Jones Shane: Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill — In Committee 
Jones Shane: Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:657;Page:6538] 
Hon SHANE JONES (Labour) 
: 
 Kia ora ano tatou. I understand that Mr Hone Harawira is preparing to go overseas so I say Godspeed. Over the last 25 years we have sought to embed a tradition of biculturalism. Those of us who took up placards worked with lawyers or lobbied politicians wanted to embody in a political economic social and cultural form the symbol of the Maori chief and the representative of the Crown. We accept that society is organic. The shape colour— 
Paul Quinn 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. Earlier this evening it was raised by members opposite that members were not speaking to the bill that was before the Committee. The speaker has so far— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: No please sit down. The member is just starting his speech and I am happy to accept his introductory remarks. 
Hon SHANE JONES 
: For the clarification of the Committee and Mr Quinn the word “nadir” is not pronounced as “Narnia”. That is a fantasy land where animals speak. Secondly Mr Quinn ought to consult Miss Piggy who says “Never eat more than you can lift.” 
Let us come back to what Mr Harawira was rightfully referring to. This city will be very cosmopolitan and very multicultural but the tangata whenua and Maori in general—because it will be a new model for one-third of the economy and the population—wanted the model to carry forward the legacy of indigeneity. That is what National has refuted. We accept that the minority parties have to choose what options are available and grab what they think is the best entry point at a given point in time so that they can expand their influence. There will be a long-term impact of wiping away that bicultural tradition not to replace it with multiculturalism but to embed a system that undoubtedly will entrench the vested interests in Auckland that are more interested in old school ties property values and corporate power. Those interests will overlook the fact that the growing proportion of the population is brown and that the vividness and creativity is coming from the same sector of Auckland’s population that perish the thought the member who is also an Auckland City councillor belongs to as well as the tangata whenua. That is not to deprecate our Pakeha contribution but this really will be the social and almost existential cost that the ignorance of members opposite will bring forward to the rest of us. 
There are other areas that we ought to focus on and I will turn my attention to the importance of a performance auditor as reflected in the royal commission’s report. One of the things that the super-city will end up doing is to empower the bureaucracy. We will have all these smallish satellite communities. They will be too numerous and although they might give the impression that there will be proximity between voter and organisation because they will lack viability and critical mass they will be understaffed. Once they are understaffed the people who are on those organisations will end up surrendering power to the bureaucracy. In addition because there will be a limited number of elected representatives not the full complement that we were after enriched by a tangata whenua Maori presence the bureaucracy in the subsidiary companies—both the water company and the core council—will have enormous power and influence. That is why a performance audit function was seen by the royal commission as an innovation whose time had arrived. 
The sums of money and the goods and services produced by this mammoth organisation stagger and beggar belief. It is presumably going to have effective governance over a powerful water monopoly—and there are some good economic reasons why such a vertically integrated monopoly should exist—but no monopoly should exist without a regulatory watchdog. That regulatory watchdog was identified through the royal commission. It is absent within the machinery of the Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill. It may be picked up in the third bill but it seems that the architects of this exercise are making it up as they go along. I think that for a party that preaches property rights and electoral democratic rights to be silent on the importance of regulators in the face of monopolies is very short-sighted. Kia ora tatou.