An East Coast politician is calling a possible move to amalgamate the Bay of Plenty's district and regional councils as 'catastrophic” for the eastern part of the region.

Labour List MP Moana Mackey, who works in the Eastern Bay of Plenty, opposes amalgamation of BOP councils.

Speaking to SunLive while visiting Tauranga this month, Labour List MP Moana Mackey says, from experience working in the Eastern Bay of Plenty, her personal opinion is amalgamation isn't needed here.

'The region works very collaboratively; they share services already, there will be very little to gain financially from amalgamation, in fact I think it would cost more than you'd gain.”

Moana says having a council and Mayor is very different from having a councillor on a unitary authority that is dominated by the Western Bay of Plenty.

'And given that most of our social needs and economic needs are in the Eastern Bay, I think we'd lose some very, very strong voices [for the area].

'The Bay of Plenty already works really well together as a region. I know from Central Government perspective when a council in the BOP comes to government and says we'd like financial support for something, we know everyone in the BOP is on-board.

'So we know if we're going to go ahead [with something] another council in the BOP is not going to stick tis head up and say ‘hey, no'.”

Kawerau Mayor Malcolm Campbell has also come out opposing the move that may see Bay of Plenty councils merge to form a super council, saying it's something he fears will have his town shouldering its bigger, neighbouring councils' burden of debt.

'I have strong reservations that amalgamation would be for the best for Kawerau people,” says the Mayor of the country's smallest council.

'As I have said before, I take a cautious approach because at the moment I see downsides and not many upsides.

'Kawarau is one of the few debt-free councils in the country; and I doubt it would be for the benefit of the local community to take on the debt burden of some of our neighbours.

'In my experience, debt doesn't go away easily. Serious cut-backs and mayor changes are needed to tackle debt. My feeling is that if Kawerau was swallowed up into a larger organisation, the debt wouldn't go away, but it would spread the costs of that debt over more people.”

Moana says the issue lies with Tauranga and Western Bay being dominant in terms of population, which may see small communities with different and high needs not being addressed under amalgamation.

Malcolm also shares Moana's concerns about Bay communities losing representation and emphasis on their issues.

'In an amalgamation process, there would, of course, be a loss of focus on the smaller communities when competing for attention from larger places like Tauranga or Rotorua.

'Someone in Tauranga isn't going to worry about jobs for people in Kawerau. I recognise that the Kawarau District is a high deprivation area and this would push us even further down the pecking order.”

Moana says an Eastern Bay Mayor role also has different needs to the same job in a big city. 'The mayors are politicians in the big cities; in the provinces they are community leaders – it's a very very different role.”

She points to Malcolm in Kawerau, which when experiencing a spate of youth suicides, he spoke out on behalf of his community about it.

She also points to Mayor John Forbes being able to get aquaculture investment from China, due to Mayors being very highly respected in the Asian country.

'He's leveraged that; he understands that and uses it – and he wouldn't have the same clout if he was just a councillor on a unitary authority.”

'From my perspective it's fixing a non-existent problem – creating potentially many, many problems because the work or mayoral councillors do in the Eastern bay is important – and that voice would just be lost.

'It [amalgamation] ends up costing more and being less representative.”

Moana was in Tauranga this month as Labour's spokesperson for the environment, speaking with Tauranga's Envirohub members on her way to visit Rotorua's Te Arawa lakes project.