There is a famous truism that “all politics is local” – meaning citizens and voters care most about the things that affect their daily lives.

Many of those things are bound up in the work of local councils: libraries, parks, community centres, roads, garbage removal, water drainage, sewerage, urban landscapes and clean environments.

And yet, despite local government in New Zealand having experienced continued jurisdictional, institutional and financial upheaval over the past several years, the sector still faces enormous underlying challenges.

Those include increased operating costs since COVID, centrally directed changes to planning processes, rates caps and inadequate funding streams, and changes in natural resource management law.

On top of this, there is great uncertainty over the disestablishment of regional councils, on-again-off-again amalgamation plans from central government, and the role of te Tiriti o Waitangi/Treaty of Waitangi in local governance.

Given the urgent need for better policy solutions and innovation, it may be time for a royal commission of inquiry to provide a new blueprint for local government – similar to the process that established the Auckland Council in 2010.

The disruption affecting the sector has been well documented. For example, the previous Labour government’s Three Waters plan to centralise management of water supply and sanitation was dramatically modified during its initial implementation.

It was then repealed entirely by the incoming National government which introduced its own Local Water Done Well legislation.

Similarly, the outgoing National-led coalition’s Head Start amalgamation plan, which replaced the earlier proposed........

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