Hodgson Pete:  
Hodgson Pete:  
[Volume:654;Page:87] 
Hon PETE HODGSON (Labour—Dunedin North) 
: 
 I take members back to some comments made by the Hon John Carter about an hour ago when he said as many other National members have said over the past week that consultation has occurred and that indeed it is ongoing. The Minister of Local Government and the Prime Minister have said in question time that this Government is a consulting Government. Part 2 of the Local Government (Auckland Reorganisation) Bill is the point at which that comment is shown up for the sophistry that it is. Part 2 is the bit that does the business. Part 2 is the bit that creates the super-city. Part 2 is the bit that takes out the second tier of governance—contrary to the recommendation of the Royal Commission on Auckland Governance which consulted endlessly—and later on replaces it with in effect a third tier. So instead of having tier one and a slightly weaker tier two we will have tier one and a very weak almost non-existent tier three. That is the architecture of Part 2. It is the point at which the damage is done. 
I ask the Hon John Carter if he would like to take a call—either from the ministerial chair or perhaps later in the debate if he finds himself in his own seat—on why he said that consultation is ongoing. By the time Part 2 passes into law there will be nothing serious to consult about any more. Let us just see whether I can test that statement with some questions. We know that Part 2 does not come into effect until November 2010. Various existing councils will go through a wind-up phase between now and then. What will happen when there is consultation on the other legislation on this issue which the Government has promised will go to a select committee? What will happen when people come along and argue for the restoration of some form of second-tier governance in Auckland? They may not argue for the precise district councils or city councils that we have now but perhaps for a version that was described in some detail by the royal commission. Will the select committee be allowed to hear submissions about the badness of Part 2 or will the chair of the select committee—a special select committee—rule them out of order? What is more if people do come in their droves to say that they want a second tier to offset the superpowers that David Parker talks about in a system with only one tier will the Government be open to reviewing the decision we find in Part 2? If the answer to either of those questions is no then we will not have consultation on the guts of this legislation. 
It is not OK—at least I do not think it is OK—for Government members to say they are busily consulting. But boy are they going through the pretence of it! We know that Auckland City backbenchers are being invited to hold meetings. I do not know who the hell will go because the decisions on the passage of this bill—not on the passage of subsequent bills but on the passage of this bill which are the essential decisions—will have been taken. Perhaps people will go along to express anger but knowing that that is essentially a waste of time they are more likely to stick close to their televisions sets. So what about this word “consultation”? What then will the Government say to the public of Auckland as this legislation quietly goes rotten? What will it say in response to the question of why it did not consult? 
We know that the royal commission sat for months soaked up millions of dollars heard hundreds of submissions and considered matters carefully. We know what it reported and we know that within a week the Government thought it knew better. Yet Government members said—and say—that they are consulting. I am not sure they should say that any more. I think that the more honest approach given Part 2 is to say that they just think differently and that they are not going through the pretence of consultation because they are the Government they have won an election and they have decided it is going to be this way. The royal commission gave them some very interesting and useful findings but its central finding about a balance between a super-city tier one and a second-tier group—all of whom were given names by the royal commission—