Dr Eric Crampton: What New Zealand can learn from Andy Burnham’s UK plan

Election 2023 brought us a new government committed to localist approaches. National had campaigned on greater localism as an alternative to the prior Labour government’s more centralising tendencies across water services, polytechnics, housing and farming regulation.

In his Waitangi speech in 2024, the Prime Minister said that, “We, like you, believe in localism and devolution, not centralisation and control. No one understands your iwi like your iwi does.”

Dieuwe de Boer: All the Power, None of the Responsibility

Localism is a principle that is being spoken of more often. There are older terms like subsidiarity that have fallen out of use, in particular because people do not intuitively know what they mean. Localism has the word "local" in it and so is more straightforward of a concept.

Local Government NZ is supposed to be involved in promoting localism, but they got sidetracked with their Three Waters campaign that would have removed local ownership of water infrastructure. Left-wing racial activism took precedence over campaigning for more delegated power over core local services.

Max Salmon: Localism enjoys council support

As localism – the idea that local communities should have more control over decisions that affect them – gains political capital, questions naturally arise: What would localist policies look like? What do councils think about localism? What do they see as localism's largest challenges?

A new survey of New Zealand's mayors, chairs, councillors, and council chief executives provides answers to these questions. The survey, covered in my report 'The Pulse of Local Government', is New Zealand's first public resource that catalogues council attitudes toward localism.

Nick Clark: City and Regional deals

This report, "City and regional deals", draws on the Initiative's extensive work on localism and international best practices to explore how partnerships between central and local government can empower communities to tackle their unique challenges and seize opportunities for growth.

"For too long, our councils have borne the costs of growth while the benefits flow almost entirely to central government in Wellington," says Dr Oliver Hartwich, Executive Director of the New Zealand Initiative. "It's no wonder many seem unwilling or unable to embrace much-needed development, reinforcing perceptions of incompetence and lack of focus."

Dr Eric Crampton: GST back to councils?

If a localist agenda involves punting more responsibility down to councils, then central government assistance in funding some of those responsibilities could make sense.

If councils were only responsible for core infrastructure, that can and should be covered by rates revenue and user charges on use of the infrastructure. If the resulting rates charges are unaffordable because of low income in the district, that's generally a problem for central government redistribution policy. Central government takes a lot of money from higher earning households and redistributes it to lower earning households, particularly lower income households with children.

Nick Clark: Boosting our cities and regions

New Zealand faces significant challenges in managing growth, delivering infrastructure, and improving the well-being of our communities. Our productivity performance has been dismal. Cities and regions are grappling with housing shortages, transport congestion, and skills gaps. The current model of mostly centralised decision-making and funding is struggling to keep pace with these complex, cross-cutting issues.

Dr Eric Crampton: A new kind of city deal

For a few months after last year’s elections, Wellington consultancies seemed to be scrambling to publish reports on city deals.

National’s coalition agreement with ACT promised long-term city deals for funding and financing infrastructure but was short on details.

Nick Clark: The bigger is better fallacy

New Zealand has an obsession with size. Maybe the inferiority complex of a small country makes politicians and policymakers assume bigger must be better.

In recent years, we have seen centralisation on steroids. The previous Labour government centralised water, health, polytechnics, and district planning into national or supra-regional entities despite local opposition and evidence that reforms would add costs without delivering promised benefits.

Oliver Hartwich: Localism - The common thread in New Zealand's emerging coalition

New Zealand politics is in limbo right now. Special votes are being counted. Many MPs are taking a break after a long campaign. Official coalition negotiations have not even begun.

On the plus side, that gives us time to ponder how well the three parties most likely to form government suit each other.

Michael Johnston: Think locally to tackle National challenges

One of the key themes that echoes through the 21 areas of public policy we cover in Prescription for Prosperity, is localism.

We need to get central bureaucracy out of the way, so that local innovation can thrive. We recommend measures to make the public service more focussed on its core business and more accountable to Ministers and the public.

Oliver Hartwich: Localism - The initiative that has won over the nation

No matter how good an idea, it takes time for the entire country to hear about it.

But that time has now come for localism.

When the Initiative started in 2012, we were a lone voice in promoting ‘localism’. Even the term ‘localism’ was unknown in New Zealand back then.