Cunliffe David:  
Cunliffe David:  
[Volume:654;Page:94] 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn) 
: 
 With all the views that have been bouncing around the Chamber I think it is time we heard from some Aucklanders. I would like to bring to the Committee in the middle of this discussion the views expressed by Aucklanders and Auckland leaders on what this Government is trying to ram down Auckland’s throat. The surprises are that these might not be the views that members would expect from conservative commentators. 
Mayor Andrew Williams from North Shore City pleads—[ 
Interruption 
] The members opposite laugh. They have just dismissed the elected mayor of over a quarter of a million people. Members opposite think that they know better than the elected mayor of over quarter of a million people. What does Andrew Williams say that they are so afraid of? He says that it is not too late for the Prime Minister to “please step in and bring this costly disruptive madness to a halt.” 
In fact all the Government members have to do is send the bill to a select committee for 1 week which is less time than they will be debating these amendments. If those members send the bill to a select committee for 1 week they can go home. Mr Williams goes on to say that the “future of Auckland must not be railroaded by one man” who is more focused on “cracking heads”. Where is the one man? 
How do we like the  
Trans Tasman 
—not known as a Labour Party rag—talking about the most terrible week since the Government got elected? It says that the Government is running hard to create a super-city in Auckland but “John Key risks antagonising many within the constituency that voted him into power. ” 
That brings me to the Minister in the chair Paula Bennett. Here is a message from one of her constituents. It reads as follows: “Great to hear you’re trying delaying this bill passing. I live in the Waitakeres and I want to be represented by the mayor and councillors I voted for. Have emailed my protest to this bill to both John Key and Paula Bennett. Shame on her! ‘Proud to be a westie’—I don’t think so. All those fools who voted for her will be sorry. Anyway whatever you can do to stop this New Zealanders have no idea how fast the National Government is changing our country. Please stop them”. That email is from one of the former constituents of “Ms Westie”. 
Chris Hipkins 
: She’s laughing about it. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: That is what she always does. I wonder how it went in the Cabinet committee when she brought the Christine Rankin nomination forward. Some of her colleagues would have said: “Are you serious?”. She would have said: “Yeah really. Ha ha!”. John Key said he would back his Minister. Well what does  
Trans 
Tasman 
 say about that? It says that he was not in the country last time Christine Rankin was in power. 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. We are seeing a repeat of what we have seen before. The member is 3 minutes into a speech and there is still no concentration on Part 3. I know that you are being generous in allowing this debate to be robust but really a member with the Hon David Cunliffe’s experience should be able to get to the relevant part of the bill a little more quickly. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Mr Chairperson— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: No I will not have anyone speaking to the point of order. The member makes a fair point. I do want to be generous but this is not a general debate or any of those other debates. The member should concentrate on Part 3. He may make a wide range of points as forcibly as he likes and draw on a wide range of material but we are on Part 3. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. It is really just to point out to you that the member has spent his time replying to the comments made on Part 3 by the Minister who spoke previously and is now the Minister in the chair. 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: Mr Chairman you have called for a return to the bill. I therefore draw on some other external commentary of a more technical nature which goes to the operating clauses of the bill such as those in Part 3. 
I will quote from the Auckland University of Technology’s professor of public policy David Wilson who said that the Government “had taken one of the headlines of the Royal Commission’s report but removed many of the mechanisms that would have achieved better regional governance … . The Government plan was so flawed it was doubtful it would work.” Mr Wilson said the plan “left too much to chance” and was “but a shadow of the Royal Commission’s report.” Nor was Mr Wilson confident that the Government would listen and change its approach having “fundamentally misunderstood the problem in Auckland”. He said that Rodney Hide seemed to think he needed to “fight parochialism and crack heads together” when the real issue was the integration of regional services. That is what this issue started from. That is why the royal commission was set up. There was a relatively straightforward solution which was stronger regional governance underpinned by better-functioning territorial authorities with some functions passed upwards. It was not very hard. 
It is one thing to get it wrong but it is another thing to get it wrong and then remove the right of reply. And as my colleague Moana Mackey has said it even worse to try to dress up that sham by calling for consultation meetings across Auckland paid for by public funds just after extinguishing the right of redress. That is why the comment of the night goes to Andrew Williams mayor of a quarter of a million North Shore-ites who quotes to his Government the Gettysburg address of November 1863. Mr Wilson said: “when the very notion that power should reside with the people was in question that ‘government of the people by the people for the people’ is a basic principle worth fighting for.”