24 July 2026
Over the past few months New Zealand has found itself discussing the biggest changes to local government since the Auckland reforms in 2010, and before that the nationwide reforms of 1989. To date most of the debate has been about boundaries and who merges with whom, but I think that’s the wrong question. Before we decide who should govern together, we should decide how regional government ought to work.
That’s what Waikato Together is about, and it’s the rules of the game which matter most not the players. The traditional model of Councils is that the smaller fish are inevitably the losers, and that bigger is invariably only better for the largest town or city centres. We don’t want that. The basis of Waikato Together is subsidiarity, which sounds like a complicated word but it’s actually very simple. It means that decisions get made at the lowest rung as possible, by the people who have to live with the consequences.
Watch the ten minute presentation below to find out more, and for the slides see HERE:
duncandoestaupo.com 