On 8 October 2025, Sue Coutts gave an oral submission to Parliament about the Local Government (Systems Improvement) Bill. The Local Government System Improvement Bill adds waste management as a core activity but does not include waste minimisation services. This would negatively impact the way local councils invest in waste minimisation activities. There is no adequate explanation of the reasoning behind this change.
Watch the oral submission
You can watch the video of Sue’s presentation here.
Read the written submission
We have a particular interest in the implications of including waste management – solid waste collection and disposal in the list of core activities.
Zero Waste Aotearoa is a membership organisation with 130+ members across the country who work towards Zero Waste with their local communities. One of these members is Para Kore which is a network in its own right.
72 members provide practical resource recovery and behaviour change services. Collectively they employ 1,088 people, recover 38,400 tonnes of material each year and turn over $79m.
We recognise that upholding Te Tiriti and supporting Indigenous self-determination and kaitiakitanga are essential to addressing the root causes of the waste and climate crises, and to building a truly just and regenerative zero-waste future.
In Summary
The Local Government System Improvement Bill adds waste management as a core activity but does not include waste minimisation services. This would negatively impact the way local councils invest in waste minimisation activities. We note that there is no adequate explanation of the reasoning behind this change included in the papers.
Allowing this change to progress with the sole focus on Waste Management – solid waste collection and disposal would limit the ability of councils and communities to invest in alternatives to disposal that would reduce waste and harm and increase benefits. This would lock them into a situation where they face steadily increasing costs to collect and dispose of increasing volumes of solid waste over time.
Waste Minimisation should be included
Waste minimisation should be included in the list of core services to be provided by Councils. Section 11 A 1 c should read – waste minimisation and management.
The Definition of waste minimisation and management in s 5 should refer to, and be consistent with, the definitions and intent of the Waste Minimisation Act.
Councils already have an obligation to Minimise Waste
The WMA is clear that the Waste Hierarchy must be considered by councils in their waste minimisation and management planning, which includes budget allocation.
Section 44 of the WMA details these requirements. In preparing, amending, or revoking a waste management and minimisation plan, a territorial authority must consider the following methods of waste management and minimisation (which are listed in descending order of importance): reduction, reuse, recycling, recovery, treatment, disposal.
The lack of commitment by central government and companies to progress practical tools and systems for preventing and reducing waste over the last 20 years means households and businesses are very dependent on local councils to enable them to access reuse, repair, recycling, composting and other services that enable them to minimise their waste.
Minimising waste reduces cost, risk and emissions
Minimising waste will reduce cost, risk and emissions for communities so this should be the core priority for investment and spending on services. This supports the Bills intent to use ratepayer funds efficiently.
Focusing on managing waste that has already been created means communities will face steadily increasing costs and liabilities over time. This is contrary to the Bill’s intent to use ratepayer funds efficiently.
Waste minimisation needs to be a core focus
Waste minimisation should be included in the list of core services to be provided by Councils. Section 11 A 1 c should read – waste minimisation and management.
The Bill inserts section 11 A which lists the core services a local authority must have particular regard to. This includes c. waste management. Core services were included in the LGA from 2010 to 2019, the label used at that time was ‘solid waste collection and disposal’.
In the Bill, waste management is defined as solid waste collection and disposal. We note there is no definition of, or reference to solid waste in the Waste Minimisation Act.
The Definition of waste minimisation and management in s 5 should refer to, and be consistent with, the definitions and intent of the Waste Minimisation Act.
The Waste Minimisation Act defines waste minimisation as:
(a) the reduction of waste; and
(b) the reuse, recycling, and recovery of waste and diverted material.
If the definition in the BIll only covers waste management then all of these activities will fall outside the core services umbrella.
Waste minimisation and management should both be included as core services. This is important to ensure legislation and regulations remain consistent with each other. This aligns with:
- The Government’s waste and resource efficiency strategy – Minimising waste and improving waste management. March 2025
- The Waste Minimisation Act 2008.
Why is this being proposed?
We note that there is no adequate explanation of the reasoning, behind the use of waste management without minimisation, included in the papers.
We note the government’s intention to define core activities and to restrict local governments ability to increase rates under the Local Government Improvement work programme. There is a confusing footnote that relates to point 37 in the recently released cabinet paper giving approval to consult on these legislation amendments which states that:
Cabinet agreed that waste management and minimisation facilities (infrastructure) and waste management are core services, but waste minimisation services are not.
Creating a false separation like this would have significant negative implications for councils, how they fund the activities in their WMMP’s and effectively allocate their waste management and minimisation budgets.
Given the background context of proposed changes to the Waste Minimisation Act, the reallocation of the Waste Disposal Levy to activities that sit outside waste minimisation and the work being done on rates caps this can be read as an attempt to devalue waste minimisation activity that is done by councils and communities.
Minimising waste will reduce cost, risk and emissions for communities. This supports the Bills intent to use ratepayer funds efficiently. A focus on managing waste means communities will face steadily increasing costs and liabilities over time. This is contrary to the Bills intent to use ratepayer funds efficiently.
The change looks straightforward on the surface but is part of a radical shift away from proactive investment by both central and local government in infrastructure and services that will minimise waste.
This is apparent in:
- Changes to the way the central government spends its share of the waste disposal levy. Only a small proportion of the funds are now being allocated to minimising waste. A large proportion is being spent on clean ups and other environmental activities. This has the perverse outcome of making government spending on these environmental programmes dependent on a high volume of rubbish going to landfills so the levy funds collected can continue to be reallocated.
