Dr Michael Bassett: Chris Bishop and Simon Watts are correct

When I first heard of their plans to do away with regional councils and replace them with boards of mayors I thought the timing rather odd. After all, we have just had local elections, and telling the newly-elected they are redundant seemed needlessly insulting. But it quickly became clear that these were proposals, and not some sort of ministerial coup d’etat. Chris Bishop and Simon Watts seem to be proposing to use the next three years to fine-tune their ideas. The goal is laudable: to remove an expensive layer of authority from local government that is no longer necessary, thereby reducing costs for ratepayers.