4 September 2009

So much for democracy, says North Shore Mayor
 

North Shore and Aucklanders’ voices have largely been ignored by the government in its Auckland Governance Legislation Committee report on the ‘super city’ legislation, North Shore City Mayor Andrew Williams said today.

“North Shore City, supported by many local community groups, presented a well reasoned submission to the select committee, based on careful research and extensive consultation with our communities. We took at face value the government’s promise to listen to submitters and the feelings of Aucklanders. Having now read the committee’s report, it confirms the warnings that the outcome had been predetermined have been borne out”, Mayor Williams said.

“The clear message we had from our people was that they wanted their new local boards, or community councils as we called them, to be fully empowered via legislation, and have genuine democratic freedom to deliver local services to local people, their new local councillors to be elected to represent a single defined local ward area, their community assets to be protected in law from privatisation, concrete protection from price gouging of water charges, and for their local council staff to be treated fairly in the transition to the new Council. Every one of these sensible requests has been dismissed by the committee.”

“Instead, we have the local boards under the firm grip of the new Auckland council, delegations completely at the discretion of the mayor and the 20 councillors, wards potentially the size of the entire North Shore city with multiple councillors elected at large, our local community assets up for grabs at the whim of the new council, water charging still up in the air, local roads and footpaths being hived off to a transport authority, and the council staff on tenterhooks over whether they will have a job in 14 month’s time. “

“Alarm bells started ringing when the government rammed the first ‘super city’ bill through under urgency, which set up the ‘one city, one mayor, one plan’ model without any public consultation, and it’s been all downhill since then, despite the government’s and the Minister’s promises to listen and consult with Aucklanders. The last straw for many people was the poorly handled fiasco over Maori representation, where despite assurances that the government had an open mind on the issue and the setting up of a special sub-committee to hear public submissions, behind closed doors threats and bullying carried the day. Then the northern boundary decision was made in secret and taken out of the hands of the independent Local Government Commission.”

“Public confidence will be low in the new governance arrangements with asset sales, rates rises to pay for the enormous transition costs, higher water charges, and the gutting of genuinely empowered local democracy. The public’s right to have a genuine say over their city and local communities renders the new ‘super city’ something of a basket case from birth,” Mayor Williams said. “Central government politicians have made decisions about local government when they have very little knowledge of how it works.”

Mayor Williams also said that Rodney Hide’s persistent claims that “parliament will decide” will be put to the test when the Bill returns to the House where National and ACT, who have a clear majority, can choose to either breathe life into the ‘super city’ corpse, or to dig its grave.

“We are seeing the systematic dismembering and privatisation of Auckland, by a select few with their own personal agendas, without much democratic input. It is becoming increasingly clear to me that in a few years time a number of us who have the peoples’ interests at heart, will have to put things right after this sad episode in Auckland’s history is over. This is going to be a painful few years for our people, but we will return democracy to Aucklanders, and we will reinstate properly empowered communities of interest, as all other towns and cities in New Zealand currently enjoy. As a 5th generation New Zealander I will be seeking to do that for the future of New Zealand that we love and as we know it should be”.

ENDS

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