Twyford Phil: General Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Twyford Phil: General Debate 
[Sitting date: 24 March 2010. Volume:661;Page:9775. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
PHIL TWYFORD (Labour) 
: 
 I have been doing some research into ACT’s local government policy which is very relevant to the discussion in the House today because the ACT Party appears to be driving the Government’s local government policy in Auckland. I will read to the House a couple of very relevant pieces from the ACT Party’s local government policy. ACT’s local government policy describes the current situation in relation to local government. What does it say? It says that local government is vulnerable to interest group capture: special interest groups get money for programmes yet everyone ends up paying for them. Actually that is a description of Rodney Hide’s super-city plan. He says that everyone pays—the Auckland public pays—but a special interest group gets the benefit. Who is he talking about? He is talking about National and ACT’s business mates who are about to inherit the entire Auckland super-city thanks to these reforms. 
The ACT policy also describes dictatorial powers that remove freedom and choice. Actually that is a description of the super-city as well. Those are exactly the powers that Rodney Hide is exercising right now in taking freedom and choice away from Aucklanders—Aucklanders who have never been consulted on the super-city. They have had no say in the matter but they will have to pick up the tab for the super-city fiasco. 
Further on down ACT’s local government policy also states that councils get captured by narrow interest groups which is unfair to everybody. Again that is a great description of Rodney Hide’s super-city. I do not know if members have noticed but only three organisations have come out in support of the Government’s council-controlled model and they are the Employers and Manufacturers Association the Council for Infrastructure Development and the Property Council. Everybody else in Auckland is against the council-controlled organisation model and against the corporatisation of local government in Auckland. Here is a classic example in ACT’s local government policy of how a narrow-interest group of big-business lobbyists can seize control of local government and can get its hands on assets that Auckland ratepayers have paid for over generations. 
We saw in question time this afternoon another example of the shoddy and rushed handling of the super-city when the Minister of Local Government explained that in spite of his third super-city bill no decisions had been made yet. That bill is currently before a select committee and it makes it absolutely clear that the council-controlled organisations are taxable entities which is why the  
New Zealand Herald 
 reported today on its front page that Aucklanders would be up for tens of millions of dollars in taxes. But Rodney Hide said: “Oh we have not made any decisions yet. We are still talking about it.” What an absolute joke! 
It is clear to members on this side of the House to the  
New Zealand Herald 
 and to Aucklanders that the costs are mounting. In relation to transition costs for the super-city already $34 million in executive salaries and consultancy fees has been racked up by the Auckland Transition Agency and that is only for the last few months. I ask members who will pick up the tab for that. It will be the Auckland taxpayer. The Auckland taxpayer will also have to pay increased water rates. We know that if the volumetric pricing from Metro Water is rolled out across the rest of the city an ordinary family of four on the North Shore in Waitakere or in South Auckland will be copping an extra $700 a year in their water rates. That is what Aucklanders will have to cop as a result of this Government’s super-city. 
Already we are facing huge delays in the roll-out of the new information technology system for the super-city. Experts in the information technology industry are estimating that it will cost anything from $20 million to $100 million to create the new information technology system for the super-city. But the kicker is that the cost of fixing up the leaky home situation in Auckland will be about two-thirds of the estimated $11 billion to $20 billion that PricewaterhouseCoopers estimates is the national cost of the problem. Two-thirds of that cost will end up on the tab of Auckland ratepayers and the Court of Appeal has made that very clear this week.