Kedgley Sue:  
Kedgley Sue:  
[Volume:654;Page:78] 
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 I would like to introduce a number of extremely constructive amendments to Part 3—amendments relating to transparency and openness which I suspect that the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Local Government should relish and should welcome. But before I do that I want to respond to Mr English. National has sent down its heavy hitter Mr English to come and inject some remarks into this debate and I would like to make some brief comments about that heavy hitter’s remarks. The first remark Mr English made was “What about the workers?” referring to some workers who had been made redundant. But I ask Mr English “Mr Heavy Hitter” of the National Government what about the 6300 workers who are employed in the eight councils that you are about to expunge and get rid of? Those workers I can tell you are utterly demoralised. They are utterly demoralised because they know that their futures are on the line. What about the uncertainty you have created for them? 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: That is twice in about 20 seconds that the member has brought the Chair into the debate. 
SUE KEDGLEY 
: What about the 6300 employees of the eight councils whom the Government is expunging with this legislation? They know that their jobs are on the line just as the workers Bill English was talking about know their jobs are on the line. The council workers are utterly demoralised and insecure. The Government has thrown all of those local councils into uncertainty. It has created a climate of uncertainty and this uncertainty will paralyse Auckland governance over the next 18 months. 
Next Mr English asked why we were wasting our time here with these amendments. First of all I took offence at that because I have three extremely constructive amendments I am about to introduce which would greatly enhance this part of the bill. But if Mr English wanted to stop the wasting of time in this Committee—and after all this is the only way we can protest at the travesty that is taking place in this Parliament—all he has to do is agree to hear submissions that would allow Aucklanders to have a say on this bill. The question remains unanswered: why is the Government so afraid of allowing Aucklanders to have their say on this bill? 
The third thing Mr English tried to suggest—the heavy hitter who came down to inject some sort of sense into this debate—was that the matters we were discussing here were trivial. Well I can tell him that we are talking about expunging democracy—nothing trivial about that. We are also talking about matters of transparency and openness—and that brings me to my amendments. I believe that the Minister of Finance will surely support these amendments and so will the Minister of Local Government because the latter has been running around New Zealand telling everyone who would listen that he wants to bring transparency and openness to local government. But when we look at this bill we find there is no transparency and there is no openness. In fact there has not been even a regulatory impact statement—one of Mr Hide’s passions—on this bill and Aucklanders are not being told because he refuses to tell them how much it will cost. 
So my amendment about transparency and expenditure recovery which is the sort of amendment that Bill English would love will require the transition agency—the “gang of four” Mr Hide and his three merry men on that board—to prepare a transition budget to cover the period with the provision that that budget and all supporting documents must be made publicly available. So all we are saying there is that the transition agency must make a realistic budget and stick to it and if there are any budget blowouts the Crown must be liable for them.