Street Maryan: Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill — In Committee 
Street Maryan: Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:657;Page:6435] 
Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour) 
: 
 I rise to speak particularly to the amendments to the Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill relating to Maori representation on the Auckland super-city. I have grave concerns about the failure of the bill to address that issue. My concerns stem not simply from the rejection of Maori representation as a fitting issue in the consideration of a new super-city; my primary concern is about the poverty-stricken vision that it represents from this Government for the largest city in New Zealand and its future. This is not a vision going forward for New Zealand; this is a poverty-stricken “back to the past” vision for Auckland City and its place in Aotearoa. 
We have come a long way from the days of Bastion Point that my colleague Phil Twyford traversed so eloquently earlier. I remember those days well myself albeit I was a bit older than him at the time. However the exclusion of Maori representation on the body that is to run the biggest and most dynamic city in this country which was my home for 27 years is a narrow introspective and regressive action. We need to present to the world a different kind of super-city. We need to present to the world something unique that is Aotearoa New Zealand and excluding Maori representation does not take us there. It is a poverty-stricken vision it does not recognise the legitimacy of the claims of Maori to be represented at the top table and it does not model alternative governance structures for the future of our country. 
I would like to refer to Alasdair Thompson’s article. Alasdair Thompson from the Employers and Manufacturers Association (Northern) said the Auckland super-city was on track bar two recommendations. He said: “They are the absence of seats reserved for elected Maori representatives on the Council and the shifting of the northern boundary of the city’s region.” The shifting of the northern boundary has been remedied by this Government after pressure from the public. But he says about the absence of seats reserved for elected Maori representatives: “We cannot understand that. There’s no sense in it.” He went further in the  
New Zealand Herald  
to do an entire article an opinion piece about why Maori representation needed to be at the governance table and it was about exercising authority. 
If Alasdair Thompson from the Employers and Manufacturers Association (Northern) gets it why does this Minister not get it? Alasdair Thompson has the courage to plot forward a way for a dynamic future for New Zealand and for the Auckland super-city by representing the view that joint representation at the governance table is essential. Not only is it essential to the progress life and development of the Auckland super-city but it is essential as a point of difference as a mark that says to the rest of the world there is a unique city here that is not replicated anywhere else in the world and it is represented in this way by its governance structure. That is not a hard ask. Even on purely pragmatic grounds about the economic point of difference for tourism the attractiveness of the city and the attractiveness of New Zealand it is not a hard ask. But when we layer on to that lack of representation of Maori at the governance level the very profound grievance that it will create we have a recipe for disaster. We have a recipe for ongoing aggravation in a city that ought to be stepping up and proving itself to be a city of the future. However we do not have a Minister who is prepared to wear that.