Kedgley Sue: Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Kedgley Sue: Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:657;Page:6569] 
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 I would like to raise a couple of issues in the last hour of this debate. One of them is the extraordinary hypocrisy of the ACT Party in refusing to support— 
Hon John Carter 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. The member knows that that word is out of order in this House and should not be used. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: It is a longstanding tradition that that word is not used in referral to people or parties in this House. The member will desist from using it. 
SUE KEDGLEY 
: I would like to discuss how extraordinarily unusual it is that the Minister of Local Government who has of course masterminded this legislation has gone around publicly declaring his support for the single transferable vote (STV)—I have seen him on television on numerous occasions supporting STV and he has told the public that the reason for his not supporting Maori seats is he supports STV—but now we learn that he will not vote in the House for STV. The excuse he is using for not voting for it is the collective responsibility of Cabinet. In the meantime the Government is saying it would support Maori seats but because of ACT it cannot. So there is a sort of game going on here whereby they blame each other. It is an extraordinary situation. He runs around all over New Zealand saying he supports STV then he comes into this Chamber and votes it down. 
As a result Auckland will likely have a mayor who gains only 20 percent of the vote. As John Banks pointed out yesterday in a very revealing radio interview that I listened to only about 40 percent of people vote in local government elections so one would need only 20 percent of the vote to be voted in. With the powers in the bill powers that no other mayor has that mayor—for example John Banks—would be able to control the Auckland Council dominate the council and drive through his agenda. So it is extraordinary that ACT is using as an excuse for its opposing Maori seats the fact that it supports STV then when it comes to the crunch voting against it. I know we are not allowed to use the “h” word but it is hard to think of other words that could be used as a substitute. 
The second issue I wanted to raise is that I think everyone should read an article in today’s  
New Zealand Herald  
by Joel Cayford warning us of what is happening quietly behind the scenes. He is concerned that the new Auckland Transport Agency being set up to replace the Auckland Regional Transport Authority will be completely independent and that it will not be required to give effect to the Auckland regional transport strategy and will not be accountable for delivering a regionally agreed transport strategy. In other words a body will be set up that the people of Auckland have no control over. He points out that already the Auckland Transition Agency has written to the Auckland Regional Council and said that it is not appropriate for the regional council to publicly notify the regional policy statement which is being reviewed and which is in fact the paramount strategic planning document for the region. Aucklanders need to be aware of that. The agency is already saying that the regional council should not be able to publicly notify the most significant planning document for the region. He warns that it looks as though the same thing is going to happen to water; that body will be completely separated off from the Auckland Council it will be a completely separate entity and it will be required to be accountable to not the new council but rather the Government. 
We are starting to see the hidden agenda come through. The Government needs to be aware that this new council arrangement will be in place for 1 year before the next election. Aucklanders will have plenty of time to discover that this great new model which Nikki Kaye has been going on about has not delivered grassroots democracy. The local boards which are little more than community boards have not been given the powers that Mr Carter and others are promising. They will quickly become disillusioned when they realise that despite all the spin about empowering local boards the local boards do not have any power.