Forcing Councils to do impossibly more with less

The government is mulling a rates cap on councils, even as it delegates more duties to local authorities, creating an impossible bind, writes Catherine Murupaenga-Ikenn.

 

The Wellbeing Economy Alliance Aotearoa (WEAll) has just released a timely and thoughtful publication for this year’s local government elections: Policy for the Public Good: A Local Government Resource Guide.

It offers a refreshing and values-based approach to how we talk about public investment, with useful tools for both local government candidates and voters.

In a political environment that is often dominated by division and distrust, WEAll urges us to lift our sights, and to rally around the things we hold in common: strong communities, thriving ecosystems, respect for Te Tiriti o Waitangi and collective wellbeing.

Their thoughts about how we fund local services through rates are particularly helpful.

Framing rates as a “forward exchange” — where we invest now so our kids and communities can benefit in the future — rightly emphasises the bigger-than-us nature of public goods.

It invites a return to civic imagination and shared responsibility. WEAll’s encouragement to shift public conversations from individual cost to collective value is a breath of fresh air in an often bleak political landscape.

But here’s the rub. Those admirable narratives will only hold if they’re backed by a fair economic system, one that can only be created by central government policy.

The elephant in the room is that councils are being handed bigger and bigger responsibilities without the financial tools to meet them.

Central government continues to delegate duties for things like environmental stewardship, social infrastructure, and community wellbeing, but with little or no funding to go with them. This isn’t decentralisation. It’s the export of risk.

The result? Local councils are left with no real option but to raise rates — and that’s creating a pressure cooker. Households across Aotearoa are already struggling with the cost of living. Add unaffordable rates hikes into the mix, and you’ve got a recipe for civic breakdown. Councils telling people who are barely making ends meet that they need to pay more for libraries and clean water — even if it’s true — can feel like salt in the wound when the economic system remains rigged against them.

Let’s be clear: Rates per se are not the problem, if they’re fair. The real issue is the broader structure of our economy — one that steadily transfers wealth upwards, while pushing more risk and financial burden onto ordinary people and local governments.

The social contract is fraying not because people don’t care about the public good, but because too many of them are carrying too much of the load, for too little return.

If we want WEAll’s ideas to land — and they absolutely should — then we must also call for systemic change. That means central government must stop offloading unfunded mandates to local authorities. It must provide fair, needs-based funding so communities can deliver on the outcomes they are being tasked with.

We need national economic reform that ensures equitable wealth distribution so that the majority — poor, working, and even middle-class people on low or fixed incomes — aren’t being bled dry by an economy that disproportionately serves the minority elite class.

And we need aspiring local government elected representatives to be courageous enough to name the systemic issues, and imaginative enough to create ways to address them — even as they work constructively with the levers they do control.

Because too often, when I’ve raised this reality with councillors or staff, they bemoan that there’s absolutely nothing they can do to bring justice and fairness to the situation. This admits defeat from the get-go — that all they can do is essentially optimise a failed space, knowing all the while that the steady decline of good ordinary people and communities will continue.

Well, as a human rights activist and citizen of an Aotearoa which has a proud history of being politically outspoken and world-leading, I find that unacceptable.

To all candidates running in this year’s local elections: Use WEAll’s guide. Its emphasis on shared values and wellbeing is exactly what this moment calls for. But also, show true leadership. Challenge the structural constraints that are forcing councils to do impossibly more with less.

And to voters: Ask your candidates not just what they’ll do for your community, but how they’ll advocate for fairer funding and economic justice.

This election can be more than a contest over potholes and rubbish collection. It can be a turning point — a call for a system that honours both our shared needs and our shared futures.

Because if we want resilient, flourishing communities, we must resource them. Not just locally, but fairly and collectively as a nation.

 

Catherine Murupaenga-Ikenn is a proud grandmother who hails from Te Rarawa and Ngāti Kurī. She has a Bachelor of Law and Social Sciences, and a Master of Laws, and holds two UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights Indigenous Fellowships. Catherine is a co-founding member of numerous social justice and campaign groups, including Te Waka Hourua and Climate Change Tai Tokerau Northland. Catherine has been an Indigenous human rights and environmental activist for most of her adult life.

E-Tangata, 2025