The Te of Local Government

At our garage sale, where I was supposed to be getting rid of my stuff I bought a copy of Hoff’s The Te of Piglet. For an hour or two I have revelled in his exposition of the Taoist principle of Te – the virtue of smallness, as exemplified in AA Milne’s immortal Piglet. It was a great little read, especially for someone committed to small churches and Local Shared Ministry.
But, hey, it also speaks to me about district government. I think our Mayor has got it right when he says there is too much overlapping of local authorities in the north. But, for my money, local government should come right down to every one of the local communities. Every discrete community should be able to elect its own element of local government.
For everything else, I would leave it to the state. Parliament already makes a lot of the laws that District Councils then, if they wish, add into their own regulations. The state already administers our education, police, courts, health and welfare and other functions on a reasonably consistent basis from one end of the country to the other. Let them add a little more administration to take in local roads, water, wastewater and put the Councils out to grass.
We have far too much government in this country but we need more of it in small lively, empowered organisations at the local level and none at all, thanks very much, at district and regional level.