Shearer David: Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill — In Committee 
Shearer David: Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:657;Page:6510] 
DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert) 
: 
 I will start by addressing Mr Boscawen and some of the points he put across just now. The overwhelming number of submissions to the Auckland Governance Legislation Committee supported Maori representation on the super-city council. Secondly the simple reason people do not want the councillors at large that he supports is that people would have to be millionaires to run a campaign across Auckland. They would need $200000 just to put out one pamphlet across Auckland. Nobody could afford that and that is the reason why we support wards. We also need to make sure with representation that there are not more than two members in a multi-member ward because otherwise the wards would be so big that only the privileged and the rich could run effectively. That is unfair and is not something that Aucklanders want. They totally rejected it in the submissions to the select committee. 
I also want to speak about representation. The royal commission talked about six councils for reasons of economy and to not disrupt the current structure too much. The current formula being put forward is for 20 to 30 local boards. The Minister of Local Government’s colleague Roger Douglas talked about the need for form to follow function. I think everybody on this side of the Committee would agree. But we do not want to go back to what we had in 1988 which was a lot of very small rather inefficient councils and local boards—boroughs as they were then—making rules for people and not being able to be effective. They were expensive and they were not effective. Our proposal is for 14 to 20 local boards. That strikes the balance between communities of interest and efficiency and effectiveness. That is the proposal we should go with and it is what we have before us today. 
The Green Party mentioned the issue of cost. We believe that it will cost about $800 or more per ratepayer for these proposals to go through. We therefore want to get the formula right. We are asking people to pay for something that has been rushed through the House under urgency. I do not believe we have had enough time to consider the Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill. We have had a situation in the last few days where Rodney District was out or split and now it is in. Dr Paul Hutchison has been talking about the area of his concern which is down in Hunua. He is a very nice person but nobody listened to him; they listened to the Mayor of Rodney though because the Mayor of Rodney is a former ACT MP. Of course she has a little more weight or pull power than Paul Hutchison and the National Party. 
We believe that the bill has been rushed through. It has not been thought through in the way it should have been. 
Nikki Kaye 
: 2½ years. 
DAVID SHEARER 
: It has not been 2½ years; it has been 9 muddied muddled ad hoc months. We started off with the royal commission report which was ignored. A pamphlet went to everybody in Auckland telling them what the ACT Party and the National Party thought should happen without any reference to the royal commission. Then we finally had to come to a select committee where 2500 submitters gave almost identical submissions to what they gave to the royal commission. We are still making eleventh-hour changes to the bill as we go through depending on where the wind blows— 
Chris Hipkins 
: Under urgency. 
DAVID SHEARER 
: —under urgency. It is rushed ill-thought-through adhockery. This is not the way Auckland should be considered and planned for. 
Nikki was talking about something that was going to be historic. 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: No no. 
DAVID SHEARER 
: Nikki Kaye—I beg the member’s pardon.