[David Thornton is a former - North Shore City Councillor, Glenfield Community Board Member, member of Auckland Regional Land Transport Committee. He is currently organiser of NoMoreRates.com, chairman of Glenfield Ratepayers and chairman of Glenfield Community Centre.]

21 May 2007

media release from David Thornton

Restructuring Auckland Governance will undermine local democracy

Proposals to restructure local governance in the Auckland Region will not be known until after nominations for October’s local elections open on 27th July.

Under proposals in a Report on Progress of the ‘Strenthening Auckland’s Regional Governance’project a very tight timetable is in place which does not yet include any provision for public consultation on the draft or final reorganisation proposals.

The Report was sent to councils last Friday and councils must respond to the proposed option in the Report by 5th June.

The whole project is being carried out by central and local government bureaucrats and consultants who report directly to a Political Reference Group made of of mayors and councillors from within the region.

There has been no public consultation to date.

A final proposal will be sent to councils and central Government on 18th June for consideration and the preparation of any necessary legislation.

This timetable means that people intending to stand for election to the regional council, a local city or district council, or a community board, will not know until the last minute what role and functions each of those organisation will have.

What is almost certain is that many of the existing powers of city and district councils will be tranferred to a considerably more powerful ARC which will be renamed Greater Auckland Council or GAC.

And the GAC will take over responsibility for setting, collecting, and spending rates throughout the region.

The local democratic process will be totally undermined in this process with little or no time for consultation with ratepayers and residents before this major governance reconstruction is put in place.

And people wanting to stand for public office in October local elections will need to make hasty and possibly ill-informed choices of which level of governance they wish to serve on.

ENDS

[NOTE the Report on progress is at www.strongerauckland.org.nz ]

© Scoop Media