Local government has been smushed into a much more centralised system over the last 4 decades. Elected local boards that took care of specific jobs in some places (eg drainage boards) were folded into councils. As were community boards in a lot of places.
Many councils were themselves folded together. A process known among local opponents as "forced amalgamation". Auckland started out with dozens of independent city, district and borough councils. Now there's one ring to rule them all.
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Now it seems like we're looking at another round of forced amalgamation of local bodies, with Auckland's "supercity" council as the model. The first step being arbitrarily firing all regional councillors and adding their responsibilities to the jobs of city and district mayors.
Two RNZ shows have reported on this over the last week or so, Focus on Politics;
https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/focusonpolitics?share=ad5c05a5-7472-48fe-b6c8-f13f997ef2aa
... and The Detail;
https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/the-detail?share=58b425f8-6bc9-4e38-adf8-d9f921904eb9
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