- Proposed changes to the way local government spends its share of the waste levy signalled in the Waste Minimisation Act amendment consultation. It is likely to be expanded to cover clean ups and other environmental activities too. Council Waste minimisation fund allocations would no longer be ring fenced making it harder for councils to retain and commit spending to waste minimisation and reduction.
- The government’s intent to limit council spending on certain activities using rates pegs or caps would also limit spending on anything not considered core business. If waste minimisation is excluded from the list of core services it will be hard for councils to justify spending to prevent, reduce and minimise waste.
Waste minimisation reduces cost, risk and liabilities
Allowing this change to progress with the sole focus on Waste Management – solid waste collection and disposal would lock communities and councils into a situation where they will face steadily increasing costs to collect and dispose of increasing volumes of solid waste over time. It would limit the ability of councils and communities to invest in alternatives to disposal that would reduce waste and harm and increase benefits.
The bill is being driven by concerns that councils are:
- spending on activities that stray from core services:
- spending more than necessary on the basics:
- not taking advantage of the full range of funding and financing tools available.
The Local Government System Improvement Bill adds waste management as a core activity but does not include waste minimisation services. This would negatively impact the way local councils invest in waste minimisation activities.
In 2006 the Office of the Auditor General looked into Waste Management Planning by territorial authorities. Their 2007 report found that councils focused on waste diversion and waste disposal. Most of their activities involved managing waste that already existed, rather than reducing the quantity of waste generated over time.
The report noted that without reducing the amount of waste generated they could expect to have to manage steady or increasing quantities of waste. The Auditor General’s office pointed out that this would place increasing demands on systems and budgets over time.
They also noted that with no reduction in waste, and limited diversion, large quantities of waste would continue to flow into landfills. They questioned the sustainability of this and the impact on community well being. The implication being that Councils were locking themselves (and their ratepayers) into an unsustainable and unaffordable trajectory.
Reducing demand for infrastructure and services
Waste Minimisation should remain a priority for councils so they can continue to invest in quality infrastructure and services that will reduce long term costs, risks and liabilities for communities.
The Waste Minimisation Act (WMA) encourages waste minimisation and a decrease in waste disposal to reduce harm and provide environmental, economic, social and cultural benefits.
Preventing and minimising waste will reduce demand for both infrastructure and services. That means that communities and councils won’t have to spend so much on these. This is in line with the Bills intent to ensure efficient spending by councils.
Councils receive 50% of the Waste Disposal Levy funds collected each year. These Waste Disposal Levy funds should remain ring fenced so councils can apply these to support achievement of their Waste Management and Minimisation plan goals.
- Design out waste and pollution by redesigning business models, products and packaging to prevent waste
- Keep products, materials and embodied energy in circulation for long as long as possible through reuse, repair and composting to limit the damage caused upstream by resource extraction and greenhouse gas emissions
- Reduce waste disposal to limit downstream liabilities created by litter and pollution due to escape into the environment, landfills vulnerable to inundation and flooding and perpetual responsibilities for aftercare, leachate control and methane emissions.
Infrastructure and services need to be effective and efficient
The intent of the bill to focus on economic efficiency at the expense of broader and longer term benefits is unhelpful given that councils have an obligation to work in the long term best interests of communities, Te Tiriti partners and the local environment.
Waste minimisation infrastructure and services are critical pieces of public infrastructure that underpin the basic functions of households and businesses. They enable the people of Aotearoa to live lives they have reason to value, meet visitor expectations and fulfil our obligations under international trade agreements. Effectiveness is a critical test.
Waste Minimisation needs to be funded at a level that delivers real value for money i.e the optimum combination of fitness for purpose and whole of life cost. A focus on least cost, at the expense of other outcomes in procurement, has often resulted in a ‘Race to the Bottom’ by suppliers who often compete to do a worse job for less money. This is counterproductive.
This has a negative impact on the whole value chain because poor handling or decision making in one part of the supply and recovery chain has a detrimental effect on the practical and economic success of other parts of the system e.g. collection methods damaging materials so it is more difficult and expensive to effectively recycle them.
Full range of funding and financing tools
Waste Minimisation and management is a complex ecosystem. Councils do not control the levers for many of the key funding and financing tools that can be used to minimise waste.
Government needs to step up and play its part by creating the regulatory frameworks and product stewardship schemes that are needed to shift cost and risk off councils and communities and onto producers.
Councils and communities have steadily advocated for the use of packages of tools by government and businesses to enable effective and efficient waste minimisation and management.
Central government has the power to create a strong and stable regulatory framework and secure funding models for waste minimisation however successive governments have chosen not to do so.
This has left councils and communities picking up the pieces. It has also given companies the freedom to put packaging and products onto the market that impose a wide variety of costs on communities and society.
Tools in the toolkit can be used within and/or alongside product stewardship or extended producer responsibility schemes. They include bans and restrictions, mandates and obligations, targets, economic instruments, design specifications and standards, Service delivery and product repair standards and transparency and reporting requirements.
It is only reasonable to expect councils to meet a set of minimum obligations if they have access to the funds they need to allocate to planning, procuring or doing the work. Unfunded mandates have created unrealistic expectations about what councils can achieve.
Central government has not pulled the levers it has at its disposal to prevent and reduce waste in order to reduce demand on councils services or to create revenue streams that could replace rates funding for recycling and a range of waste minimisation activities.
Councils should only have to meet minimum expectations if they are supported by the government using all the tools it has at its disposal to fund recycling, reuse and repair through EPR charges, use of the Waste Levy and other economic instruments as well as bans, obligations and other supporting actions to prevent and reduce waste.