Media Release

City Vision-Labour Councillors - Auckland City Council

For Immediate Release

Friday 18 December 2009

3rd Auckland Bill Timelines Unfair and Ill-Advised

The timelines for the 3rd Auckland Bill that was introduced to the House and sent to the Auckland Governance Legislation Select Committee this week are unfair and ill-advised, say City Vision-Labour councillors while the text of the Bill provides few details on the powers and roles of local boards while raising significant concerns for Aucklander’s assets and services.

Tamaki-Maungakiekie Ward Councillor Richard Northey said, “We now know Government is allowing only until the Friday after Waitangi for making submissions.  People I know are arranging to come back from their holidays earlier than they intended just to hold meetings of their organisations to try and work out details of the third Auckland Bill and to draw up their submissions.  There are still a lot of important local and regional issues not addressed in the third Bill that community organisations will be keen to make submissions on.  These include the actual powers and roles of the new local boards; whether they should be called local or community councils instead; the real powers and roles of the Maori Board and of the Pasifika and Ethnic Bodies.  There is developing concern that the provisions protecting water services from privatisation are only proposed to last until 2015 and for other key Council assets only until 2012.”

Councillor Northey continued, “The under-representation of Auckland and Waitakere-based wards may not be able to be corrected until 2018 unless the new Auckland Council resolves to create Maori Wards. The proposed Council Controlled Organisation to be responsible for main streets and for events appears as messy and unnecessarily centralised and bureaucratic as the transport one is already proving to be. In short, the 3rd Bill is proving to be a dog’s breakfast and the Government needs to allow more time for Aucklanders to digest and respond intelligently to it.”

Tamaki-Maungakiekie Ward Councillor Leila Boyle said, “The timeline for the 3rd Auckland Bill is very tight with hearings beginning on 22 February and the Select Committee’s report due on 4 May.  It is outrageous that this very important process closes well before the Local Government Commission hands down their final determination on 1 March as the boundaries and number of local boards as well as number of members on each local board does have a bearing on their workload.  I believe the Select Committee needs to be thinking about this legislation in the context of the shape of the structure; it is irresponsible and ill-advised not to be considering these things together and holistically.  This amalgamation is doomed to fail with this truncated and silo mentality process.”

Eden-Albert Ward Councillor Glenda Fryer said, “The 3rd bill is complex and there will be little time for the public debate that should be part of the process, because the media ‘silly season’ is more attuned to light content stories.  Informed public debate is not what the national party and its allies want as they call for submissions in the ‘silly season’ and leave little time for public meetings so that communities can really be informed and play a part of the process.”

Independent Hauraki Gulf Islands Councillor Denise Roche said, “This third bill is legislation on the hoof.  The sheer speed with which the National-ACT Government is pushing the future governance arrangements for Auckland means they’re not only shutting the average person out of the process but they're also having to make things up and fix things up as they go.  This third bill is full of amendments to the second law introduced only a couple of months ago - and I bet there’ll be more tweaks because of things they’ve forgotten.  I think we all know that the faster you go, the bigger the mess.”

ENDS

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