Abstract

Chapter
First Online: 04 May 2022
Part of the Local and Urban Governance book series (LUG)

Abstract

New Zealand’s local government’s experience of the COVID-19 pandemic differed from those of most countries as a consequence of geography and decisive action by its central government early in the pandemic. The country was able to eliminate the spread of the COVID-19 virus in the community early in the emergency through a draconian lockdown and so avoided most public health impacts associated with the pandemic elsewhere. Rather, attention has focused on the recovery from the social and economic impacts resulting from international economic downturn including a collapse of the tourism sector, and the domestic lockdown. The experiences of three territorial authorities highlight the sub-regional differences in both impacts and approaches to recovery. They show tensions between different levels of government to implement policy within a devolved and largely autonomous local government regime. More broadly the country has seen the reversal of some of the tenets of the neoliberal state that has underpinned government policy for the last 30 years.

Cite this chapter
McNeill, J., Asquith, A. (2022). End of the World: New Zealand’s Local Government and COVID-19 Je. In: Nunes Silva, C. (eds) Local Government and the COVID-19 Pandemic. Local and Urban Governance. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91112-6_30

Keywords