27 August 2009
Secret plan for super city nation-wide roll-out revealed says North Shore Mayor

A hitherto secret Cabinet paper, released under the Official Information Act, reveals the Cabinet is actively considering ways to roll out the super city reforms across the country, North Shore Mayor Andrew Williams said today.

“The Cabinet paper requires Local Government Minister Rodney Hide to report back to the Cabinet Economic Growth and Infrastructure Committee by 30 November 2009 on “whether or not decisions on Auckland governance will have application for the rest of New Zealand”, Mayor Williams said.

“The Cabinet paper, in the name of Local Government Minister Rodney Hide says that the Minister believes that decisions on Auckland governance hold “advantages in applying some of these decisions to the rest of New Zealand.”

“There is a pattern developing of fundamental decisions on local government being made under the cloak of Cabinet secrecy, without due consultation and community input. When the Minister was ‘outed’ back in June this year over his secret plan to gut local government services, he said that his sweeping changes did not require a public discussion paper because “public views are already known”.

“The Prime Minister told the Local Government conference in late July, after Cabinet had considered and agreed to Rodney Hide’s planned roll out, that “changes to local government structures elsewhere must be driven from communities, by communities, for communities with a genuine desire for change”.  So, who are we to believe, the Cabinet or the Prime Minister?”

“Local government and communities across the country will be alarmed to learn of Rodney Hide’s secret plan to impose the super city on them, and it is high time that the Minister and the government came clean, dropped the cloak and dagger routine, and entered into genuine and meaningful dialogue with local government leaders and local communities, rather than trying to ambush them with decisions that have already been made in secret,” Mayor Williams said.

Mayor Williams also said that he finds it ironic that Rodney Hide and the government are calling for more “openness and transparency” in local government decision making, when they are making fundamental decisions that will turn local government and local democracy on its head in secret.

Mayor Williams said the Cabinet paper in question is CAB (09) 200 “Response to the Royal Commission on Auckland Governance: Remaining Recommendations” dated 27 April 2009 (Refer paragraph 34), and the relevant Cabinet Minute is CAB MIN (09) 14/2 (Refer paragraph 10).

++ENDS

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