Hodgson Pete:  
Hodgson Pete:  
[Volume:654;Page:99] 
Hon PETE HODGSON (Labour—Dunedin North) 
: 
 I have some detailed points to raise regarding Part 3. They are to do with the number of people on the governing body of the Auckland Transition Agency. 
We know that the legislation states that the number of people on the governing body is to be between two and four we know that other members can be co-opted on to it if four turns out not to be enough and if we slip very briefly over to the schedules—which we cannot stay on because we are not yet debating them—we notice that the quorum is two. So whichever way we look at the Auckland Transition Agency it is small and because it is small on the one hand it will not be remotely democratic—and no one is pretending that it will be—but more important it will not be able to be remotely consultative even in the narrowest sense. You see eight territorial local authorities will be done over and two three or four people will be put in their stead. We will get rid of 100 to 150 councillors and their ability to talk to and have consultation with the people of Auckland and for a full year the power of the management of Auckland will be put into the hands of three or four people. 
We know that the councils will persist but everyone in Auckland will know that they are not councils in any responsible sense; they will be exercises in irresponsibility in a pure sense of the word because the transition agency’s governing body is able to determine the agenda. That is what the Greens said. The Minister of Local Government Mr Hide said the Greens had got it wrong but the Greens have not got it wrong. If one can say to a local authority—an extant but foundering local authority—“Let us look at your agenda. No you cannot have items 3 5 and 6.” then one is determining the agenda of the local authority. 
The public of Auckland will be looking to the transition agency for leadership and progress during the 12-month period and there will not be anyone to talk to. There will not be anyone to talk to because there will be hardly anyone on the transition agency’s governing body. It is not just small; it is minimalist. It is smaller than any select committee of the House of Parliament. It is smaller than any Cabinet committee of the House of Parliament. It is smaller than any other council—regional council or territorial local authority—in the land. It is smaller than any board of a State-owned enterprise. It is smaller than any board of a large corporate. It is the size of a board of a small or medium-sized business yet it attends to the needs of one-third of the country’s population for 12 months and it has remarkable powers. 
I would like the Minister to explain—if he would be kind enough—how he thinks those 12 months might go for the people of Auckland. They will have no ability to go to the members of the governing body because they will not be able to get hold of them—they will have only the same number of hours in the day as the rest of us—and they will have no reason to go to their existing territorial local authorities. There will not be any community councils set up over those 12 months so the Minister should not try to fob us off with that idea. I want the Minister to tell us how Auckland can possibly operate in anything resembling a democratic or consultative manner in those 12 months. 
It seems to me that Auckland will be left pretty much at the mercy of the wisdom or otherwise of these two three or four people. That is not allowed to happen anywhere else in our system. It is not allowed to happen in any other local authority. If a major State-owned enterprise or corporate got down to three or four directors there would be a lot of news about that in the business pages of any newspaper. It would not be something that would be considered reasonable. Of course State-owned enterprises and major corporates by their very nature are not consultative which public bodies are required to be. We have here the makings of the largest public body in the country outside Parliament and for 12 months it will be run by four people. How would it be if the Government of New Zealand because we were transiting to some interim form of Parliament—for example from first past the post to MMP—decided that for 12 months it should be run by eight people? Would that be remotely tolerable?