Carter John: Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill — In Committee 
Carter John: Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:657;Page:6548] 
Hon JOHN CARTER (Associate Minister of Local Government) 
: 
 I have listened to a couple of contributions and thought I should make a response to one or two. I listened closely to George Hawkins who has made quite an input into the Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill as have others on the Auckland Governance Legislation Committee such as Phil Twyford and Su’a William Sio particularly. I listened to the last contribution from Dr Rajen Prasad and to the six items that the member brought up. I thought I should respond to them. 
Of the six items the last one was the matter of the powers of the boards. Indeed there is no debate about the powers of the boards. The Opposition has agreed with what the Government has done in regard to the powers of the boards. It is there in the commentary on the bill if the member wants to read it. So we can cross that off the list because the Opposition agrees with the Government on that. It may not agree with the number of members on boards but it certainly does agree with the powers of the boards and the members of the select committee will nod in agreement on that. 
Then the member went from the sixth item. He left out the fifth item so I am not sure what that was. The fourth issue that he raised was the matter of assets. Much has been made of this matter and the figure $28 billion is quoted a lot. I think it is really important to start off by saying people should be concerned about assets because there would be a huge negative impact if these assets were to be sold. One of the things we asked George Hawkins was about what the $28 billion worth of assets were—how that was made up. He could not tell us that. Most members would be interested to know that the roads are nearly all of that $28 billion—the roads are nearly all of the $28 billion. So of course it would be of great concern if the transport authorities started to sell them. Members can imagine the situation can they not? We can imagine rolling up the tarseal to sell it—where? To the Arabs to India or maybe to South Africa? I do not know where it would be sold to. But it is actually the roads that would be sold if the majority of assets were sold off. So it is a falsehood to say $28 billion worth of assets are for sale. There is nothing like that. 
The other thing that should be taken into account is that a lot of those assets are the likes of the libraries the halls the parks and the regional parks. There is no way that those will be sold. So it is silly to talk about $28 billion worth of assets. 
But I also say—I said it before and I say it again—the local authorities have to go through quite a lengthy process so the assets are secure. 
Item No. 3 that was raised was the social issues board. We have already responded to the people of Auckland on that by saying there will be and is a social forum which Paula Bennett is leading with people from Auckland. That has been accepted and is already starting to work. We are getting some response to it and we will continue to develop it. So we can cross that item off the list. 
The member also talked about advisory boards. We have said that this matter is a work in progress. We have commented about it in the commentary on the bill in the same way that the Labour Opposition has as well. It is part of the work that we may well be doing as we move forward in the third bill. The advisory boards could well be part of that. We still have to work that issue up—maybe maybe not—but it will be an ongoing issue to be addressed as we move forward. 
Finally I say because I know there is concern about this there has been a great lot of debate around the Maori seats. I remind the Committee that the Maori seats were not in the bill that came to the select committee. They were not part of the bill that the select committee looked at as members will recall. I am sure the member does recall that; he was on the select committee. The Government had already made the decision not to have Maori seats prior to that so the select committee was not able to respond to that issue in the way that it wanted. 
I find it interesting that the member has listed—well I have only five things; he did say six so I am not sure what the fifth thing was between the assets and the powers of the boards. 
Dr Rajen Prasad 
: I said the process was wrong. 
Hon JOHN CARTER 
: Well I am afraid he did not enunciate that so I could not write it down. The fact is nevertheless that we can go through that list and write all the items off. The Government has already covered those things. Indeed there is another longer list of the things Labour does agree on which it cannot debate because it agrees with the Government. That has been part of the problem. We have listened to the public and done many of the things that they wanted. We have responded to the public in a positive way. Labour has not been able to debate those matters and that is why Labour’s debate has been so poor.