ACT Leader Rodney Hide Speech To ACT Auckland South Regional Conference Mt Eden, Auckland

Saturday, October 16 2010

As you are aware, not only am I Leader of the ACT Party, I am also a Minister of the Crown.

This is a privilege afforded to the ACT Party following our success at the 2008 General Election.

This is a privilege afforded to the ACT Party, thanks to the people of Epsom; whose vote ensured ACT got five MPs.

It was because of this success that ACT was able to offer support to John Key and ensure a stable National-led Government.

A role as a Minister comes with much responsibility and is a great honour.

As we are in Auckland today, I thought it would be fitting for me to give my perspective on the Auckland Governance reforms.

As you know, much work has been done to ensure that the people of Auckland have a new Council that they can be proud of.

In my capacity as Minister of Local Government, yesterday, I met with Mayor Len Brown and congratulated him on his election to what is arguably the second most powerful position in the country.

It’s certainly one of the most important and carries with it enormous responsibility.

Local government in New Zealand has never seen anything like it before.

Len and his Council and the Local Boards will be responsible for the governance of a truly great city with assets approaching $30 billion.

We have just witnessed a major shift in the balance of power in favour of local government.

The men and women Aucklanders have just elected represent a full one-third of the population of New Zealand, and constitute the country’s economic powerhouse.

A dynamo that until now has been paralysed by fragmented governance, with endless confusion and argument over responsibility with an ensuing lack of accountability.

The new Mayor and his team will be able to do that because they have been equipped with the tools to unlock the rich potential of their city and its people.

The provisions are in place for the big job ahead. Now, it is incumbent on them to end decades of parochial infighting, factionalism, loss of focus and lack of regional cohesion.

And I have no doubt whatsoever that Len Brown is more than capable of leading such a charge.

Commentators have delighted in pointing out that Auckland has a left-leaning Mayor and a left-leaning Council.

This is somehow interpreted as a criticism of the Super City concept.

What nonsense.

The political hue of the Council or its Mayor is an irrelevance.

What matters is they can now speak with one voice for the entire region.

What matters is they now have the structure in place to ensure an Auckland in which we can all be proud to live, work and play.

What matters is they are now able to deliver on Auckland’s true potential.

Let’s remind ourselves of why the Government put this structure in place.

Auckland ratepayers were sick of their city being paralysed by the woeful inability of eight councils to agree on anything.

The Royal Commission of Inquiry on Auckland Governance spent 18 months considering how to address the existing weak and fragmented regional governance arrangements and improve community engagement.

The Commission determined that Auckland’s existing councils lacked the collective sense of purpose, constitutional ability, and the momentum to address issues effectively for the overall good of Auckland, and recommended that the Government act.

The Government did just that.

A united Auckland governance structure, integrated decision-making, greater community engagement and improved value for money. The new Council will be able to make the critical decisions to move the region forward and foster common identity and purpose. It will streamline operations and reduce bureaucracy through consistently delivered policies, lowered fees and costs, simplified paper work and improved customer service across the region.

It is about improvement and greater efficiency. It is about what’s good for ratepayers.

It is about providing a service culture from the people in the ratepayers’ pay. From the moment the phone is answered.

It is about attracting people and investment.

It is about delivering greater effectiveness, better service and democratic accountability.

It is about eliminating duplication — simplifying rating and planning.

It is about a City of the future.

There has been a lack of leadership and vision but now Len Brown and his Council will be able to think regionally, plan strategically and act decisively.

Regardless of the political persuasion of who might lead it, Auckland will finally be a world-class city; the economic powerhouse that New Zealand so desperately needs.

Talking of political persuasion, back in 1919 it was Michael Joseph Savage who campaigned for the unification of all civic bodies in Auckland into a single municipal government.

And Aucklanders have been complaining ever since. Waiting ever since.

Complaining about an inadequate transport system and waterfront development amongst others. In short, complaining about a dysfunctional city where feudal bickering has stymied progress for nigh on a century.

Waiting for someone to fix the problem.

Well, to fix the problem this government have done what no government has been prepared to do for the past one hundred years.

The National Government bolstered by the ACT Party, has been bold, decisive, and yes, radical.

Together we have produced what has rightly been described as a workable prescription for Auckland’s woes.

Auckland has everything you would expect of a great international city.

One of the world’s most beautiful harbours; a diverse and vibrant society; an entrepreneurial business community; the commercial heart of the nation.

Yet, the city has been paralysed by its fragmented governance, with endless confusion and argument over responsibility with the ensuing lack of accountability.

