Government propses to can regional councillors

Watts explains this decision is to simplify local governance for Kiwis, “When citizens vote for their Mayor, they are choosing who they want to lead local representation for the next three years. Most people know their Mayor. Few could name the chair of their Regional Council, or even a regional councillor."

Envrionment Canterbury Chairman Deon Swiggs said that while he understands the logic behind the decision from the government, it doesn't lessen the blow.

"[The] announcement was a bit of a shock, but not unexpected. We have been expecting that at the Canterbury regional council for quite some time... They have said they want efficiencies, they want to local government to work better, deliver better results.

"What we weren't expecting was for them to completely remove a layer of governance."

The newly elected councillor explains that there will be a lot of hurdles and processes to jump through the newly proposed "Combined Territories Boards", which is made up of mayors from the region’s city and district councils.

"We need to go through and understand what it looks like. The 'one-size-fits-all' is the problem that I have with this proposal... So what might not work for say Northland, might work for here in Canterbury. We now need to talk to our TA's, our Mayors, get together and understand where they see themselves in this," said Swiggs

Swiggs argued that regional council work often goes unnoticed, only until something goes wrong.

"A lot of our work that we do, which is really critical work, happens behind scenes... When the regional council are doing their job right, or doing the work that we need to do right, that work is often not seen.

"Like our work on flood protections, bio-securities, we don't have pests flying around all over the place, and water quality issues aren't prevalent. That work is often not seen because people aren't having issues with it," said Swiggs.

He adds that it was unfortunate the recently elected councillors couldn't carry out their terms and complete their promises for the regions. As the proposals came, he called the news confronting for he and his ECAN colleagues, "Some people spent $10,000 on election campaigns 6 weeks ago and just get told that they can't see through their term."

However, he assured discussions will be had to prioritise the quality of final outcomes, with several lower-chain of command ECAN members expected to stay on the various existing regional council projects in the future.

Minister Chris Bishop stands strongly behind the change, calling this a "once-in-a-generation chance to build a simpler, clearer, and more efficient local government system for New Zealanders."

Consultation on the proposal is open now until the 20th of February 2026, with the confirmation being made by March so legislation can be drafted.