Roche Denise: Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill (No 2) — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRoche Denise: Local Government (Auckland Council) Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading[Sitting date: 06 June 2013. Volume:690;Page:10894. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DENISE ROCHE (Green): When we were interrupted I was talking about the responsibilities that local boards had under the transitional arrangements of the Auckland Council and what they will be given permanently. They include community engagement preparing local board plans monitoring the local board agreement and preparing local by-laws although not agreeing them. They are also directly responsible for negotiating the standards of services delivered locally; identifying and communicating to the governing body the views of local people on regional strategies policies plans and by-laws; providing local leadership; and developing relationshipswith the governing body with the community with community organisations and with special-interest groups in their area. They also have to provide input into council-controlled organisations’ plans initiatives and any additional responsibilities given to them by the governing body. For the most part local boards in Auckland have been fulfilling their roles well.Although where I live on Waiheke Island there is concern that the local board is neither engaging effectively nor advocating strongly enough on issues that our community holds dear. One of the latest issues is the decision of the local board to allow Auckland Transport to reopen a 750-metre piece of road to two-way traffic after a 3-year period of it being closed to vehicles and utilised as a safe walking cycling and horse riding route and a safe route for children to get to school. The community sadly has become incredibly divided on the issue despite the discovery that the local board had made a decision based on information from Auckland Transport that the esplanade road would not get the maintenance that it desperately needed if the local board continued to keep it closed to vehicle traffic. It desperately needs this maintenance because otherwise this road is going to fall into the sea.Anyway most of the community is quite opposed to opening it to two-way traffic and so far there has been a public meeting a festive fun day and walk around the esplanade and a couple of surveys and the issue is still dragging on. The one member out of five on the local board who has advocated for a more reasoned approach or a compromise has been sidelined and shut down. However since we live in a democracy the other board members will continue to be challenged on their decision making by our feisty community. The decision will be remembered no doubt in this year’s elections.Local decision-making and local control—even if it is messy and even if it goes badly—is the heart of local government. It is prudent to remember that this was one of the key issues during the Royal Commission on Auckland Governance. I think we forget that there was a royal commission which received thousands of submissions on what was then the prospect of changing the shape of Auckland and amalgamating eight councils into one body. Of those thousands of submissions nearly a quarter were from the Hauraki Gulf including Waiheke Island. So that is from about 0.8 percent of the entire region’s population and I am still proud of that fact because it highlights just how seriously our community takes local government.The other thing that it is prudent to remember is that the legislation that created the super-city actually ignored quite a lot of the recommendations from the royal commission. We never did get our Māori seats on the council. We should also remember the mad haste with which this Government and its axeman—or should I say ACT man the then Minister of Local Government Rodney Hide—went about amalgamating the eight councils which meant that the democratic rights of Aucklanders were simply ignored. Until the latest attack on local government with the changes to the local government legislation this year other councils have at least had the ability to have a vote on whether they would amalgamate or not. We have seen that in Nelson and we have seen that in the Hawke’s Bay area.This Government is hell-bent on emasculating local government and local democracy. It started with Environment Canterbury when it sacked the elected councillors and appointed commissioners and it perpetuates that lack of democracy by taking away the rights of Cantabrians to hold elections for regional councillors until 2016. We have seen the erosion of local democracy in the Auckland Housing Accord which ran roughshod over the Resource Management Act and the consenting process and overrides Auckland Council’s unitary plan preferences for a compact city. It is also evident in the appointment by the Government of the hearings panel that will be hearing Auckland’s unitary plan. We have seen it in the Resource Management Act reformsand we have seen it as recently as two nights ago when the Government delivered itself the power to wrest control of ratepayers’ money that is allocated to transport with the Land Transport Management Amendment Act.This bill at least is fairly innocuous. It allows local boards to carry on their good work of representing their communities and of advocating for their communities which in an environment where the rules are constantly being changed by this Government becomes increasingly difficult. I applaud their efforts. They work very very hard and we will be supporting this bill.