Cultural Well-being and Local Government: Lessons from New Zealand

Reforms of local government legislation in the United Kingdom (2000) and in New Zealand (2002) both introduced well-being powers. The UK reform gave local government a new power to promote social, economic and environmental well-being, but New Zealand added a fourth dimension - cultural well-being. This paper examines the background to New Zealand's 'quadruple bottom line' approach. It explains that it was the result of policymakers in New Zealand grappling for 25 years with the question of how to give effect to what the Town and Country Planning Act 1977 described as 'the relationship of the Maori people and their culture and traditions with their ancestral lands'. New Zealand's legislation requires a fully integrated approach by decision-makers using the well-being power, and the essay concludes with a discussion of how this has provided a forum for contests and compromises over cultural well-being to take place within a framework of democratic local decision-making by communities.