Williams Andrew: Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill(No 2) — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWilliams Andrew: Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill(No 2) — Second Reading[Sitting date: 19 September 2013. Volume:693;Page:13586. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First): I am going to disappoint the previous speaker Phil Heatley because I am going to make it the third party that is going to speak not in anger but in an informative way. Firstly I would just like to point out to the previous speaker how you spell the word “democracy”. It is spelt “d-e-m-o-c-r-a-c-y”. It is something that the National Party members should learn and take home and practise because they do not seem to be able to get it off their lips. They just do not seem to understand the whole principle. They understand the principle of corporatising New Zealand. They understand the idea of selling out to their mates. They understand the idea of 50 percent of the shares in power companies going to 2 percent of New Zealanders. They understand about making sure that their mates all do very well out of the new corporatised New Zealand. But at the end of the day New Zealand itself is worse off in terms of—what is the word—democracy. It is democracy.Here is a little history lesson for you. Back in 1989 there were 27 borough councils in Auckland. They were the Mount Eden Borough Council the Mount Roskill Borough Council the East Coast Bays Borough Council the Papakura Borough Council—all over Auckland there were borough councils. They merged them into a number of cities in 1989 to form Manukau to form Waitakere to form North Shore to form Auckland City and then the outlying districts of Franklin and Rodney. They did that so that you could get critical mass in areas and communities of interest so that they could move forward in those particular communities.However there was a problem across the region because Auckland did need to be supported in terms of its transport its major infrastructure and its connectivity. There was agreement. In fact I know because I helped pass a motion on the North Shore City Council calling for regional cooperation—Maggie Barry: Where did you pass it—on a lemon tree?ANDREW WILLIAMS: No I did not pass it on a lemon tree; I passed it in a council motion. It was to call for regional cooperation in terms of transport major infrastructure and coordination in Auckland but it did not call for the gutting of the Auckland democratic system and it did not call for the Auckland councils to all be returned to 21 local boards. Basically this was a back-to-the-future situation of going back to 21 local boards which previously were 27 borough councils. Now 3 years later we have a situation where this Government wants to roll over that legislation and ensure that those 21 local boards continue to be able to delegate their powers and their responsibilities to committees subcommittees board members and council officers. Unfortunately we have to still support that in terms of the legislation because that is what we are faced with now in Auckland—21 local boards. It would be irresponsible of us not to continue to roll over those powers that were given to them through the transition authority because otherwise on 31 October we would have democracy in Auckland crippled at its knees and the council not able to delegate some of its powers to various entities.So we will be reluctantly supporting this but we will at the same time be giving you something of a history lesson. I will also advise in doing so that I can recall vividly an 800-page royal commission report which had taken several years to prepare and which over 30 well-respected internationally recognised consultants helped prepare and submit on. It had thousands of submissions from all sorts of entities and very very learned people involved in local government and in terms of governance throughout New Zealand submitting on it. That 800-page report cost $4.5 million—the royal commission went to the likes of Toronto London Los Angeles and all sorts of places around the world to compare and come up with its recommendation as to how Auckland would be governed—but it was thrown out and about 9 days later the 800-page report was replaced by Rodney Hide’s 34-page photocopied proposal for Auckland whichbasically made a nonsense of what the royal commission was suggesting. What the royal commission was suggesting—again a history lesson for you—was that yes certainly there was a problem in the integration of Auckland. There should have been an overarching council—an Upper House so to speak which would be a bit like having an Upper House of this House—that would control the big-picture stuff in terms of the transport the roading the infrastructure water and that sort of thing but it would leave the community-based things at local council level so they could get on with running the communities of Manukau of Waitakere of the North Shore and of the central isthmus and get on with their business. That was thrown out and replaced by the 21 local boards.As a result now these 21 local boards are pretty well kneecapped entities. You have an example in the situation last week for instance. The Devonport Food Wine and Music Festival which has been going for 24 years and was fully supported by the North Shore City Council for many of those years and prior to that by the Takapuna Council will not exist in the coming year. It will exist no longer. What is the reason? The reason is that the new Auckland Council will not give it any community funding and now it receives funding from only one local board on the North Shore the Devonport-Takapuna Local Board. All the other boards on the North Shore have said that they have other priorities in their local board areas and cannot give funding for the food festival in Devonport which has been going for 24 years. I have had emails from all over Auckland and indeed all over New Zealand and I am sure that the MP for the North Shore Maggie Barry will have had the same response saying what an absolute disaster it is that this iconic local festival is not going ahead simply because the new structure set up by Rodney Hide no longer supports the likes of that festival.And there are other things such as the SPCA Wag ‘n Walk which used to be in Milford. It has gone. It has disappeared. It has gone over the bridge because again the North Shore funding disappeared. It has been taken over the bridge. We used to have Movies in Parks on the North Shore. They have disappeared. Now only one local board on the North Shore in theKaipātiki area is having Movies in Parks this summer. The other boards are not funding it so again half of the North Shore will have it; the other half will not have it. Music in Parks used to be in all the local parks around the whole of the North Shore. Most of the North Shore will not be getting that this summer. Likewise the New Zealand Body Art Awards which started in the Glenfield Tavern about 12 or 13 years ago this year managed to survive only because the likes of myself George Wood and George Gair—three former mayors—stepped into the Auckland Council offices and said: “If you stop funding the New Zealand Body Art Awards it will fail.” We managed to resurrect that. This is what is coming out of these local boards in the Auckland area. Basically it is completely divide and conquer and the whole of the Auckland area is now being run by 21 small little local entities all protecting just their own particular patch. This is back to the future. This is how Auckland used to operate pre-1989 under the old borough councils. I can assure you that if I have anything to do with it in the future we will go back to some form of entity that allows communities of interest such as the North Shore such as Manukau and such as Waitakere to again provide for their communities of interest.It is not in the interest of the local communities at the present time where you can literally go through a patched quilt of situations across the Auckland isthmus where as you drive through this local board it does it this way; as you drive through the next local board it does it that way; and as you drive into the next one it is a different way again. That is not good coordination in Auckland and that sort of thing has got to stop. However we will support this so that these boards do have some powers. On the other hand I can assure you that there are going to be reviews in the future.