Williamson Maurice: General Debate 
Williamson Maurice: General Debate 
[Volume:653;Page:2545] 
Hon MAURICE WILLIAMSON (Minister for Building and Construction) 
: 
 If members on the Opposition side of the House want to hear something complimentary about Labour then I will say something. I think Labour needs a huge compliment paid to it for what it did in the late 1980s with regard to local government reform. I think Michael Bassett the Minister of Local Government in 1989 did one of the best things this country has seen which is take 740 local authorities and bring down the number to 74. But if we are going to be critical of Michael Bassett—and I do not like to be—I have to say he did not go far enough. That was the problem. He left Auckland with seven local authorities. 
The joke I used to crack in Auckland was that with all the local authorities—I think we had 34 of them including the Mount Albert Borough Council the Mount Eden Borough Council and the Mount Roskill Borough Council—we are really lucky our roads join up. Then someone pointed out to me that there were some roads in Auckland that did not actually join up. There is a road called Burnley Terrace just behind Eden Park. The Mount Eden side of the road comes in from one end and the Mount Albert side comes in from the other end and there is a little dogleg in the middle where they had to make the road join because the authorities did not even talk to each other back then about where the roads were going to go. There is just example after example. Now with seven local authorities I can give members examples in my portfolio of building and construction where a house that was consented in Manukau City could not get consented in Waitakere. That is just nonsense. 
I am sorry we spent four point something million dollars on a royal commission inquiry to advise us on one thing that my colleagues will tell members I have been banging the drum about for a long time with one sentence. I had just one sentence. I said: “I want the big things to go up and the little things to go down.” In my electorate I can tell members it turned out that the people of Howick who felt incensed about local government amalgamation were not actually upset about being amalgamated into Manukau City or about even big things like wastewater water roading and all of those big networks and major issues; they wanted to have more say about their library swimming pool whether there would be a disabled car park beside the supermarket or whatever. It a really clear one-sentence rule. The big things should go up to one council and the small things should go down to local communities where they can have a say on the things that matter to them but it does not disturb things. In Wayne Mapp’s case the people of Devonport should have a say over things that relate to Devonport. In my case the people of Howick should have a say over things that relate to Howick. In Judith Collins’ case the people of Papakura should have a say over things that relate to Papakura. But none of those people should have a say over the Auckland-wide things to any more degree than anyone else. That is what has come about from democracy. 
When I hear members on the other side saying that this move is anti-democratic I am simply gobsmacked because I think this is one of the best things we could do for Auckland. First of all there will be 20 elected councillors. Eight of them will be elected at large. To hear some members in this House who came here from a party list and did not even get voted for themselves—not one person voted for those list members because one cannot—saying that to be voted at large across Auckland is anti-democratic is the antithesis of democracy. I believe that it is a damn good idea to have some people across the city who are not elected parochially who are not being elected to look after the Pakuranga area or the Manurewa area but who are there for the better part of Auckland. There will be eight such people. Then we come to strengthening democracy at the next level. Twelve of the 20 councillors besides the eight at large will be down at ward level: three at Manukau three at Auckland City two at Waitakere two at the North Shore one at Franklin and one at Rodney. They are all based on population. How can that not be democratic? 
I say to my colleagues and friends in the Maori Party that I worry about the concern I heard last night with people saying that Maori will not get a say. Actually Maori will get a very good say. They will be able to vote and they will be able to vote for people at large. I think that if they organise themselves then they have a damn good chance of successfully getting two or three members in the at-large vote to be candidates. That is how this system has been set up. Then the next thing which I thought the royal commission really failed on were the six pseudo-councils lying underneath the proposed Auckland Council. I am really pleased to have been on the Cabinet committee that made the decision that that was ridiculous and that there was no local representation in that. The big request we are getting is to have local democracy and local government so we have moved to 20 to 30 local boards. We are enhancing their functions and roles and we are strengthening them. They will have a lot of say over what goes on. But what I am really delighted about is that no longer will we have a building consent for this area one for that area and one for somewhere else.