13 May 2009
Media release

Guts ripped out of local democracy by week’s end

The Government’s so-called technical transition Bill on Auckland governance is in fact a draconian piece of legislation giving it full powers to ram through its Super City plans before Aucklanders have been consulted, says Labour’s Local Government spokesperson George Hawkins.

“Labour will fight tooth and nail to prevent the Local Government (Auckland Reorganisation) Bill being rammed through under urgency and will introduce an amendment seeking to delay the process by six months.

“It will lodge a raft of other amendments to this and the second Bill being introduced under urgency – outlining the structure of the Government’s plans - in the House today to try to inject democracy back into this process.

“The second Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill reveals that despite the Government’s claims to be ‘listening’ to Aucklanders’ concerns, it has made absolutely no changes to its initial proposals,” says George Hawkins.

“The first Bill, which sets up the transition agency, amounts to a massive power grab by the Government. The agency will be set up as soon as the Bill is passed this week and will effectively have total and immediate control of Auckland’s councils. It will be answerable only to the Government,” says Phil Twyford.

“It will overnight take away the democratic rights of 1.4 million Aucklanders who voted in their mayors and councillors and hand those rights over to Rodney Hide and a handful of his mates.

“Auckland ratepayers will have to pay for all of this, without being given an opportunity to say whether they support it. By the time the select committee process is completed at the end of September, the restructuring process will be well underway,” says Phil Twyford.

“The transition agency should not be established until Aucklanders have reached a consensus on the changes they want. The Royal Commission proposed a four year implementation time frame, yet the Government is determined to ram this through with indecent haste.

“It would be better to take the time to get this right. Labour supports a unitary council, but opposes: the toothless community board plans, the plan for at large councillors and the lack of Maori seats and will move amendments reflecting this.”

ENDS

© Scoop Media