Beaumont Carol: Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill — In Committee 
Beaumont Carol: Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:657;Page:6558] 
CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour) 
: 
 First of all I acknowledge the work of Phil Twyford in the area of seeking protection for Auckland’s assets. It is very important that we listen to what Aucklanders are saying and frankly members have talked to many people surveys have been done and it is quite clear that Aucklanders want their assets to be protected. They do not trust the Government in that regard especially given the position that Rodney Hide holds. 
I want to move on to another amendment that Phil Twyford has put forward: to insert new clause 25 in the Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill. It relates to providing protections for the people who work in local government. Again this is about listening to Aucklanders. A range of submissions were received by the Auckland Governance Legislation Committee on this issue and a number of people strongly expressed their concerns about the very large Auckland local government workforce of over 6000 workers who are feeling very insecure at the moment about what these changes mean for them and their families. The Government has not provided any certainty to those people. 
I remind members of some of the submissions because quite significant players in local government said the Government needed to deal with the issue of providing protection for workers. The Devonport Community Board and the North Shore City Council on one of the days I sat in on the select committee made very strong submissions in that regard. They recognised that the quality of service delivery is absolutely dependent on the workforce. Nobody would disagree with that. If the workforce in local government is insecure or if its numbers are cut dramatically then that will affect the quality of service that is provided to Aucklanders. As Allan Peachey and others have said this bill is about success for Auckland. Well getting it right in terms of the people who provide the service is part of achieving success for Auckland. The North Shore City Council submission covered the transfer and treatment of local government staff and stated: “We believe that the transfer of staff from existing territorial local authorities to the Auckland Council and Watercare Services Limited should happen contemporaneously rather than be staged over time in order that the movement of staff happens in a coordinated way.” It went on to say: “Council staff are entitled to a degree of certainty and security in their employment relationship in a period of significant change.” 
The treatment of these local government workers is fundamentally important and one can understand why that is the case. I am sure all of us can understand why these workers are feeling insecure. In fact the level of insecurity is not just about the changes—and they are very significant—but also because they are happening at a time of recession when unemployment is rising and many other people are struggling to make ends meet. Those council workers do not want to join those people. So what did we do? A couple of months ago the Mayor of Auckland City suggested that 40 percent of those workers might lose their jobs. That was very helpful! But no assurance has been provided to those workers. Maybe somebody on the other side of the Chamber will jump up and tell me that the Government will support Phil Twyford’s amendment because of course the Government will want to provide certainty to those workers or a member may say the Government will cover that issue in the third bill. I hope to hear that but let us see what happens. 
The reality is that those workers deserve to be treated fairly. I would have thought that it would be worth taking account of what happened in similar reorganisations in other countries. Certainly the royal commission looked at local government reorganisation in Queensland and it saw that there was a very clear process and that undertakings were given to the workforce when there was very significant restructuring. Basically there was a commitment that no worker would lose his or her job for a period of 3 years as a result of that reorganisation. That process went very smoothly. The quality of the delivery of services by local government was maintained. The workforce had security and workers’ conditions of employment were just transferred over. If we compare that with the situation in South Australia which also carried out a very significant reform of local government we find the same things did not happen there. Very early on there were redundancies then there was severe understaffing at certain levels. The effects of that flowed through into the level of services provided to the people of South Australia. We should not repeat those mistakes in Auckland. 
I speak in favour of the amendment from Phil Twyford that is on the Table. It does a number of things. First it states that we should include in the bill the principle of being a good employer. That sounds as though it is pretty important.