Rodney Hide licking his wounds after Local Government Conference

The Local Government Conference has wrapped up in Auckland with Minister of Local Government Rodney Hide on the end of a grilling by North Shore Mayor Andrew Williams. The candidate for Auckland Mayor delivered a stinging speech aimed at the Minister, with Hide obviously uncomfortable in front row attendance.

Mayor Williams' speech laid out many facts around the Auckland restructuring and sheeted home a lot of the concerns of Aucklanders, referring to the attack on democracy from a perspective of five generations of family who had also died in three wars to defend freedom.

Comments from Mayor Williams echoed a workshop one hour immediately prior on the subject of Local Boards where similarly the Minister was in attendance and received a severe tongue-lashing from some of the panellists and conference delegates.

Mayor Williams, on a panel with Manukau Mayor Len Brown and Waitakere Deputy Mayor Penny Hulse, was asked to speak on the following questions:

o Was the analysis of the issues facing the region accurate, and does the proposed supercity address those problems?

o As a departing Mayor, what lessons and warning would you like to leave for the audience of NZ Councils?

Transport was the major issue facing Auckland, Mayor Williams stated, and proceeded to sheet home some hard facts about under-funding of Auckland by successive governments.

"It is very clear that central government refuses to release its grip on Auckland. It has gouged money from Auckland for decades, taking over $7 billion in fuel taxes, road user charges and vehicle fees and returning just $3 billion in transport related investment between 1990 and 2005. It is no wonder that Auckland has not functioned efficiently when it has been starved of transport funds to make it a well connected internationally competitive city and region. Had Auckland received its full share of its petrol taxes, another $4 billion over the past decade or so, we would not be in today's situation of transport congestion in Auckland."

"At one stage Auckland was receiving just $50 million per year. This year the spend on Auckland transport will be $900 million - 18 times more. As a result we are seeing huge gains finally being made with projects either completed such as spaghetti junction, or nearing completion such as the Western Motorway ring-route and the Manukau connection to the airport. "

"A cynic could argue that Wellington starved Auckland of funding for all those years - on purpose - to make the place grind to a halt so as to give the impression it was dysfunctional.....and thereby force a contrived restructuring of Auckland."

Mayor Williams went on to point out that, despite the promises, there was no reduction in the cost of governance in the Auckland restructuring.

"The existing eight councils cost $9.3 million in governance. The new council and local boards structure will cost $8 million in governance. This does not include the cost of the CCO boards....so the new Auckland governance model will end up costing more....while some 70 % of the Council's business will be handled by unelected CCO directors."

The Mayor also warned the local government conference delegates, who came from all over New Zealand, to be aware of the possible threat to their communities and local democracy.

"Do not allow the profligate, open ended spending of $300 million or more of your ratepayers' money on the instruction of Wellington central government politicians to set up a Super City in your region, that your ratepayers did not ask for and do not need. "

"The "local" in local government is under threat, so a lesson and warning to you all would be ...don't let them bulldoze you. Make them sit up and realize that the backbone of New Zealand is its towns, cities and rural areas....and that it is the local councils that's the glue that keeps this beautiful unique country of ours a great place to live."

"For the past 18 months, since Rodney Hide came out on 9th April 2009 with his flimsy 34 page answer to Auckland, I have been an open critic of much of what is being rolled out.....much of which in my opinion is simply to help lift the ACT Party above the margin of error threshold. "

Mayor Williams has received widespread supportive comments from conference delegates, many of whom wished him well in for his Auckland Mayoral campaign, and urged him continue speaking up and "keeping them honest".

ENDS

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