There are 12 days left for councils to present amalgamation plans to the Government as part of its local government reforms. As in the Auckland supercity, the regional mayor would be “a strong voice to Government to promote the interests of the region”. The paper compared the regional authority with two alternatives that could include a separate Wairarapa authority or one that combined Horowhenua and Kāpiti. MartinJenkins had estimated a mega authority of Wellington, Wairarapa and Horowhenua would cost $273 million to set up. If ministers were unhappy about Wellington’s amalgamation proposal, they could throw the region to the “backstop” and decide what the region’s governing structure would look like.