Local Government Minister Simeon Brown Photo: RNZ / REECE BAKER
- Local Government Minister Simeon Brown says he is committed to removing Ngāi Tahu councillors from the Canterbury Regional Council "to restore democracy".
- He asked the council to consider promoting a local bill to repeal the Ngāi Tahu Representation Act 2022 as per the government's coalition agreements.
- The council voted to refuse this request at a meeting on Wednesday, saying they valued the relationship with iwi.
- A constitutional expert says the government can't just change a local bill without the council making the request so it will be interesting to see how the government tries to get around this.
The Local Government Minister says he is working through options after the Canterbury Regional Council refused his request to remove Ngāi Tahu councillor seats.
Simeon Brown asked the council to consider promoting a local bill to repeal the Ngāi Tahu Representation Act 2022 that means up to two Ngāi Tahu councillors can be appointed with full decision-making powers.
Councillors voted to reject the request at a meeting on Wednesday, saying they were committed to being a Tiriti partner of excellence.
Minister Simeon Brown said he was disappointed by the regional council's refusal.
"The Government is committed under the coalition agreement between ACT and National ... The Government is currently working through options to restore democracy to the people of Canterbury and will have more to say about this in due course," Brown said.
Otago University law professor and constitutional expert Professor Andrew Geddis said the seats were created by a special legislation just for Canterbury.
"Parliament's rules then say that those local bills can only be repealed or amended by another local bill which requires the council to ask Parliament to do it," Geddis said.
"So unless and until the local council asks Parliament to get rid of these seats, the government can't just come in over the top and change that local bill."
"It's going to be interesting to see how the government's going to try to get around parliament's rules as to how these bits of legislation can be changed."
Te Rōpū Tuia co-chair Dr Liz Brown criticised the government for being short-sighted about making this push during the meeting's public forum, saying there was a lot of rhetoric about how centralisation was a robbery of power and control from local communities and criticism of government intervention.
She questioned how the Minister could justify going any further with this against the wishes of the local council.