Twyford Phil: Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill — In Committee 
Twyford Phil: Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:657;Page:6504] 
PHIL TWYFORD (Labour) 
: 
 I will continue with the comments I was making earlier about local boards. I am sorry that the member for Auckland Central Nikki Kaye is not here to be part of this discussion because I know how important the subject is for her. Perhaps someone could send her a message. We talked about the number of local boards before and I set out Labour’s thinking about why we are proposing in our amendment that there should be a number within a range of 14 to 20 local boards. But the question of their powers is also perhaps one of the most important one of the most tricky and one of the most complicated elements in the entire super-city model. 
We heard much trumpeting from the Government members that they have listened to public opinion and have decided to fully empower the boards. Let me describe what we actually have here. We have local boards that have no legal status—no legal personality. They have no staff they have no property they have no ability to levy rates they have no service delivery function and they have no regulatory function. They do not even have the ability to paint a yellow line along the side of the road. Two key areas of local government are the provision of water and the operation of our transport system; neither water nor transport will go anywhere near the local boards. 
These local boards will have a budget that they will have to bid for on an annual basis in an annual budget round as part of the unitary authority. They will have delegated powers. The board sets out a process and a number of principles that require the unitary authority the Auckland Council to delegate certain things downwards but there are important qualifiers on those delegations. If the analysis says these certain activities or decision-making functions are best carried out on a regional basis or have an impact that goes beyond the local area that the board represents then those powers will be kept upstairs in the Auckland Council. 
Local boards have the ability to propose by-laws but when we put all of those elements together it is very clear that this is an extremely constrained exercise of decision-making power by these boards. Let me repeat that they have no legal status no staff no property and no ability to exercise any kind of regulatory function and they have no engagement with transport or water. They have delegated powers within a fairly heavily prescribed set of principles under the legislation but they may not or will not make decisions on matters that go beyond their geographic area and they will not make decisions if those matters are better dealt with by using a cost-benefit analysis on a regional basis. Whichever way we slice it I say to members this is a very very constrained model. 
I believe that the jury is still out. I am not saying that the Auckland Governance Legislation Committee and the Government have not made a genuine attempt to design a package of powers that would work. But I am not sure. If I apply two tests to the powers in this bill then I think the jury is still out. The first test is whether these boards will have sufficient clout—whether they will have sufficient autonomy and decision-making power—to really make a difference in their local communities in order to play the place-shaping role that we want them to play. The second test is whether these local boards are capable of adequately balancing the centralisation of powers that we are implementing and we are investing in the Auckland Council. That was a key principle that the royal commission set out. 
I believe that the jury is still out. The test will be in the eating and if the Government has got this legislation wrong then it will probably be the single biggest flaw in the super-city model.