What does new local government minister Simon Watts mean for the sector?
With his feet now having been under his new Minister of Local Government desk for a week, it’s a good opportunity to to assess what Simon Watts’ appointment to the portfolio means for the Coalition’s plans for the sector.
If you want a brief biography of Watts’ career, Wikipedia has you covered. The most notable bit for our consideration is that Watts was briefly National’s spokesperson for local government in opposition, picking up the role as part of then new party leader Christopher Luxon’s first Shadow Cabinet. Luxon himself had previously held the portfolio under Judith Collins’ leadership of the party.
As a result, as opposition ramped up to the then Labour Government’s Three Waters reforms, Simon Watts found himself spearheading National’s attacks on it and being responsible for developing their alternative proposal - Local Water Done Well. Between him and Justice spokesperson Paul Goldsmith, they both were highly critical of the Future for Local Government report, foreshadowing how National would outright reject the recommendations when in government. Watts was also involved in the early stages of developing National’s city and regional deals policy for the 2023 election, which has largely become National’s solution for the funding and financing issues facing local government.
Despite Watts not being one of National’s highest profile MPs while in opposition, his political career has been on a steady upwards trajectory, as evidenced by him shifting into Cabinet as part of this latest reshuffle.
From speaking to some of those who have worked closely with him, they’ve found Watts to be a considered and hard working minister who’s focused on implementing the Coalition’s policy programme without necessarily seeking out the media spotlight or deploying some of the divisive rhetoric that a few of his colleagues are known to do. They say Watts is diligent in being across what’s going on in his portfolios, and is more constructive rather than oppositional when it comes to decision-making. This isn’t an assessment of the merits of the decisions Watts has made in the portfolios he’s held to date, rather than just considering his approach to how he carries out his roles.
So what does this all mean for the local government sector?
Realistically, given Watts’ involvement previously in the development of what’s now broadly become the Coalition’s local government policy programme, we shouldn’t expect much deviation from the course his predecessor charted. Crucially, most of the big decisions about what’s going to happen for the remainder of the Coalition’s term have already been made by Cabinet, leaving Watts to now shepherd these through to implementation.
This is especially the case with Local Water Done Well, where Watts’ role will be around assessing the water services plans that councils must submit later this year and pushing through the remaining pieces of legislation. Watts will need to make calls about what’s feasible or not around these plans, and - no doubt in consultation with his Cabinet and Coalition colleagues - will be the one who decides whether the Coalition needs to use its powers of compulsion that it’s kept in reserve. While the nature of the remaining pieces of legislation required to implement Local Water Done Well is going to be fascinating to watch unfold, the reality is the big substantive decisions for water reform have already been made under Simeon Brown’s watch.
The question of what comes next following the conclusion of the Crown Observer’s term at Wellington City Council and the Crown Manager’s term at Hawke’s Bay Regional Council and Wairoa District Council will also eventually land on Watts’ desk. Next steps on these matters are largely in the hands of those appointees and the councils themselves and how things play out over the coming months.
All that being said, there’s two areas where there is likely to be a bit more work for Watts to do, these being Regional Deals and the Coalition’s Local Government Forward Work Programme.
On the latter, we’re unlikely to see much change from what was outlined back in August to Cabinet. Somethings are going to be relatively straight forward for him, such as removing the four wellbeings from the Local Government Act. However other areas will be more contentious, such as rate pegging and rate capping, benchmarking, and reviewing councils’ transparency and accountability processes. The local government sector will be keenly watching, especially in the lead up to this year’s local authority elections, to see what is proposed.
On Regional Deals, while the frameworks for these have been outlined, the hard part is going to be assessing, negotiating, and prioritising the proposals the Coalition will receive from councils now that submitting Regional Deal proposals have been opened up to every local authority.
However, Watts is just one minister amongst many who will be involved from the Coalition’s perspective, and arguably he’s going to have the smallest part to play. That’s because much of what will be covered by Regional Deals is likely to fall within the purview of Chris Bishop and his Housing, Transport, and Infrastructure portfolios. Along with Nicola Willis’ Finance and Economic Growth responsibilities, Tama Potaka’s Māori Development, and Shane Jones’ Regional Development and Resources, Watts may well be the point man but the power sits with his other colleagues - especially Bishop, Willis, and Jones.
None of this means there isn’t room for Watts to exercise his own personal influence on the sector, but his scope to do so is much more limited than his predecessor both because of Watts relatively junior status in Cabinet and the fact that most of the major decisions for the Coalition around local government in this Parliamentary term have already been made.
One of the more interesting challenges that will face Watts will be if community opposition to Local Water Done Well starts to materialise. There’s already been some visible tensions in Waikato and the lower North Island as councils grapple with the inevitable politics that are at play when considering the effective regionalisation of water services and infrastructure. Given these water services plans will be out in the public just as local government elections ramp up, it’s not hard to see them becoming political flash points.
All of this is before the question of water meters gets dealt with throughout the current reform process. Water meters in themselves have been politically toxic despite the evidence clearly supporting their effectiveness and fairness.
Watts may also have to deal with the question of local government amalgamation should any of the conversations bubbling away in Wellington, Southland, Nelson-Tasman, Wairarapa, or Taranaki gain traction, but there seems little eagerness from the Coalition to seen to be leading on those discussions.
If anything, it seems likely the general direction of travel for the Coalition’s local government policy programme will remain broadly consistent. However, the lower profile of Watts may well translate to a lesser priority more generally for the sector in the work of the Coalition Government and in the minds of its ministers.
Depending on your point of view of what the Coalition is doing with the local government sector, that could either be a good thing or a bad thing!