The Canterbury region covers a land area of 4.22 million hectares, the largest of all the regions in New Zealand. Canterbury occupies one-quarter of the South Island (Johnston, 1983 p.6), consisting of diverse landscapes from the Plains traversed by braided alpine rivers to the Southern Alps (Environment Canterbury, 2010 p.28). The region has ten local
government authorities including Environment Canterbury, Christchurch City, Ashburton District, Hurunui District, Timaru District, Waimakariri District, Selwyn District, Kaikoura District, Waimate District, and part of the Waitaki District. The boundaries of the region extend from the catchment of the Clarence River in the north, to the Waitaki River catchment in the south. The Main Divide forms the western boundary while the region extends 12 nautical miles into the Pacific Ocean to form its eastern boundary (Johnston, 1983 p.6).
To provide some background for the context within which the creation of a ‘super city’ would exist, it is beneficial to investigate some of the recent challenges that local government in Christchurch and the wider Canterbury area have been dealing with. The Canterbury Regional Council (ECan) is a key stakeholder in the affairs of the Christchurch
31 City Council, as the two councils’ responsibilities overlap both spatially and in a statutory context. The relationship between these two councils, therefore, has a significant effect on how local government operates within the greater Christchurch area.
The Canterbury region contains a diverse economy relying on agriculture, industry, fishing, forestry, tourism and energy resources, and also has over 70% of the country’s irrigable land, which underpins the national agricultural sector (Environment Canterbury, 2010 p. 28). The Canterbury region has an estimated 2.62 million hectares of land in agricultural and horticultural production (Department of Internal Affairs, 2012 p. 4). The agricultural use of the land has had a substantial influence on the region’s landscape and has underpinned many of the region’s environmental issues.
In contrast to Auckland, many of Canterbury’s key issues have their genesis in resource management, rather than infrastructure planning. These resource management issues have had a significant influence on the role and relationships between different local government organisations throughout Canterbury. The issue of freshwater management (both ground and surface water) has been identified by a Governmental Review Group as the single most significant issue facing the Canterbury Region (Creech et al., 2010 p. 1). However, The Canterbury Regional Council (ECan) has had a long-running history of in-fighting and discontent over the management of its regional issues (Luke, 2007 p. 5), and a number of these have brought the efficacy of Canterbury governance into question. In particular, the inadequate management of water, in the face of the vast and rapid expansion of the dairy industry has seen lowland rivers and streams become polluted, and aquifers being
overdrawn.
In 2010, Environment Canterbury’s democratically elected governing body of 14 regional councillors was replaced with seven Government-appointed Commissioners. This was justified on grounds of reported longstanding problems of entrenched political divisions; competing and adversarial approaches within the organisation; institutional and technical deficits; and ingrained organisational culture issues (James and Crisp, 2012 p. 3). This provoked a strong reaction amongst local communities in Canterbury, who criticised the government’s lack of sympathy for democratic processes. There was, however, significant support for some change in the functioning of the regional council: In a 2012 Regulatory
32 Impact Statement on Canterbury governance it was stated that Canterbury’s territorial authorities were all unanimous in expressing to Ministers their lack of confidence in ECan, as were iwi, selected stakeholders, and many public submitters (James and Crisp, 2012 p. 8). The Christchurch City Council has also experienced similar challenges. A number of
decisions made by the Christchurch City Council are said to have undermined the transparency, accountability and decision-making of the City Council as well as the leadership of Mayor Bob Parker (Drage, 2011a p. 158).
The earthquake of February 2011 resulted in a drastic reorganisation of power in
Christchurch’s local government framework. Central government asserted a higher degree of control over local government in Canterbury through implementation of a legislative framework creating the ‘Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority’ (CERA). CERA is described as an “agency established by the Government to lead and coordinate the on- going recovery effort” (Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority, n.d.). CERA’s role is to provide integrated decision-making across a range of public and private organisations although the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Act gives the Earthquake Minister Gerry Brownlee powers to override a number of statutory decisions made by local authorities. In 2012, following periods of apparent conflict and dysfunction within the council, Central Government appointed an observer to sit on the council leading to speculation in the media and public that the City councillors would also be replaced by government-appointed commissioners. The open-ended imbalance in the relationship between local and central government (through the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority) is an issue that is influencing local governance and democracy in the region.
The recent history of local government in Christchurch indicates a lack of certainty around where power is believed to best reside. Even before the establishment of ECan, and the experiences suffered by the Canterbury earthquakes, there was a long-running history of in- fighting and discontent within local bodies over the management of particular issues, and claims of a power struggle between ECan and the Christchurch City Council have drawn widespread criticism of both organisations (Espiner, 2001 p. 48, Luke, 2007). It is beneficial to further examine the tensions that have existed between the Christchurch City Council
33 and the Canterbury Regional Council, as any local government reform in Christchurch must aim to neutralise the power struggle between these two levels of local government.
Local government changes in Christchurch city that result in the City Council extending its boundary of responsibility over a wider area have the potential to cause changes in the relationship between the district and regional councils. How these two spheres of local government interact and cooperate together is of significance for any local government reform in Christchurch. A more in depth analysis of the structure, functions and
relationships of the three district councils that are being investigated by the research will now be presented.