RELEASE

Statement from David Thornton

Changes To Auckland Council Structure Will Cause Chaos At October Elections.

Public Still In The Dark About Proposal To Put All Rates In Hands Of Expanded A.R.C...

Ministers and Mayors are heading for chaos as they try to change the structure of local councils in the Auckland region just months away from the tri-ennial local body elections

Changes to local councils this year, promised by the government last Friday, will cause great confusion in the Auckland region at this year’s local elections for regional, city and district councils – and for community boards, which may disappear altogether.

The plan is to give the ARC a whole set of new powers – mostly taken from existing city and district councils – rename it the Great Auckland Council [GAC]–and set and collect all rates from the entire region. About $1.5 billion a year excluding water rates.

Just think of what the GAC could do with all that money in one basket. Money taken from all the ratepayers of Auckland region

And what’s more there will be no attempt to have informed consultation with the voters before a final proposal is put in place.

For instance there is no information as to what role city and district council will perform once they have handed aver all their strategic roles to the GAC.

City councillors are currently paid between $50,000 and $100,000 a year – for example in North Shore City many councillors are reaching the end of their 15th year in office, over which period ratepayers have paid each of them  something between $600,000 and over $1 million.

It must be commented that ratepayers have received very little value, in terms of council management, for that money if we now need to have a wholesale reorganisation of governance throughout the region.

But if most powers are now going to the GAC those sitting city councillors will be largely redundant and, if re-elected, certainly won’t merit those high salaries they have received in the past.

However the full details of which council does what is apparently not to be decided until after this years elections – so those citizens who want to stand for election to regional, city or district councils will not have a clue as to what their role will be in the new structure.

This is sheer lunacy.

While changes are needed in local government the main issue for today is to have legislation which places more power in the hands of the people to put a brake on wasted and unnecessary expenditure – especially in the periods between elections.

With the Independent Inquiry into Rates now underway surely it would be sensible to await its report on total local body funding before moving to set up a new structure of councils which proposes to concentrate too much power at regional level – and may well prove as big a failure – and as catastrophically expensive - as the late and unlamented Auckland Region Authority.

The ‘One Plan’ for Auckland could become the One Big Headache for Auckland citizens – especially ratepayers.

ends

© Scoop Media