Street Maryan: Local Government (Auckland Reorganisation) Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Street Maryan: Local Government (Auckland Reorganisation) Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Volume:654;Page:3655] 
Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour) 
: 
 I want to take the opportunity that Charles Chauvel’s amendment presents to bring home again why we are here today. The point about this whole debate is that the people of Auckland have not been given a chance to have a say on things that will affect their daily lives—things that will intimately affect the way their lives are governed in the wider Auckland region. That is why we are here. I am delighted that members of the public have taken the opportunity of the Committee sitting on a Saturday—in outside terms; in temporal terms—to come and see why we are doing this. 
Let me be completely explicit and transparent about this. The Government worries that our amendments are frivolous and vexatious and that we are wasting the time of the Committee. Nothing could be further from the truth. The point is that this Government is trying to railroad issues through this House that the people of Auckland have not had a chance to examine through the usual democratic process of making a submission to a select committee. That is why we are challenging the faults the deficits and the liabilities in the legislation that is in front of us. 
My colleague Charles Chauvel has introduced an amendment here that goes to the heart of the matter. It is about the protection of public assets. There is no protection for public assets in the bill before us on the whole super-city structure that is being promoted by the Government against the recommendations of the royal commission. There is no protection for public assets to remain as public assets. Let me just be clear what we are talking about here. We are talking about assets that people in local communities have agitated for campaigned about petitioned on donated money towards and been rated for for years and years. They are places like the Long Bay Regional Park. They are places like Little Shoal Bay Foreshore Reserve in Northcote. They might be places like Rocket Park in Mount Albert. They might be places like Mountford Park in Manurewa—a very fine park named after a very fine Labour councillor in fact. They might be places like the regional botanical gardens in Manurewa. 
Those kinds of local assets regionally and locally held on behalf of the people for the public’s enjoyment are many of the things that make our local communities as rich as they are. If we go to libraries and swimming pools—and if the members opposite would care to read the amendment they would see those facilities are listed on it—we will realise this is a question of equity. This is a question about who gets access to books and sporting facilities unless they are held in the public domain for the use of the public. Those assets must be protected. It must be possible for poor families who do not have facilities on their doorsteps and swimming pools in their backyards to have access to the local facilities that have been built up over time after having been petitioned for argued for and funded by local people. 
It is that richness of facility and asset that my colleague Charles Chauvel is trying to protect in his amendment. There is no protection in the bill currently before the House for those assets. Why would the members opposite not expect the Labour Opposition to get up and defend those things? They are public assets and there is no guarantee that the kinds of transitional arrangements that the Government is putting up will protect these assets. 
I will say one more thing about this amendment. It is a modest proposal. It is only about the transition period; it is not even in perpetuity—although goodness knows we could do with that kind of protection as well. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker) 
: I call Colin King—[ 
Interruption 
] I have called Colin King. The member has not been able to get a word out so far and I have a constant barrage coming from the other side of the Chamber. Can we just please hear what Mr King wants to tell us.