4. Directions for policy
Government can affect regions through policies directly aimed at particular locations. It can also inadvertently affect regions by national policies that are non-spatial, but have spatial impacts. This section flags some issues and avenues for further investigation.
4.1 Non-spatial policies
Many national policies that seem spatially neutral may impact across space in different ways. For example, there is a danger that minimum wage and benefit policies that seem fair at a national level may have dysfunctional effects when considered regionally. For example, since the unemployment benefit is fixed nationally, it may encourage people to live where the cost of living is low rather than where the jobs are. This may not be in their long-term best interests.[17]
Regulations can also have spatial impacts. The Resource Management Act, for example, requires those making land use decisions to provide for ‘significant natural areas’ (SNAs). As of 1998, 38% of the Far North had been identified as kiwi habitat SNA by the Far North District Plan – 21% of this land is privately owned. Here a national policy has had a huge spatial effect: the cost of preserving kiwi fell disproportionately heavily on Northland landowners and ratepayers, with no provision for compensation.
Another example is public housing. People may want to move to Auckland for the work opportunities it offers. However, if there are waiting lists for state houses, this is likely to inhibit people moving from a deprived region to the city.
Any policies applied to address Maori deprivation nationally will also vary in their impact. For example the under-utilisation of Maori land is a significant driver of poorer economic outcomes for Maori throughout the country but particularly critical in the East Cape because of the smaller average size of land blocks and the impact of multiple ownership land tenure here.[18] Policies to facilitate the exercise of ownership interests in Maori land generally are therefore likely to have a bigger impact in this region, other things being equal.
These examples indicate that government needs to ensure that it has taken the spatial impact of its non-spatial policies into account. Further work needs to be undertaken to ascertain the extent to which non-spatial policies impact differentially across regions and whether any adjustments to these policies is desirable.
