Centralisation has been New Zealand's answer to local government's problems for decades. It has not worked.
 
Last week’s announcement by Ministers Simon Watts and Chris Bishop continues this approach. Councils will have three months to submit proposals to merge themselves or risk a government-led process that could impose mergers on them. The choice is framed as ‘flexibility’ but it is really Hobson’s choice – accept amalgamation or be forced into it. Either pathway would produce fewer, larger councils.
 
The premise is that 78 councils are too many for a country of our size. International evidence does not clearly support this. Switzerland has 2,100 communes with a population of 8.7 million. Denmark, after its 2007 consolidation programme, retained 98 municipalities for a population of 5.7 million. New Zealand is the fourth-most consolidated country in the OECD, with one council per 74,000 residents, compared with Switzerland's one per 4,000.
 
The government's own Infrastructure Commission examined the efficiency case for amalgamation in 2022. Its report, Does Size Matter?, found no simple relationship between council size and cost efficiency. Instead, it suggested the right size depends on function, geography, and delivery model.
 
Auckland provides a cautionary tale. The Super City was formed in 2010 out of a regional council, four city councils, and three district councils. Post-amalgamation savings evaporated within a few years and Auckland’s operating expenditure per capita soon returned to around the national average. Its 2025 voter turnout was a dismal 29 percent, indicating widespread disengagement.
 
The New South Wales state government attempted a similar reform exercise in 2016-17, proposing to force 152 councils into 112. Strong local opposition led to political and judicial decisions reversing several of the forced mergers.
 
I am currently preparing a report for the Initiative outlining an alternative – that more local democracy works better than less, with more and smaller councils (or at least beefed-up local boards within merged councils). These should be aligned with communities of interest, making decisions and undertaking functions best placed at a local level. If regional councils are abolished, locals should be able to establish elected bodies dedicated to specific purposes, like we had prior to 1989.
 
A localist approach must come with stronger accountability, including real authority for elected members over their bureaucracies. This would help distinguish genuine local democracy from what years of consolidation and bureaucratic sprawl have produced.
 
New Zealand’s local government problems are real, but fewer, larger councils are not the answer.