Twyford Phil: General Debate 
Twyford Phil: General Debate 
[Volume:670;Page:16832] 
PHIL TWYFORD (Labour) 
: 
 The people are waiting for a plan. They are waiting for this Government to come up with something concrete something realistic about youth unemployment. They are waiting for an acknowledgment that particularly in Auckland there is a housing crisis but it does not appear from the Prime Minister’s comments in question time today that he even accepts there is a problem. They are waiting to hear when this Government will do something about the number of apprentices that are being laid off. They want to know when this Government will come up with a plan to grow the economy and get us out of this mess. 
But while people are waiting for a plan the people in Auckland over recent weeks have been handed a fiasco and a shambles. We have seen that shambles in the creation of the Maori Statutory Board on the Auckland Council put in place by this National Government. The board will appoint unelected Maori members to council committees where much of the work of council is done and those members will be given full voting rights. That is an abuse of democratic principles. What is worse is that the Maori Statutory Board according to the most recent estimates will end up costing the Auckland ratepayer up to $1.9 million a year. That is an outrage and Aucklanders are angry. They do not understand why the Government has done that. They are being hit in the pocket to fund that undemocratic Maori Statutory Board. 
Let us recount a bit of the story that will explain how we got there. Back in 2009 Rodney Hide threatened to resign at the prospect of dedicated Maori seats on the Auckland Council. Unfortunately the Prime Minister did not accept that offer. The Prime Minister did a shabby deal with the Maori Party to instead insert a Maori Statutory Board into the Auckland Council. He bypassed a perfectly good proposal for democratically elected Maori seats on the Auckland Council and instead put unelected people there. Then at the behest of the Maori Party at the select committee a deal was done—a shabby deal—to give the members of those council committees appointed by the unelected Maori Statutory Board full voting rights alongside councillors who had been elected by the people of Auckland. That is an outrage. The columns of the  
New Zealand Herald  
are full of it and Aucklanders do not like it. 
I see that TV3 has just launched a new satire series. It is a comedy series designed to send up Rodney Hide’s super-city. But TV3 does not need to make a comedy and it does not need to make a satire; it should just come here and listen to Rodney Hide in this House because nobody could write this stuff. This is the self-styled “Minister for Ratepayers”. He is the fallen perk-buster. Yet what has he done? He has stiffed the Auckland ratepayer for $1.9 million a year to fund his statutory board. He claims to be the great apostle of the one person one vote principle. He claims to be the great champion of democracy. Yet what has he done? He has imposed on the people of Auckland an unelected board with decision-making powers as members of council committees. That is wrong. 
There is a reason Aucklanders do not like it and we have heard over the last few days some interesting voices. Mike Lee the former chairman of the Auckland Regional Council has called this an appalling fiasco. He has said that Key and Hide should fix it. What has Cameron Brewer said? Cameron Brewer is not exactly a leading light of the left on the Auckland Council. What has he said? He has said that the Auckland Council has been let down by poorly drafted legislation. Mayor Len Brown is trying to make the best of a bad deal. He is trying to work with the statutory board and abide by the terms of the legislation. What is Pita Sharples the Minister of Maori Affairs and Rodney Hide’s ministerial colleague saying? He is saying that Rodney Hide should either stand by his legislation or resign. 
But we saw in the House today that Rodney Hide has no intention of resigning. Rodney Hide has refused to take responsibility for this mess and this fiasco. It is in his DNA. We have seen it before in the House. We saw it when he took his girlfriend on a trip to London Toronto Portland and Los Angeles and spent tens of thousands of dollars of taxpayers’ money. There was a week of news interviews door-stopping in the corridors of Parliament and embarrassing revelations before Rodney Hide finally backed down took responsibility and paid back some of that money. We saw it with his withholding of information for years about David Garrett the ACT Party’s former law and order spokesperson.