Jones Shane: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
Jones Shane: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:656;Page:5827] 
Hon SHANE JONES (Labour) 
: 
 Tena tatou katoa. This speech will focus on an egregious failure of our parliamentary system in relation to the responsibilities of the Minister of Local Government. A select committee dealing with matters of vital interest to local government the Auckland Governance Legislation Committee has been diligently working up and down the country and it has been held to ransom. Money has been squandered and the process has been undermined. Every day up and down in and around the broader Auckland area people have been told by that Minister the Hon Rodney Hide that their issues not only would be addressed but also could be considered and successfully resolved once they participated. The Minister did not like the nature of the participation. He has abused the system. That member has been here since 1996. Sadly although in earlier years he sought to make himself out as a valiant defender of the parliamentary system he has used it now for his own miserable wretched short-term political purposes to try to cause his party and his profile to grow on the back of racial discord. 
Of course that will not save his bacon. However it will enable him to reward the interests that he has been sent here to advance in terms of local government. There was every right for members of iwi and the broader Maori community in the city of Auckland to expect that this Government and this Minister would give them a fair go. There was $5.5 million spent on the Royal Commission on Auckland Governance. There were countless submissions numerous hui meetings and deliberations and they have all been swished aside on the basis of the Minister’s personal political short-term agenda.  
Paul Quinn 
: Your $5 million! 
Hon SHANE JONES 
: I know we will be warned to stick to the topic but that interjection was from one of the Maori members who has refused to stand up and be counted. This is a bad day for local government in relation to Maori. At least with Tau Henare we know what he thinks. The fact that he reflects what he thinks is causing him to be very unfavourable with the party he is in. 
Maori have been shut out and Mr Hide is well and truly aware that this agenda of his is cruel to young Maori voters. It has also been demonstrated that he is no defender or ambassador for the interests and the system of this House. It is quite simple. There is major legislation the implementation of which will be funded by the budget that he has stewardship over but he has written out of the script at least 50 percent of the population in terms of the partnership principle under the Treaty of Waitangi. He does not care about their interests. I can understand how he would think it was relevant to humiliate and undermine the Maori Party but he did not need to do that; its members are doing that to themselves and I will have more to say about that later. 
There was a host of very impassioned and well-informed young and old participants and they have been shown that democracy in Auckland will not work for them. That man does not want it to work for them. He has a narrow agenda and it does not include the interests of the Pacific Island communities. In fact he is totally disinterested in the diversity and the pluralism that make up Auckland. He has a very narrow Epsom-centric approach. His stewardship of this portfolio has hit a low ebb in terms of all the previous members who have had to rise to the occasion and be good stewards of this particular role. 
When we go forward there will be more legislation to come back to this Chamber. But it is sad that money is being put aside to drive that local government agenda. There has been a very divisive and gross slur placed upon the tangata whenua of Auckland. They have been told there is no place for them under the views of that man that there is no place for them under parliamentary procedure and that there is no place whatsoever for them in the pact that has been entered into between the prevailing major party of the day and Mr Hide. It is highly likely in the short term that his stewardship of this portfolio will be lauded by the deeper corporate interests of Auckland but that is not an adequate basis to run the super-city. The super-city has to be about people. This man has turned his back on the people. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: I just want to say that this debate is about the estimates. I think the Hon Mr Jones the previous member who spoke might have referred occasionally to them but the substance of his remarks was an attack which did not really focus on the estimates. I want to draw the debate back.