02/08/2026
Here is my column from today’s Southland Times:
The public meeting on the new data centre drew such a crowd that the building reached capacity.
Many in the room felt that decisions were being made without them having a say. Whether or not they agreed with the legal process, the sense of exclusion was real.
Yet the reasons for that were not quite what many assumed. Because this was a Resource Management Act (RMA) process, the opportunities for public participation were determined by law rather than by a simple decision about whether to consult, and no decision was made by councillors.
That meeting got me thinking about consultation, what it actually means, and why getting it right matters so much when communities are facing significant change.
In the Local Government Act, section 82 sets out some key principles around consultation. People who may be affected by a decision should be provided with relevant information, encouraged to present their views, and given a reasonable opportunity to do so. Councils must then receive those views with an open mind and give them due consideration.
Under the RMA, public notification is governed by specific legal tests. Councils do not simply choose whether they want public feedback or not.
The law determines what level of notification applies and, in most cases, decisions are deliberately separated from elected members altogether which was the case in DataGrid’s consent.
The decision maker, often an independent commissioner, is not supposed to ask, “What do I think is best for the district?”; They are supposed to ask, “What does the law require on the evidence before me”; These are quasi-judicial decisions, legal and evidence-based determinations rather than political choices.
Significant RMA decisions are not decided around the council table because they are intended to be legal and evidence-based determinations, not political choices.
A proposal to restructure local government is something entirely different.
Restructuring local government is the exact opposite. It is fundamentally a political and democratic choice. There is no single legally correct answer. The legitimacy of the outcome depends on people having the opportunity to participate before decisions are made, not after.
And that is my fundamental concern with the Head Start process. Over time across the country, we are likely to see town halls full of angry people protesting decisions that have already been made, because they were never given a meaningful opportunity to shape them in the first place.
I spent the first four hours of last Saturday morning watching Invercargill City Council’s meeting discussing Head Start. One thing that I have learned during my time in local government is that important decisions are not just about who is at the table.
Sometimes we need to think about who is not at the table, particularly when they will be affected by the outcome.
As I watched the debate, I became increasingly frustrated. Here was one council representing 1% of the land area, making a decision with region-wide consequences, based on feedback from just over 90 respondents across the whole of Southland.
Returning to the principles of consultation in the Local Government Act, a decision to restructure local government is arguably at least as significant as many decisions that trigger formal public participation under the RMA.
Yet the Act does not prescribe a notification process. Instead, it relies on councils applying the consultation and decision-making principles set out in sections 76 to 82.
That naturally raises some important questions. Was there enough information provided to the community and council to inform a decision?
Was there meaningful engagement before a preferred option was adopted? Were alternative options properly considered? Did decision-makers genuinely keep an open mind?
Given the significance of fundamentally restructuring local government across Southland, it is difficult to see how this process provides a sufficient basis to conclude that a single-council model should proceed.
Whether that meets the standard expected by the Local Government Act is, in my view, a legitimate question.
I saw a room full of frustrated people at the data centre meeting last week. My concern is that we are creating the conditions to see the same thing happen across Southland on local government reform – after the fact when it is too late for people to influence the outcome.
When that happens, people stop feeling like participants in local democracy and start feeling like something has been done to them. It erodes trust, builds apathy, and undermines a very important part of society’s ability to function effectively.
That’s not consultation.
And it’s certainly not how we should be deciding the future of local government in Southland.
