Locke Keith:  
Locke Keith:  
[Volume:654;Page:68] 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 My colleague Hone Harawira and I have been talking in the media about the possibility of helping this Government perhaps by going to Fiji on a little trip to talk in our own very humble way to the different political forces there about a transition to democracy. But I am having second thoughts now because one of the people I would have to talk to—and I would have to handle it very gently—is a chap called Commodore Bainimarama. I am a bit worried that if I went and talked to him now the first thing he would say is that we have a fantastic Government over here and that it has just provided him with the blueprint for exactly where he wants to go. That blueprint is the Local Government (Auckland Reorganisation) Bill. 
He would then point out clause 13(1)(g)(v) which allows the body set up by in our case the equivalent of the commodore Mr Rodney Hide to review any item on the agenda of any committee of a local body. The commodore would say that clause was fantastic because it would mean that Fiji’s 3200 military people could easily monitor the agenda items of every little committee in Fiji and they could put on the agenda items like having a picture of the commodore hanging in every public building in Fiji. That would be a great agenda item! In our case it would be a picture of Rodney Hide. 
I think the parallel is there. Fiji’s big armed force—3200 people armed with guns—has taken over a country of 750000 people; Rodney Hide with only 3 point something percent of the party vote seems to be taking over all the local bodies in New Zealand. Then Commodore Bainimarama would point out clause 13(1)(e) which states that Rodney Hide and his appointed group have to provide the public with information only as the agency “thinks fit”. The commodore would say that he could do that a bit more but he is really doing it already: he has just started up his own TV station and he is making sure the local papers have pages that he provides the copy for. The New Zealand Government could go down that track as well with its special select committee. It might add a little bit to the $750 per Aucklander restructuring cost but there is a great democracy called China that could provide the money for New Zealand at a reasonable rate! 
My concern is that this bill provides a blueprint that moves in slightly the wrong direction. One of the reasons I am worried about going to see Commodore Bainimarama is that he will say that we Greens might be a little bit into negotiations and democracy and all that sort of stuff but he wants to go where the New Zealand Government is going and that he is very worried about Sue Kedgley as she is moving amendments that will strip away the sorts of powers that he sees as a model for his rule in Fiji today. I think the good people of New Zealand are a bit worried about where we are going with this bill and are very worried about where Commodore Bainimarama is taking his people and the influence it might have on the Pacific. They will be very concerned and hopefully will be ringing up National and ACT members tonight to ask them to please support Sue Kedgley’s amendments as they do not want a Bainimarama-type Government for Auckland. 
It is interesting that in respect of Fiji’s constitution there are possibly some good elements to Commodore Bainimarama’s proposal but he is trying to strip away any indigenous representation in that country. That situation has a few parallels with the Auckland local body proposal where all of the recommended seats for the tangata whenua are now being cancelled. The Green Party has a whole pile of amendments.