Bradford Sue: Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill — Second Reading Procedure In Committee 
Bradford Sue: Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill — Second Reading Procedure In Committee 
[Volume:657;Page:6389] 
SUE BRADFORD (Green) 
: 
 I rise to speak— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: I am sorry to interrupt the member but there is too much cross-chatter; it is very difficult to hear the member. This is a 16-hour debate. There is plenty of opportunity for people to take calls but if they want to discuss things that is what the lobbies are for. Interjections are fine but there is a lot of cross-talk that has nothing to do with the debate. 
SUE BRADFORD 
: I rise to speak in support of an amendment to clause 18 of the Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill in my name dealing with the question of the northern boundary for the new Auckland City. I realise that many people breathed a sigh of relief yesterday when the Prime Minister announced that the Government had decided to reverse the select committee recommendation and allow all of the current Rodney District to stay within the Auckland City boundaries. The Green Party sees it as really important that the most strenuous guidelines possible are applied to metropolitan urban limits to prevent turning what is left of the green fields and bush between Orewa and the Dome Valley into one long series of Auckland suburbs. We therefore commend the Government for listening to the many submitters from places like Warkworth Leigh and Matakana who for that and other very good reasons did not want to be assigned holus-bolus to the Kaipara District. 
I believe however that there is still a case to be made for cutting off the northernmost part of the existing Rodney District and dealing with it differently. I am therefore putting forward an amendment which is on the Table for members interested that basically draws a line from Tauhoa in the west on the Kaipara Harbour through to the northern part of the Dome Valley and then through to Pakiri Beach on the east coast. I suggest that the western side of the district that northern part goes to the Kaipara District Council and the eastern side including Wellsford goes to the Northland Regional Council. Those northernmost parts of Rodney are rural in nature as anyone who knows the north will know. In many ways they have a closer affinity with Kaipara on the west and Northland on the east than they have with urban or peri-urban Auckland. 
Places like Port Albert Tauhoa Wellsford Tomarata and Wayby where I used to live have quite a different culture from the townships of Warkworth and others further south. In fact as anyone who has lived or lives in the area knows it is actually very tribal. There is a lot of quite friendly—and sometimes not so friendly—rivalry between the districts even slight local dialects. A number of people from those districts including iwi from Oruawharo Marae and from Te Uri o Hau more generally have clearly called for the northern boundary of the super-city to be drawn at the Hoteo River south of Wellsford. I note that people in the district have just today collected over 260 signatures in 3 hours asking that the area north of the Hoteo goes north and does not stay in the super-city. They ask that we “leave the rest of south Rodney to get on with being part of the super-city. Let us get on with milking the cows and other things rural.” Wellsford and surrounds are already in the Northland electorate for the purposes of general elections; the chair of the Auckland governance special select committee knows that very well. People are as likely to go north to Kaiwaka Mangawhai or Whangarei for services recreation and shopping as they are to go south to Auckland. On the west coast there is of course a strong affinity to the Kaipara Harbour with its northern centre in Dargaville. 
I strongly believe that it makes a lot of sense to divide off the northern most parts of Rodney and not push these essentially rural communities into a forced marriage with the huge new Auckland super-city. I call on all other parties in the Chamber to seriously consider supporting this amendment. I realise that it may be a little abstract for those who do not know the district but to make this alteration would be hugely beneficial for the people and communities directly affected. I am really sorry that the select committee did not come to this conclusion during its consideration of the bill and went for the much broader cutting-off of half of Rodney from just north of Orewa which really was a pretty crazy idea. The Government has made the right decision in reversing its decision on that but I call on it to reconsider and actually take the sliver across the top the northern part of the district and do the right thing for the people of that area. 
I am not pretending to be an expert on exactly where the boundaries should be although I have given a rough outline in the Supplementary Order Paper. The Local Government Commission is the expert on this and I hope that other parties in the Chamber will see their way clear to supporting this very sensible amendment.