifting occupants of the Beehive. As much as they’re trying to maintain relationships with their local authority members and filter their views when coming up with positions for the organisation on the issues of the day, they also need to be a solution-focused source of constructive criticism for the Government of the day in order to maintain meaningful influence. As satisfying as it might feel to always throw rocks, it’s sometimes (though not always!) useful to try and be the grown up in the room.
As a result, LGNZ - like many similar bodies - frequently finds itself caught between a rock and a hard place where no matter what they try to do they’re are going to come under fire from somewhere. In trying to maintain influence and a productive relationship with the Government of the day, they inevitably will leave some of their members offside.
From my own experience of LGNZ while I was a councillor, and having kept in touch with current and former employees of the organisation, I certainly have my own criticisms of them. For example, I think that their political radar can be off at times and this results in them somehow managing to simultaneously annoy central government while also alienating large swathes of their membership. They probably need to get a better balance between the policy experts who underpin much of their work and some political brains who can help advise them on charting increasingly choppy waters.
But despite the criticisms I have, I recognise that LGNZ’s advocacy work on behalf of the sector is a net benefit for councils. Does that mean I have to agree with every position they take? Of course not. But it’s important to be realistic about these things.
LGNZ generally does try to go to great lengths to try and source, synthesize and then put forward the prevailing views of the local government sector in their representations to central government on a given issue. Likewise, they back up those positions and provide advice to the sector that’s usually based on a fairly robust evidence base with some highly capable thinking that’s gone into it.
As much as I might personally prefer a different approach to theirs on some issues, I can typically understand and respect where they’ve come in developing a specific policy position or piece of advice.
LGNZ does a lot of the in-depth policy thinking, especially at a system-wide level, that’s is sorely lacking (and is typically underwhelming when it does happen) from central government’s own local government team within the Department of Internal Affairs.
For example, LGNZ’s work on Localism has been instrumental in reinforcing the relevance of local government in a time of increasing centralisation. Even for someone like me who’s an advocate of amalgamation in my region, I know that such an entity can only be effective if its functions are being delivered at the appropriate level of subsidiarity for the communities it serves, so I always try to think about what’s the right balance between localism and regionalism in such entities - with LGNZ’s thinking in this space forefront in my considerations.
Outside of advocacy, LGNZ does a lot of other work to support the sector.
Their professional development and upskilling work through Ākona (previously EquiP) benefits both new and established elected representatives in lifting their knowledge and governance capabilities. Likewise, Te Korowai (previously CouncilMark) is a comprehensive benchmarking framework for councils that has the added benefit that it’s designed to actually support councils on the journey to improve their effectiveness rather than just the performative ticking of boxes that other benchmarking frameworks in development by central government lean towards.
While I’d be the first to admit LGNZ isn’t perfect, the local government sector is far better off having them as a collective voice that tries to work constructively with central government than each council trying to go it alone.
Sure, you might sometimes want them to get their elbows out more and other times think they should pull their heads in, but that’s the nature of trying to balance out the views of dozens of local authorities to advocate for what’s best for the sector and the communities it serves.
Heck, the same process plays out at councils every week as they work through the decisions before them. Councillors have to weigh up a variety of factors and chart a course forward much like LGNZ does. If you’re on the losing side of an issue, you don’t then go and try and burn down the entire council just because you didn’t get your way. Sure, disagree with those decisions publicly if you need to, but dismantling the entire system isn’t really helping anyone.
Local democracy in Aotearoa will be far worse off if LGNZ’s capabilities and its ability to advocate on behalf of the sector are eroded through councils withdrawing from it. While the larger metro and regional councils might have the capacity and capabilities to manage on their own, it’s a much tougher ask for the numerous mid-sized and smaller councils around the motu whose voices risk getting lost in the noise of 78 competing local authorities.
To paraphrase Joni Mitchell’s famous song Big Yellow Taxi: you don’t know what you got till it’s gone. Without effective sector-wide advocacy from the likes of LGNZ, local government could well find its relevance buried beneath a parking lot.