Kedgley Sue: Local Government (Auckland Reorganisation) Bill — In Committee 
Kedgley Sue: Local Government (Auckland Reorganisation) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:654;Page:3411] 
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 I think that historians will look back in a few years’ time and ask how this happened. How did eight councils in New Zealand get obliterated by Parliament get expunged from the face of the earth in 24 hours without one of the 1.4 million Aucklanders being consulted or being asked whether they wanted to get rid of their council and their democratically elected councillors? Where is the mandate for Part 2 of this bill? The mandate does not come from the royal commission. The royal commission recommended that the councils continue to exist. So the mandate does not come from the royal commission. Where is the mandate? It does not come from the people of Auckland. Aucklanders have never been asked whether they want their local councils obliterated from the face of this earth. This is absolutely extraordinary. 
We have the Local Government Act 2002 which solemnly enshrines as it should that if we are going to do a reorganisation—or in this case a massacre—we have to ask the people who are governed and they have to agree by a majority to the abolition of their councils. This is enshrined in legislation. So what is this Government doing? It is doing what it did with the royal commission’s report; it is ripping it up. The Government put the royal commission’s report into the bin then it put the Local Government Act 2002 into the bin and totally ignored all of its requirements for consultation. Aucklanders will have their democratically elected councils wiped off the face of this earth without their ever being consulted. 
I think that the reason we are having what amounts to a protest in Parliament today is that the legislation is an example of utter undemocratic proceedings in this House. Democracy is being wiped out by the stroke of a pen with the ramming through of the legislation. Not only will Aucklanders not be given a poll as to whether their councils should be obliterated which is what will happen with this legislation but they are not even being given a chance to be consulted on this legislation. Rodney Hide goes on that all Aucklanders will be able to be consulted later on in 3 months’ time when we will have the nice little committee but by then it is too late—the die is cast; the super-city has begun. Five of Rodney’s cronies who will be appointed directly by Rodney—they will not even have to go through the Cabinet appointments and honours committee—will be overseeing everything in Auckland. They will even oversee toilet paper supplies. Rodney’s mates will be in total and complete control. They will paralyse Auckland councils and Auckland governance for the next 18 months. 
Aucklanders will wake up and ask how this happened. Historians will ask how this happened. This is what happens in a dictatorship. Rodney Hide’s goal first of all—mark my words—is to shrink democracy. He is using Orwellian double-speak. He is saying that it is all about bringing the local back into local government but it is not. It is about shrinking democracy destroying eight well-functioning councils overnight eliminating all of that democracy and replacing it with this incredible concentration of executive power in the Auckland Council. The pitiful little crumbs called local boards which will not even be in statute— 
Hon Luamanuvao Winnie Laban 
: Toothless! 
SUE KEDGLEY 
: They will be absolutely toothless and are frankly a joke as others have said. Mr Hide thinks that he can ram through this agenda of shrinking and wiping out democracy in Auckland without protest. The second hidden agenda is that once this new structure of local government is in place with the executive control of the strong mayor—the tsar of Auckland—once the tsar of Auckland is completely in control dominating the Auckland Council—