Mayors could rule as ECan faces the chopping block

Tuesday, 25 November 2025

Environment Canterbury (ECan) is poised to be gutted under a sweeping overhaul of local government that would hand regional decision-making to local mayors.

The proposals, announced on Tuesday, would be the biggest shake-up of local government since 1989. If adopted, it would abolish regional councillors and could redistribute regional council functions across new structures.

The Government is proposing two major changes.

The first is to scrap elected regional councillors and replace them with Combined Territories Boards (CTBS), likely made up of district and city mayors who would assume all current regional council responsibilities.

The second is to require those boards to write a reorganisation plan for their region, mapping out how councils could better co-operate. Options include sharing services, reallocating functions, or merging smaller councils together.

These plans must be completed within two years and approved by the Minister for Local Government.

The reforms are designed to work in tandem with a full replacement of the Resource Management Act (RMA), due within weeks. It is expected to simplify and streamline the existing system.

RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop said on Tuesday the existing planning system was “tangled in duplication, disagreements, and decisions that defy common sense”.

The proposed replacement was a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” to enable economic growth and improve living standards while protecting the environment.

“I think it would be fair to say that the system is out of date and heaving under its own weight,” Bishop said.

“It's confusing and duplicative, costing ratepayers too much, too often. New Zealanders deserve clarity, coherence and cost effectiveness from local authorities, and the Government is confident these proposals deliver on those objectives.”

The proposal is not final and could shift ahead of final implementation in 2027, but has been agreed to by the Government. Consultation runs from now until February 20.

Otago Regional councillor and former NZ First MP Michael Laws said the reforms could have been done a decade ago, and he expected few people would shed tears over them.

“It’s just common sense. I’ve never understood the need for regional councils.They are ineffective and ineffectual, costly and bureaucratic.

“Regional councils have been exceptionally bad at improving environments, and at listening to communities.

“They’re bureaucratic, bloated beasts, and everyone knows that.”

What it means for ECan

News of the plan was tightly held: It is understood councils were not briefed because the details were deemed market-sensitive.

For months, questions have swirled about whether regional authorities could survive the Government’s preference for a simplified planning system.

If the proposals are adopted, ECan — the country’s largest regional authority — would be transformed and potentially disestablished.

ECan chairman Dr Deon Swiggs said the changes would “reshape how Canterbury manages its environment, economy, and community resilience for decades to come”.

Councillors would be gone by mid-2027, Swiggs said, and each council’s individual model would follow. It was also unclear what the changes might mean for mana whenua representation.

But he added: “The rain doesn't stop falling, the wilding pines don’t stop spreading, and economic activity doesn’t pause for political discussions.”

Swiggs said ECan had already made changes in line with what the Government wants - and had itself called for change - but said the question now is how to improve outcomes for communities while strengthening democratic accountability.

“Regional decisions need regional accountability… They work best when made by people elected by and accountable to the whole region, not committees primarily representing individual districts. Cross-boundary challenges require cross-boundary solutions with clear democratic mandate.”

He added: “We’re not proposing to change our staffing. The work still needs to be done.”

ECan oversees air and water quality, public transport, biodiversity, biosecurity, flood control, and coastal and river management. It employs roughly 900 staff and spends about $300 million a year.

No decision had been made about whether regional councillors, who were only recently elected, would serve out their three-year terms.

“Combined Territories Boards would empower mayors from the same region to work together to govern their regions through genuine regional collaboration,” Bishop said.

“It would streamline regional decision-making across planning, infrastructure, and regulation, reduce duplication, and strengthen accountability. It would also remove an unnecessary, confusing, and expensive structure.”

Bishop said the Crown could also have a role on these boards through observers or commissioners.

The board’s decisions would largely be made through a population-based voting system, with safeguards ensuring that smaller communities are represented. Resource management decisions would require both a majority of population-weighted votes and a majority of board members, Bishop said.

The regional reorganisation plans prepared by each board would need to meet a set of national criteria.

Examples cited in the announcement included managing rates increases, providing better services, and having realistic plans.

Centralised control

In a statement Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ) interim chief executive Scott Necklen said councils supported reform and greater efficiencies but warned any new system had to be workable and deliver value for ratepayers.

“The reforms announced today propose the most significant changes to local government since 1989. It’s important that once-in-a-generation change has strong buy in.”

Swiggs, who is also the LGNZ regional sector chair, said a democratic mandate was important for balancing growth with environmental protection.