Net result. Gridlock. Not just on the poorly planned road network but in every aspect of daily life.

Everything I have heard from the new Mayor to date tells me he is determined to do something about all of that.

The Royal Commission on Auckland Governance was clear in what was needed. One Auckland. One long-term council community plan. One spatial plan. One district plan. One rating system. One rates bill. One voice for Auckland.

It didn’t say a blue voice or a red voice or a green voice, it said one voice.

Now we have one Mayor for the whole region. A Mayor to head the governing body and promote a vision for Auckland and provide the leadership to achieve that vision.

There are 20 councillors, from 13 areas, or “wards” and 21 local boards representing local communities. They will make decisions on local issues, activities and facilities and will work with the Mayor and Council to ensure community interests are well represented in regional decision making. Local boards will have their own decision-making responsibilities for local matters, while the council takes responsibility for the wider picture on regional matters, addressing the need for grass-roots decision-making and accountability. The local boards, a completely new entity for local government in New Zealand, will have far more extensive powers than the former community boards.

They will have responsibility for promoting the well being of their communities, including the content of strategies, policies, plans and by-laws that impact on those communities.

The Council must listen to their preferences on funding and how that is allocated in local board areas. I stress this as the local boards are a safeguard against sudden and inappropriate changes by the Mayor and council.

You may recall the original recommendation was to disestablish community boards and keep six watered down councils.

This did not address the need for grass roots decision-making and accountability.

A single governing body and local boards give more power to the people than the former community boards.

Power that ensures the views of local communities, and the will of the people, are heard at the top table.

A guaranteed voice for local communities.

The overall intent of the Super City is clear enough. No more endless disagreements about the location and funding of regional amenities, and the provision of necessary infrastructure. Auckland’s traffic woes will now be dealt with by a single body. No more arguments about sports stadia. No more costly duplication of functions with eight rating authorities, seven district plans and a multitude of differing bylaws.
You can confidently expect efficiency gains in the years ahead from integrated long-term planning and decision-making.

I say confidently because what more would you expect when eight city, district and regional councils become one.

A full third of the thousands of submissions to the Royal Commission expressed real anger, despair and frustration over the regulatory red tape, and the cost of complying with different district and rural plans across the region. They complained of ever poorer services for ever higher costs. A process that was blocking development.

The changes, the improvements, won’t happen overnight but rationalising the tangle of plans and policies will deliver consistency.

The focus will be on lowering fees and costs and simplifying the paper work.

A single district plan will go a long way towards that.

Costs will be lower with better customer service.
There are a bewildering number of fee categories across the region. Take dogs. Sixty categories for registering, impounding, and adopting dogs. There will now be half that number with charges dropped to the lowest levels.

Then there are building inspections, currently charged at an hourly rate varying from $110 to $178. In future there will be a standard hourly charge of $110 across the region.

And the Resource Consent forms! Over 850 forms currently used by councils will be reduced to 120 simplified forms for consistency across the region. Wherever you are in the region, the consent application will be the same.

And there will be a single Building Control Authority. This will deliver a standardised control policy and acceptance criteria. A consistent policy for reviewing and deciding on applications.

This is about cutting red tape and making the council more responsive.
Moving from eight councils to one should make the system easier to understand and use.

As for costs. We know the price of water is going to tumble.

From the first of July next year everyone in the current Auckland, Waitakere, Manukau, North Shore and the Orewa/Whangaparaoa area of Rodney District will pay less.

Many, significantly less.

Everyone will pay the same tariff $1.30, including GST, for 1000 litres of water.

These are massive savings and proof positive that the decision to amalgamate all the existing council water entities into Watercare, as the sole supplier, was a wise and justified call. Water pricing should not be used, as it has been, to disguise rate hikes.

Watercare is required by law to be a low cost provider that cannot return dividends or surpluses to its shareholder.

Meanwhile, the Council will be working on its own unified rating policy, which will come into effect from 1 July 2012.

The Government’s aim has been to fix Auckland's governance so the Mayor and Council can implement their vision and strategy for Auckland, and have the tools to deliver on that vision and strategy.

As for the notion this will be all run from Queen Street.

There will be full service centres in Central Auckland but also in Takapuna, Henderson and Manukau. And, local services centres at Orewa, Waiheke, Papakura and Pukekohe.

Plus there will be neighbourhood service centres at Warkworth, Huapai, Helensville, Great Barrier and Waiuku.

And, it is intended that service centres will be provided for each of the local board areas where one does not currently exist.

