Ardern Jacinda: Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Ardern Jacinda: Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:657;Page:6572] 
JACINDA ARDERN (Labour) 
: 
 I am pleased to take a call. I have been waiting to take a call since late yesterday evening when I felt utterly compelled to come down to the Chamber having heard the very wise words of Mr Chris Tremain. Let me tell members why I felt compelled to come down to the Chamber and listen to Mr Tremain in full flight. Well he spoke about the Maori seats. I found his views interesting to say the least and patronising at best. He spoke of the renaissance we are seeing within the Maori culture and said it was somehow the reason why we do not need Maori seats on the super-city. For some reason the fact that we now sing the first part of our national anthem in Maori means we do not need Maori seats in Auckland. The war we have waged has been won apparently and we can all sit back and feel very satisfied with what we have achieved. But Chris Tremain’s speech did not stop there. I thought we had reached a new low when Mr Tremain explained to us that if Maori can organise a hikoi they can organise a campaign across 70000 voters. A hikoi and a campaign in a super-city election is exactly the same thing! 
I have two words to sum up the speech we heard last night from Mr Tremain: naive and patronising. We heard from that member that for all the Government’s chat about listening to people every single submitter who told the select committee why Maori needed specific representation was wrong. And apparently not just the submitters were wrong—the 15000 who marched on the issue were wrong according to the Government. We heard an utterly patronising explanation as to why. But it did not stop there. The explanation we heard from Mr Tremain further on was that women are represented well in Parliament and do not need specific seats in this House in order to get represented. Mr Tremain now sounds to me more like the Peter Cetera of Parliament fighting for the honour of women. I say to Mr Tremain that first past the post did not afford greater representation to women or minority groups in this House. What are two of the big contributors that have seen greater representation in this House? Firstly MMP certainly helped the cause and secondly Maori seats certainly helped the cause as well. So I say to Mr Tremain that he shows an absolute lack of understanding of the fundamentally important things about our democracy that have enhanced representation in this House. I thought that what we heard from him last night was an absolutely naive presentation of the current reality in New Zealand. I was disappointed by that. 
But it did not stop there. When it comes to the representation issue we have not been talking just about the importance of the Maori seats; we have been talking about the other groups that absolutely deserve a greater say in the way that the Auckland Council will work. We have talked about ethnic groups in Auckland. We have also talked about young people. I want to come back to that issue as it specifically relates to the election process and to the representation young people can expect to be afforded through the super-city structure. Young people represent 37 percent of the population of Auckland. That is mammoth. They have communicated with the select committee and their members of Parliament. I know that many of them approached their local member on this issue and asked what MPs thought the chances were of a young person—someone under the age of 25—being elected to the council. 
It is a very simple question. Let us look at the way it currently works in New Zealand. I found out how young people are currently represented across the various councils and local boards. The numbers are dismal—fewer than 10 across the country—and the Government expects that the new structure with wards with as many as 70000 people in them will be an accessible ground for young people to campaign in and win in their own right. 
I think young people are electable—absolutely—and I think they should be given the same opportunity as everyone else but I want to inject a little reality into the situation. A young person campaigning against an opponent who is doubtless well-resourced and well-funded will have some difficulties working across such a large ward and we need to acknowledge that.