Parker David: Local Government (Auckland Reorganisation) Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Parker David: Local Government (Auckland Reorganisation) Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Volume:654;Page:3671] 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
: 
 I rise to support proposed new Part 5 of the Local Government (Auckland Reorganisation) Bill. In doing so I put in context why we think it is important that this specificity is laid down now: to ensure that in future we achieve Maori representation. 
I think it reflects no honour at all upon the National Party that after 3 days of debate on a bill that is being considered in urgency and that is not going to select committee not one of the amendments that have been put by the Labour Party by the Green Party or by others other than the Government have been supported by the Government. So after 3 days of debate the bill is as it was proposed by the National Party. People would think on that basis that we have an infallible Government. This Government is so confident of its own abilities that it thinks it does not have to listen—not only will it not listen to the will of the people through the select committee process but it cannot even listen to Opposition submissions in order to find kernels of good ideas that it can bring itself to agree with. 
People considering whether that is a realistic assessment of how this Government deals with personnel and of the appropriateness of appointments that it causes to be made to bodies need only reflect on mistakes that have been made by the Government in the last week in terms of the appointment of Christine Rankin to the Families Commission. It is the Government’s right to appoint her but it shows that if people have the ability to make appointments or to control who the representatives of the people on important bodies like councils— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: I am sorry to interrupt the member. I say to those members who are obstructing my view that I would like to be able to see the speaker when he is speaking. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: The appointment of Christine Rankin to the Families Commission shows that it is very important to have checks and balances on those who control the appointments in order to make sure that we have fair representation and that we do not have inappropriate appointments or a lack of representation. The example of Christine Rankin shows that this Government above all others is not infallible when it comes to the matter of representation and who it appoints to bodies. 
Representation is what lies behind proposed new Part 5. This part inserts mechanisms to make sure that the discretion of those involved in the future as to who should be elected to councils and what groups ought to have some representation is limited by the legislation rather than being left completely at large. We know that if it is left completely at large the National Government could make the same mistakes in respect of future representation in this new Auckland body—in terms of not achieving fair representation of the 1.4 million citizens of Auckland—as we have already seen in respect of the Families Commission this week. That is why I am so supportive of this amendment brought forward in the name of the Hon Shane Jones. 
Part 5 will make sure that these mechanisms work fairly for the people of Auckland by prescribing limits—instead of the absolute absence of limits in the current legislation—to give some direction as to what is fair representation in the future. It is important to note that this is not done just for the local tangata whenua in the narrow sense. The amendment does not say that these are only the people who have whakapapa back to the lands of these areas and therefore have rights of representation. We know there are ethnicities and ethnic groups in the Auckland area—substantial groups within our democracy but not strictly tangata whenua in that they cannot whakapapa back to an iwi showing land-based links—who will not have a voice on this new area. None the less these are representative or discrete groups of people who should have some voice if they are going to believe in the democracy that we have in New Zealand. 
If these groups do not have a voice—if they find that their large percentage of population is effectively prevented from having a voice on this new council—they will not vote and they will not believe in our democracy. They will have less faith not just in local government democracy but in all of our political institutions and that would be a bad thing. That is why new Part 5 sets out the mechanisms to ensure representation not just of that narrow group of land-linked tangata whenua but of Maori more generally and also of Pacific peoples. We know that the largest Polynesian city in the world or rather the largest centre of population of Polynesian peoples in the world is Auckland. Yet this bill in its current form does not recognise their right to a voice in Auckland.