Luxon later told media there would be \u201cmajor reform coming\u201d and the Government wanted to \u201cradically simplify\u201d local government, but he would leave the details to RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop and Local Government minister Simon Watts.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just signalling very strongly that, and it\u2019s not a surprise in my conversations I\u2019ve had with local government leaders as well, that this is a country that has so many layers of management and government that actually it\u2019s stopping us from getting things done,\u201d Luxon said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard and difficult decisions, but I\u2019m sorry, we have to keep changing the way we run the country to make it simpler and easier to get things done.\u201d<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for the RMA Reform Minister declined to comment, saying reporters would have to \u201cwait and see\u201d.<\/p>\n
Regional Development Minister and New Zealand First deputy leader Shane Jones this year told a forum there was \u201cless and less of a justifiable purpose\u201d for keeping regional government once the RMA reforms went through.<\/p>\n
In July, Bishop told councils to halt work on district plans until the new RMA legislation took effect.<\/p>\n
Watts has also been tasked with bringing policy options for rates caps to Cabinet by the end of the year.<\/p>\n
Speaking on Morning Report, Labour leader Chris Hipkins said he wanted to see the Government\u2019s proposal before he set out his party\u2019s position.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf what they come up with is sensible, I certainly want to leave open the option of working with them to make it a success,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is room for consolidation in local government. There is room for a streamlining of functions.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Hipkins said the Government would need to be careful not to make the situation even more fragmented.<\/p>\n
– RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Luxon later told media there would be \u201cmajor reform coming\u201d and the Government wanted to \u201cradically simplify\u201d local…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":139362,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[806,124,7558,8127,266,29812,6036,440,111,43,139,69,1118,5914,1238,662,1361,2846,3270],"class_list":["post-152068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-as","tag-could","tag-councils","tag-end","tag-government","tag-imminent","tag-know","tag-local","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-regional","tag-serious","tag-shakeup","tag-that","tag-them","tag-we"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152068"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152068\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}