Carter John: Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill — In Committee 
Carter John: Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:657;Page:6542] 
Hon JOHN CARTER (Associate Minister of Local Government) 
: 
 This issue needs to have a little time spent on it. As I have said earlier in previous contributions I have made the lack of structure that has come from Opposition members in regard to issues in this debate has been disappointing. I would much rather have seen them set out a plan and maybe an alternative to what the Government is doing. But unfortunately they have not done that mainly on the basis that quite often they actually agree with a fair chunk of what the Government is doing. They then come to issues like assets and of course they think it is an issue on which they might be able to score an easy point. But let me just make this clear. The first thing people need to understand is that the assets of Auckland belong to the territorial and regional authorities. They are not the Government’s assets. They are not for the Government to sell. We have no authority over them. We have no ownership of them. We have no direction or control of them. That is the first point that is really important for people to understand in this debate. 
The second point is that there is a process if local authorities wish to dispose of an asset. It is called a long-term council community plan. As Opposition members know and as Government members know it is a tedious process that just about wears one down. By the time we get through it the asset would have probably lost any value it had originally anyway. If for example as the Mayor of Rodney recently suggested she suddenly decided that the Rodney district had to divest itself of a whole lot of assets to get rid of debt she would have to put that out before the public and talk to them about it and tell them why they might want to sell the assets. Finally it is the public that makes the decision. Nothing will change in regard to the way in which the unitary authority in Auckland operates. If there is an asset that the council wishes to divest itself of it will have to go through the long-term council community plan and explain to the public what the benefits of selling the asset will be to the people of Auckland. If the people of Auckland finally say: “No we’re not interested.” then I am afraid that is how it will be. That is what the current Act states. There is already that protection. 
The third point that is important for us to understand in anything we are doing in Auckland or indeed in local government generally is that this Parliament has to take great care that anything we do does not interfere with the rights and the local democracy of the local people in local government right across the country. Every time we make a decision that affects local government we are in some way impinging on the rights of the local people to make decisions for themselves. That is something we should seriously take great pains not to upset if we can. There are occasions when this Parliament does make decisions because it has the right to. But in the main and particularly around issues like assets it is not for us to interfere. If we start making decisions like that then ultimately we start making decisions on all sorts of things such as how councils run their libraries how they run their swimming pools and how they run everything. In the end we would not need local government because we would just run it all from central government. 
It is certainly not the intention of this Government to do that. It may be that the Opposition wants to. 
The thing to remember about Phil Twyford’s member’s bill the Local Government (Protection of Auckland Assets) Amendment Bill is that it was just a continuation of the nanny State that Labour used to have. [ 
Interruption 
] I know that Labour members do not like it but I make the point that we have to be awfully careful that anything we do does not impinge on the rights and the abilities of local communities to make their decisions for themselves in their best interests. 
That is one of the things that this bill sets out to do. It will allow Aucklanders to make the decisions that matter to them on a regional basis and it will give them the opportunity to look after and to command the things that matter to them locally. We should never get away from that principle. We must remember that it is the right of the public of New Zealand to make decisions for themselves when it comes to local government. We should ensure at all times that we defend that to allow them to achieve it.