Cunliffe David: Local Government (Auckland Reorganisation) Bill — Second Reading In Committee 
Cunliffe David: Local Government (Auckland Reorganisation) Bill — Second Reading In Committee 
[Volume:654;Page:3226] 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn) 
: 
 I said last night that I did not often get angry about issues in this House. I have been here 10 years now and I am angry about this one. But I think I need to clarify—[ 
Interruption 
] 
H V Ross Robertson 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. There is a cellphone being used in the House and that is totally out of order. This is a place for debate not for taking telephone calls and the member should switch it off. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Eric Roy) 
: The member is correct. Would the member with the offending—[ 
Interruption 
] The member has apologised. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: I do not often get angry in this House but I am angry about this issue and I think members need to know why. It is not the hot anger of the night before; it is not even I guess the cold anger of the morning after. It is a long slow anger. It is a slow anger on behalf of the people of Waitakere City who are not going to forget the people who stole their identity the people who stole their city. They will remember after this debate is over they will remember until 2011 and they will remember as they go into the polling booth on election day to throw out the Government that brought in the Local Government (Auckland Reorganisation) Bill and is seeking to ram it through the House. 
Let me say what we are not arguing about. I do not think anybody in this House let alone any Aucklander would argue that there did not need to be better coordination within the Auckland region. Let us take that as a given. Let us also take as a given the idea that regional services—things like public transport or arguably sewerage or water—deserve to have regional governance. There is little argument about that. And arguably there did need to be even further strengthening of the regional government layer. Labour started it; Labour set up the royal commission to examine how to do that. That is not the issue. But there was nothing in the report of the royal commission there was nothing in the National Party’s manifesto there is nothing in logic and there was nothing in the submissions of the thousands of Aucklanders who bothered to talk to the royal commission that leads us to the result that we have before the House today. 
So what exactly are we upset about? Well firstly as a Waitakere City resident as a proud Waitakere representative I mourn the loss of our city. Nobody needed to take away our city in order to strengthen regional governance. They are not at odds; in fact they are complementary. West Auckland as it was called way back when used to be a place known for drag racing black T-shirts and way too much alcohol consumption. Under Waitakere City it has changed. I give Bob Harvey a lot of credit for that. It has changed because its council has painstakingly built it up. It has become the eco-city a place where our nature is treasured and uplifted. It is a place where the arts flourish. It is a place where smart business like value-added wine and boatbuilding flourishes. It is in short a place that Waitakere residents are proud of. It is a place that—and the Government has not noticed—its residents do not want to lose. 
We are also hugely upset about the idea of at-large councillors. I acknowledge that the royal commission was the first to tread in that particular cowpat. But it could not have been better expressed than it was by John Carter last night when he said that the Local Government (Auckland Reorganisation) Bill is a bill to fix Auckland for 50 or 100 years. You bet it is! It is fixing the voting on the Auckland mega-city council. It is fixing that voting by putting the balance of power in the hands of eight white men from Remuera who can afford a $250000 mail drop to half a million homes. If one is neither really rich like John Banks nor really famous like Paul Holmes one should not bother stepping up to that plate. Only the rich—or arguably the famous—need apply to be an at-large councillor. 
Let us turn to the idea of local boards. This was a piece of footwork by the Government. John Key—God bless him—said that we need more local democracy and that we should put the “local” back in. 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: They stripped it out. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: The Government cunningly stripped the “local” out and put in the façade of local democracy with sub-scale little boards that are too small and too powerless. They cannot buy a pencil they cannot hire a staff member and they certainly cannot make a strategic decision. They are a joke and they are an expensive joke. That is why the “Little Emperor” Rodney Hide will not name the cost savings—because he knows there are no cost savings. The transition costs outweigh the running-cost reduction and the ratepayers will pay for this charade via their rates bill. As if it is not injury enough to lose their democracy they pay more to guarantee the power of the white men of Remuera. 
So we are angry. But we are most angry about the lies. The member may laugh but he will not be laughing in 2011 when he is the former member for Epsom. He will not be laughing when his blue friends cut him off because he is expendable. He is expendable. This measure will be presented in 2011 as a piece of ACT enthusiasm: “Rodney got a bit carried away don’t you know? He does that after the gym sometimes. But look he is not really with us; he is not really one of our Northern Club and he never will be. He was born on the wrong side of the tracks. He tries hard but he is not quite one of us and he never will be no matter how hard he tries.” The Government could have consulted on the royal commission’s report it could have taken it back to the public but it said no.