"Sandra Lee's proposals to unleash unfettered powers for local government should send shivers down the spines of all ratepayers" declared Libertarianz Leader and 2002 Coromandel candidate Peter Cresswell as he publicly announced the release of the Libertarianz submission on the Local Government Act review.

The Labour/Alliance minority coalition's proposals include:

a.. granting city councils, district councils and regional councils a "power of general competence" which would enable them to enter into any activity they wished, with the only limit being their imagination and the pockets of their ratepayers; b.. imposing the Treaty of Waitangi on local government, justifying a special status for Maori in local government; c.. allowing councils to generally ban alcohol consumption in public places; d.. removing non-resident ratepayers right to vote on that which they are forced to pay.

"Fascist in its reach" is how Cresswell describes Sandra Lee's proposal to give councils a "power of general competence," and calls the proposal to extend the Treaty to council level as "more bloody apartheid!" The Libertarianz submission criticises these proposals in details and offers a libertarian alternative: "the throttling of local government. Local governments have been in the vanguard of violating New Zealanders rights in the last decade," he says, "and Lee's proposals will further the violations. It is well past time that councils be brought to book."

Criticising the proposal that non-resident ratepayers be refused the right to vote he says is "taxation without representation - an imposition that fuelled the American Revolution; it should find no home here in New Zealand." He notes that: "You will lose your right to vote even if you pay rates in a district but don't live there. Aucklanders who own baches in Coromandel should take note," warns the Libertarianz candidate for Coromandel in 2002, "that you will be unable to vote on how your rates are spent by the Thames Coromandel District Council. That is utterly unjust!"

"If you want to stop the unchecked growth of your rates and Councils, you must email your submission opposing this Local Government Act review by Thursday 30 August. Tell them that you OPPOSE a power of general competence, you REJECT giving councils more power and you OPPOSE apartheid in local government".

The email address for submissions is lgareview@dia.govt.nz

The Libertarianz submission on the Local Government Act review is on our website at: http://www.libertarianz.org.nz/. Cresswell says submitters should "feel free to plagiarise from the Libertarianz submission in preparing their own."

It's enough to make you vote Libertarianz!

ENDS

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