“Our work in building flood resilience, supporting the productive economy, and protecting the environment is what makes our country special. It’s vital we get the future model for delivering these responsibilities right.”

Christchurch mayor Phil Mauger and city council chief executive Mary Richardson were unable to comment, a spokesperson saying they needed more time to consider the proposals and understand the details.

ACT’s local government spokesperson, Cameron Luxton, said the reforms would fulfil their coalition commitment to end unelected representation at ECan.

“This is a good day for local democracy. Kiwis deserve to know who is making decisions over their lives and livelihoods.”

He said having multiple councils duplicated costs and has left ratepayers “wondering who is responsible for what”.

“By removing a layer of governance, we are making it clearer where responsibility sits.”

But Sir Kerry Burke — a former Speaker of the House and a past ECan chair — questioned the basic logic of disempowering regional councils without a clear plan for who picks up their core functions.

“Changing the structure of local government won’t necessarily change its functions, they will just need to be done by somebody else,” he said.

“We’re not going to suddenly not have catchment protection or planning work or that sort of thing… Somebody’s going to have to do the work, and it’s going to cost whoever has to do it.”

He said the idea looked less like a drive for efficiency and more like an effort to centralise political control.

“It comes across like if you don’t agree with what the Government’s doing, then you’re at risk.”

Last week, Te Uru Kahika — a partnership of regional and unitary authorities, which Swiggs also chairs — released independent research that found some critical public services were best delivered at a regional scale.

The research, by Castalia, “highlights that abandoning regional delivery will create significant costs, risks, and disruption at a time when New Zealand can least afford it”, the group said.

It was widely read as an attempt to get ahead of the Government’s announcement and respond to its oppositional rhetoric about local government.

In a statement on Te Uru Kahika called for the Government to engage with regional counterparts over the changes, with Swiggs saying he was concerned the proposal would destabilise local government rather than strengthen it.

Federated Farmers said it was cautiously welcoming the proposals, but localism must sit at the heart of any reforms.

“The reform process needs care and debate. Local government structures have come under increasing scrutiny in recent years as rates have skyrocketed and service levels have declined,” said Federated Farmers local government spokesperson Sandra Faulkner.

“With the rising cost of living top of mind for most households and businesses, there is a real need to strip out the inefficiencies and duplication that pull a handbrake on productivity.”

ECan’s history

ECan’s territory runs from the high country north of Kaikōura down to the Waitaki River, encompassing plains, braided rivers, aquifers, and coasts.

Unlike their city counterparts, which deal in roads and rubbish, regional councils manage air, water, and land — resources fundamental to both the environment and the economy.

No council has had a harder collision between those worlds than ECan. It has had to balance the intense economic demand for water, driven by dairy farming, with protecting a sensitive and deteriorating environment.

The push and pull between those forces came to a head in the late 2000s. The dairy boom led to a flood of consent applications for dairy conversions and large irrigation schemes; at the same time, mounting scientific evidence showed declining river health and aquifers that were already over-allocated.

A perceived failure to handle these issues led to a government review of ECan’s performance. Led by former Deputy Prime Minister Wyatt Creech, it delivered a blunt verdict: the council’s performance “falls well short of what is essential,” and fixing the situation required “comprehensive and rapid intervention.”

Environment Minister Nick Smith quickly replaced all 14 elected councillors with commissioners. While supporters framed it as an overdue correction, critics described it as a political manoeuvre to clear the way for continued dairy expansion.

The commissioners remained in charge for six years — longer than the initially signalled three — designing the Canterbury Water Management Strategy (CWMS), the framework that underpinned the region’s water rules. In 2016, ECan moved to a mixed-model, with a combination of elected members and commissioners, before a full return to democracy in 2019.

The arguments that led to the suspension of democracy never really disappeared. Environmentalists have continued to accuse ECan of moving too slowly and allowing nitrate contamination and degraded rivers to fester. Farming organisations, meanwhile, have cast the council as a heavy-handed regulator whose rules make it harder to operate or renew consents.

The council has also been subject to the whims of changing national priorities, including duelling freshwater reforms and the looming replacement of the Resource Management Act (RMA).

Through it all, ECan has grown into a large and complex institution, attempting to referee one of the country’s most combustible environmental debates.

It has also broadened its partnership with mana whenua, with representatives from Ngāi Tahu holding two council seats.