Press release

Matt McCarten for Mayor Campaign 021 68 44 22

For immediate release 11/09/2001

When is a mayor not a mayor? When she speaks as a property developer.

Mayor of Auckland City Christine Fletcher has abused her position to try and enrich her already well-off family, says Alliance mayoral candidate Matt McCarten.

At a meeting of the Regional Growth Forum last Thursday (September 6) she asked to speak as a “private citizen” to lobby local and regional councillors to re-zone family property as residential land. This would have enabled her family to make a killing out of developing two small islands they own off the Hingaia Peninsula in Papakura.

The “Regional Growth Forum” is a committee made up of local and regional councillors to determine in which directions the Auckland region should grow over the next 20 to 50 years, during which time the region’s population is expected to double. The forum’s intention is to limit urban sprawl by confining 70% of population growth within the present built up area and 30% in specific new areas. In the South of the region, the Hingaia Peninsula in Papakura has been identified as the area for new urban growth.

“I would have expected Christine as so-called ‘liberal’ to oppose unlimited urban sprawl. But obviously not when family interests are involved – then she’s in for the main chance – just like the rest of them”.

“People who were at the Regional Growth Forum tell me she took advantage of her acquaintance with Barry Curtis who chaired the meeting to go into a long and emotional spiel about how her family had been ‘let down’ by a zoning decision. The Forum has no authority to affect the zoning decision and it was totally inappropriate for Christine to lobby it. But that didn’t stop her. Other property owners (who have paid for the required planning work on the Hingaia – Christine hasn’t) were also at the meeting but they didn’t get a look in. Chrissie obviously believes wealth and privilege entitle her to more freedom of speech than the rest of us. All the reports are that people there were appalled by her behaviour”.

“I thought that even Tories like Fletcher understood what democracy was about – instead she’s using the system to promote plutocracy – government of, by and for the already very comfortable”.

Remember: www.matt4mayor.org.nz.
I can be contacted on 021 68 44 22.

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