Mr Martin believes in the interests of providing the most efficient and effective services to the public, councils were duty bound to do better for the community and in some cases that involved sharing.
It was a view Environment Canterbury (Ecan) chairman Bill Bayfield shared, saying in a time in New Zealand when efficiencies were sought across the board, it behoved regional councils to look at ways to do things smarter.
"Otago is our next-door neighbour. We share an unusual boundary."
At a recent council meeting, Mr Martin said he would be looking at ways to share services with Ecan, which he later described as a "kindred organisation".
"With Ecan, there is a reasonable amount of staff and technical linkage."
However, unlike the public service, he said it was not about cutting staff.
"I don't see any potential for that. There is potential to get better value out of our current staff, expenditure and suppliers."
The benefits to collaboration was that there was no need for councils to "reinvent the wheel", he said.
Otago was the first to introduce the Accela system for resource consent and compliance monitoring and Ecan had since followed.
"While their approach is different, we have common ground and there could be mutual benefits to us both and the supplier."
It was about getting the "best value" out of the situation and councils already shared information and learnt from each other's successes and failures, he said.
Otago had chosen to seek those ties with Canterbury due to its size and because it shared suppliers, while Southland had "walked a different line" and was sharing with some North Island councils.
Mr Bayfield said regional councils around the country had collaborated on a variety of projects at a national level and had learnt the benefits of that.
At a recent meeting of regional council chief executives, Ecan commissioner Dame Margaret Beazley urged closer co-operation.
"The view at the time was that South Island collaboration could be very useful."
The size of the new single-entity Auckland council meant having a South Island view in Wellington would also be "useful".
"Graeme and I and my commissioners believe it is time to look deeper and harder [at sharing]."
While Otago and Ecan had a turbulent past, Mr Bayfield said there were certainly no problems now.
"I'm looking forward to... having a really good chat about it and soon."
