Brownlee Gerry: Business of Select Committees — Appointments 
Brownlee Gerry: Business of Select Committees — Appointments 
[Volume:654;Page:3175] 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Leader of the House) 
: 
 I move  
That this House establish a committee to consider and report to it on such legislation concerning the governance of Auckland that may be referred to it; the committee to consist of 11 members to be nominated by parties to the Speaker as follows: New Zealand National 5 New Zealand Labour 3 Green Party 1 ACT New Zealand 1 and Maori Party 1 and that the committee have the authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting except during oral questions; during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House; on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House; and outside the Wellington region during a sitting of the House despite Standing Orders 187 189 and 190(1)(b) and (c). 
 The Government considers that in order for the people of Auckland to have the greatest say on the structure of Auckland governance and to make their views most clearly known to Parliament prior to a bill being passed into an Act that sets up the structure they should have an opportunity to air their concerns aspirations and hopes through a select committee process. A special select committee in the nature of the one we are proposing here has the opportunity to focus entirely on the Local Government (Auckland Reorganisation) Bill. Those who have noted the motion will have heard that the committee will be completely unconstrained in the way it can take time in order to facilitate all of those who want to make a contribution to its work. 
The process is one that sees a group of parliamentarians nominated by their parties paying particular focus on the bill and on future bills that may be referred to the select committee. There is no specification as to the life of the select committee. The committee will be established with the open mandate of receiving from Parliament any bills that relate to the governance issue. 
We have heard a lot of debate this afternoon about issues that relate to Auckland. I cannot help thinking that each of the issues that has come up bit by bit can in some way be put down to the disparate organisation of local government in Auckland over a very long period of time. We have heard members from both sides of the House talking about the extraordinary length of time it has taken to build roads from one side of the city to the other when it would have seemed to people in most parts of New Zealand the most patently obvious thing to do. Although there is no point in pointing fingers at past generations it is important that in the future not only for Auckland City but for the whole country because of the productivity factor that a large city like Auckland represents we get this particular arrangement right. 
There has been a royal commission process. The commission as we know received thousands of submissions listened to hundreds of submitters and made some very good recommendations to the Government. The bit that was least clear in the commission’s report was the extent to which local representation should be accommodated in the new governance structure. The Government has rejected the idea of having six local councils and then nothing below them with the single unitary authority over the top and instead has looked at having perhaps a much larger number of local boards to represent the 1.4 million people who make up the city of Auckland. It is our view that the select committee process may well give a steer to the Local Government Commission which is ultimately responsible for striking those boundaries in indicating where the communities of interest lie around Auckland City. 
An issue that will also occupy the special committee is how representation on the unitary council—that is the council that sits over the top of the whole city arrangement—is to be determined. There are those who say “Let’s have 12 councillors elected from super wards”—they would be very very large areas bigger than most electorates that are represented in Parliament—“plus another eight or so who are elected at large.” Other people say “Let’s have the whole 20 on the council elected entirely from a ward structure.” and further there are people who say that 20 is too few and there perhaps need to be a few more. I do not doubt that there are people who say 20 is far too many and there should be even fewer councillors. 
Those are the sorts of issues that this special select committee will have to wrestle with. I am confident that the members the National Party sends to it—particularly the individual whom we expect to chair that committee and who will certainly go to its first meeting with National Party support—will be a person who has great knowledge of the proposed structure and great respect for the voices of Auckland so that they may be heard during the committee process. 
It is my hope that other parties approach this process with an equally open mind. It is disappointing to hear that Labour having had the foresight to commission the royal commission’s look at Auckland has decided that it cannot support the proposals that are currently on the table. It seems to me a rather churlish way to deal with such a big chunk of the voting population. It would be worse if Labour was to choose to mix up this particular issue of governance with the Mt Albert by-election which everyone knows is a pressure point for Labour. That pressure is natural: Labour holds that seat by a substantial majority and it appears that that will be somewhat set aside whatever happens in the by-election. The by-election creates pressure—we understand that—but it should not get in the way of proper consideration of what will effectively be the governance arrangements for Auckland for decades to come. 
Similarly we have heard this afternoon much talk about the roading issue in Auckland particularly the Waterview Connection. It seems to me the chosen project having been published by the New Zealand Transport Agency that we are now into a bit of an argument of “My tunnel is bigger than your tunnel.” Essentially there is little else that is different about the two proposals other than the extraordinary price tag difference. National has ruled out the very expensive option. We are delighted the New Zealand Transport Agency has put up an option that will save literally hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: I bet that metaphor gets changed in the Hansard 
“Yellow”. 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: However we get someone like Mr Hughes over there who tends to fixate on whether anything is bigger than his. He will no doubt run the argument all along that a bigger tunnel would have been better. Well all I can say is that our tunnel might be shorter but it is somewhat wider. 
I hope the special select committee does not get too embroiled in the sideshow issues that the by-election and the choice of project for the Waterview Connection may represent. Some big issues are coming up for Auckland and for New Zealand in the very near future. Our opportunity to run major events in this country which have a very positive economic effect will be determined by how successful the governance structure of Auckland ends up becoming. I know that Aucklanders are committed to the issue. I know they will turn up in large numbers to the select committee hearings. I indicate that the Government is delighted about that involvement. We are open to what Aucklanders have to say about the structure of Auckland’s governance and we will participate in an open-minded fashion with the select committee as it goes about its business.