Hide targets councils

Local government inefficiency is hurting the New Zealand economy and farmers, according to Local Government Minister Rodney Hide.

Hide, speaking at the Federated Farmers national conference in Auckland today, said he had fielded a great deal of correspondence from farmers frustrated with their rates and resource management compliance issues.

"The messages are very clear - farmers are paying too high rates and that is impacting on the viability of your farms," he said.

Hide said the solution to this was to contain local government costs to limit rate increases, which would benefit all ratepayers.

He said some councils' were running their resource consent applications poorly and it was his goal to create a more streamlined process to speed up consent processing, and to reduce its cost.

His current focus was on local government reform, especially around how ratepayers could have greater say in how their money was spent.  However, this meant those farmers advocating that rate setting move away from being based on land values towards cost and benefits analysis would be disappointed for now.

Hide also indicated he was pushing for a "2025" commission - a condition of Act's confidence and supply agreement with National. This would look at why New Zealand productivity had dropped back and how this country could emulate Australia and other "more successful countries".

- © Fairfax NZ News