Local government is inhibited and enabled by central government legislation, policies, and relationships. As such, the election of a new (central) government is a good time to review policy settings for local government. The previous government (2008-2017) systematically stripped back local government in New Zealand, reducing local democracy and treating

Regional Disparities The two maps on this page were drawn by Statistics New Zealand (the originals can be accessed in a Hot Off the Press release available here). They show the percentage changes in the populations of district and city councils between the Census of 2006 and the Census of

It is ironic that as Paul and Anne Ehrlich were writing their influential book The Population Bomb (1968), the global population growth rate was beginning to fall. Driven by declining birth rates, it has continued to fall, and today is half its 1960s’ level of 2.2 per cent per year.