Coromandel Watchdog of Hauraki today presented at the TCDC Public Forum and urged the Councillors to press pause on any local government amalgamation decision as this is not in the interests of the community or the environment,
We told Council to stand up to the bullying tactics of the Government because 3 months is an unacceptable timeframe to make a decision of this magnitude. We called on the Thames Coromandel District Council to push back on it, as have South Taranaki, Stratford, Ōpōtiki, Kawerau, Whakatāne, Tasman, and Matamata/Piako. The Crown has left it to local government to establish a business case for the restructuring, and we do not feel that the Thames Coromandel District has had time to do more than a brief survey with no context and a few short meetings in the community.
There is no clear reason for the urgency of these proposals, other than the Crown’s desire to disestablish Regional Councils; this urgency prevents proper community involvement. The urgency with which this decision is being taken leaves the District vulnerable to a range of risks, including poor environmental outcomes, underfunding/increased costs, and inappropriate management of the environment, due to a lack of understanding of the unique features of the Peninsula and the range of competing emphases likely to be a result of any amalgamation. Rushing a decision of this magnitude places the District at risk of facing significant costs in order to fulfil important functions such as environmental management.
There is no clarity on how decisions will be made and issues will be managed and any boundary change decisions regarding land, waters, and resource management need to reflect tangata whenua rights in Article 2 of Te Tiriti. They must be done in negotiation with iwi and hapū of the area. This does not appear to have been considered in these proposals, and that is unacceptable. The regional council currently lists over 178 Treaty settlement obligations and 215 Joint management agreement obligations and that’s just the beginning.
The nature of the ecological and catchment areas must drive the way decisions are made – for example part of TCDC is within the Waihou-Piako catchment area (this catchment includes part of six Waikato district Councils and Rotorua District which is included in the Regional Council boundary). They cannot be divided and managed piecemeal; we know already that this doesn’t work.
These restructures pose a serious risk to Districts like ours that rely on and need the expertise that is currently housed in Regional Councils; despite some of the rhetoric we have seen from central Government, District and Regional Councils have quite different functions. Transferring responsibility for matters such as biodiversity, freshwater, biosecurity, environmental monitoring and reporting, environmental compliance and enforcement, etc. to a unitary authority is illogical.
Where is the coherence and alignment between these proposed reforms and Te Tiriti obligations, RMA changes, and local government structures. Costs will be increased not reduced and that will be ratepayer costs not Crown costs.
For those of us fighting to protect the Hauraki from mining there are huge concerns because the resources and expertise of Regional Councils will disappear and the strong local opposition to mining will not be understood or supported outside our district.
Although the Eastern Waikato Unitary Authority is seemingly the best of the three proposed options, there could be a fundamental clash of priorities where the Thames Coromandel districts coastal and environmental interests could be outvoted.
The TCDC is scheduled to vote on amalgamation options on August 4.