ABSTRACT
As discussed in Chapters 5 and 9, regional and rural New Zealand has experienced a profound process of institutional, economic, and social transformation since the 1980s which has fundamentally impacted on local governance, community well-being, and employment (Peet, 2012). The state’s wholesale adoption of neoliberalism, the trimming of welfare state benefits and support to rural and deprived areas, the privatization of state economic entities with severe impacts on rural employment levels, the cessation of forestry operations in areas with indigenous forests, and the restructuring of employment relationships and the role unions once played were all hallmarks of this era. The preceding has directly impacted on the viability and well-being of large numbers of small towns and rural communities, particularly those in the resource-frontier regions of the country (Roper, 2005; Lattimore and Eaqub, 2011; Maunder, 2012). Added to these upheavals was the decision by the state in the late 1980s to amalgamate several hundred borough councils and local authorities to form the current 76 territorial authorities which form the basis of the country’s local government system, leading to the loss of local small town autonomy and the silencing of the voice of the smaller communities (Nel, 2015).
