The Local Government and Environment select committee has released a report on the Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 2), with a majority recommendation that it be passed.

The bill proposes changes to the Local Government Act 2002 and the Local Government (Auckland Council) Act 2009 and consequential amendments to a number of other statutes.

The bill has the objective of giving local authorities more flexibility to co-ordinate and combine resources and infrastructure networks across regions and towns. To achieve this the bill proposes measures such as enabling transfer of more functions between local authorities, joint governance arrangements for areas of common or shared interest, greater of joint council-controlled organisations for core services such as water and transport, and flexible reorganisation processes.

The bill was referred to the committee on 15 June 2016 with submissions closing on 28 July 2016. The committee received 184 submissions and heard from 84 submitters.

The Green, Labour and New Zealand First parties do not support the bill.