As for staff. There have been job losses at senior management level; creating a smaller and tighter top management team to drive the necessary improvement and consistency across the region.

Significantly, front line staff numbers have not been reduced.

The Council Controlled Organisations or CCOs, have attracted much attention. Let’s be clear. Auckland’s CCOs will be the most accountable of any council in the country.

CCOs are there to enable the Council to make use of specialist commercial expertise that is not available within the Council itself. And remember, there is nothing new in this.

They have been in existence all around the country since the former Labour-led government began setting them up in 2002.

In Auckland alone there are now more than 300 council-owned or council-funded such entities with some form of corporate or business-like structure, spread across the existing eight councils. No less than 41 of these are CCOs, primarily companies or trusts that have been established for community, service delivery or commercial purposes.

The CCOs will have boards appointed by the Council that may also dismiss directors. Again. Let’s be clear here. The council determines the policy and appoints a board to ensure its wishes are carried out. Failure to do so can lead to the wholesale dismissal of a board and the appointment of directors who are determined to carry out the will of the council. The will of the people. How much more democratic can you get?

Let’s spell it out. The Auckland Council will have ultimate control of the board appointees, appoint the chairman and deputy chairman of each CCO, dictate the strategic objectives of each CCO to comply with the Council’s long-term plan and have the security of being able to fire directors and open up meetings to the public.

Len Brown has already indicated he will be doing this.

In other words, forget any notion that the CCOs will be a law unto themselves.

What’s more — with the exception of Auckland Transport, which will require an Act of Parliament to disband it — there is no impediment to the Council disestablishing any of the CCOs.

Critics of the new city structure are pointing to the CCOs as having some form of secret agenda to conduct council business behind closed doors, away from the public gaze. Interestingly, these same critics do not seem to see such a problem with any of the existing such entities.

Yet still the conspiracy theorists spread their doom and gloom message and point to water as being in the gun for privatisation.

Let me put this bogey to rest once and for all.

Watercare is charged with being a minimum price provider that cannot by law pay a dividend to its shareholder. Who buys a company that can’t, by law, make a profit or pay a dividend?

But, just in case you are still worried. No. Watercare cannot be sold. The Council can fold it back within its own embrace, but may not sell it to any other concern. That’s now the law!

Back to those CCOs. They are what the reorganisation of Auckland is all about, improved services, less duplication and better value for money for all ratepayers.

The Government has already approved three such rationalised CCOs for Auckland, embracing the critical areas of transport, water and the waterfront. The Auckland Transition Agency is also looking at CCOs to cover economic development, tourism, property and development, major regional facilities and council investments.

Let’s address the specific of transport. Auckland Transport will replace the current separate Auckland transport entities and will be responsible for all local authority transport delivery functions in Auckland, including local roads and public transport.

The Council will have complete control over the agency. It will be able to appoint or dismiss any member of the Auckland Transport board at any time. It will approve Auckland Transport’s funding and statement of intent. Auckland Transport will have to comply with statutory land use plans and its decisions will be set by the council’s transport strategy. And the Council will own the roads, lest there be any misunderstanding.

This will ensure focus and continuity in decision making necessary to deliver a transport system that supports Auckland’s growth and economic success. For the first time there will now be a single body managing transport services and functions across the region.
Any of the existing 300 council entities not affected by the new CCO structure will simply transfer, as is, to the new Auckland Council when it takes effect on 1 November 2010.

Again, let me stress, the sole purpose of the integration process is a determination to achieve efficiency and effectiveness along with commercial discipline.

The Council's leadership of these organisations will be visible in a way it has never been in the past. Aucklanders will know more about the performance of its local government and its CCOs than ever before.

All that is sought is greater effectiveness and better service with democratic accountability. Better service while eliminating duplication of service from the existing multitude of CCOs.

Staff will now be able to think, plan and act decisively with the infrastructure and services a great city needs.

Let me stress:

* This is a 100-year vision plan.

* A plan to attract people and investment.

* A plan for a city of the future.

We know that the people of Auckland want their rates kept low. We know they fear a lack of local community involvement and local democracy. And we know they are looking for an improved transport system.

And, again, remember:

* This is being done because Auckland ratepayers are sick of their city being paralysed by the woeful inability of all those councils to agree on anything.

* This is about improvement and greater efficiency.

* This is about what’s good for ratepayers.

* This is about providing a service culture.

* This is about fixing Auckland. Making it better. Making it One.

I have every confidence that Len Brown and the new Council will deliver all of these and more.

Thank you.

ENDS

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