Kedgley Sue: Local Government (Auckland Reorganisation) Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Kedgley Sue: Local Government (Auckland Reorganisation) Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Volume:654;Page:3657] 
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 I appreciate the opportunity to take a call on this proposed new part because this actually gets to the heart of the Local Government (Auckland Reorganisation) Bill. I have already said that what we are seeing here with this bill is “Rogernomics Part 2”. Suddenly all of New Zealand can understand why Roger Douglas took himself out of retirement to come back to Parliament and why Rodney Hide chose to be Minister of Local Government. At the time some people were a bit perplexed. Why would Rodney Hide want to be Minister of Local Government? But now the reasons are all unfolding. 
We need to be clear that ACT and the new right have realised that they have been thwarted in this term of Government from selling off assets—further State-owned enterprises—at the national level. The Prime Minister has made that clear. I can imagine a breakfast where they all got together and contemplated “What are we going to do to advance our agenda in this term of Government because unfortunately we will not be able to achieve our objective of selling off the remaining publicly owned State-owned enterprises in New Zealand?”. They said: “Ah I know what we’ll do. There is $28 billion worth of assets in local government.” I can imagine them sitting around at a breakfast meeting saying “I know what we will do. First of all we will get rid of those annoying irritating eight city councils and that whole layer of democracy because they have really been quite irritating and they have not yet fallen into corporate hands. We will get rid of them. Then we will set up a completely new local government structure”—which this bill is doing—“that concentrates power in the hands of the executive and the hands of the mayor.” 
This is what academics call “the new strong mayor model”. Basically it means that the mayor can have complete control of the Auckland Council by picking the deputy mayor and the chairs and by coming up with the agenda and the long-term plan. Then the mayor can unleash the agenda on to the unsuspecting voters of Auckland. And they are unsuspecting because none of this was mentioned in the ACT Party or National Party manifestos before the last election. What will the agenda be? We know that the agenda is to sell off local government assets. Someone on the Government benches yelled out “What’s your proof?”. Can I suggest that National Government members read the ACT Party’s local government policy. It is on the website and it is plain and clear for everyone to see. 
At least ACT is honest about its policies. It does not try to hide them. ACT is quite up front. ACT says in its local government policy that it wants to privatise effectively all of the commercial assets that these councils own such as the Ports of Auckland the airport and so forth and it wants the roads to be privatised and water to be privatised. The rest of that $28 billion worth of assets will be put into corporate boards and then those corporate boards will be at arm’s length from the council. The councillors those who are not in the control of John Banks and his merry men—even if there were some left-wing members who were able to find themselves elected on to the Auckland Council—will have no control because all of these assets will be put into these corporate boards at arm’s length and of course they will all meet in secret and they will then begin to unleash this agenda of privatising the assets of Auckland; assets that have been built up for many years. 
This is the second part of the agenda. It was plotted out. It is the reason they have all come together and got Roger Douglas back into Parliament and why we have Rodney Hide as Minister of Local Government. I am worried that Aucklanders will realise this when it is too late. 
Hon Member 
: That’s what happens. 
SUE KEDGLEY 
: It is what happens. There was another piece of legislation that slipped through last year. Nobody cared much about it. The Green Party tried frantically to alert New Zealanders to this legislation.