Sepuloni Carmel: Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill — In Committee 
Sepuloni Carmel: Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:657;Page:6521] 
CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour) 
: 
 I just want to address something that the previous speaker Nikki Kaye said. She said we agreed with everything in the Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill. I want to clarify something. There are things in the bill that National has put out that we fundamentally disagree with and that are completely in contrast to our values as the Labour Party. 
Hon Member 
: Name and shame. 
CARMEL SEPULONI 
: I will do so; the member is a little impatient. Firstly on the issue of Maori representation we are fundamentally opposed to what the National members are trying to do. We are completely behind the fact that Maori should have representation in Auckland. We are not going to sell them out on that one. We are fundamentally opposed to National on that. National has stated its position quite clearly. ACT has pulled National on to its side. But National would have done this anyway; it was quite happy to do this. The National members do not want there to be Maori representation; we do. In terms of the Maori and Pacific advisory boards—the voice for Maori for Pacific people and for the ethnic communities in Auckland—the National Government really does not care. That has been quite apparent from the get-go but especially during this whole Committee process. We will not sell Aucklanders out on that either we say to Ms Kaye. We ask her to please not say we agree with everything that she says because we fundamentally disagree with a lot of things that she is pushing with regard to this bill. 
One of the huge mistakes that the National Government has made—and we are still in shock that it could not take this recommendation on board—was the refusal to take on board the recommendation that there be a social issues board. This comes back to the priorities of National versus Labour. National thinks that everything is about the economy. National members still believe in the trickle-down effect. They still believe that they can ignore the things that are happening with regard to social impacts and things that are happening in society just concentrate on the economy and that it will all work out. We know from experience that that is not the case. When we look at the past as I said earlier we see that the National-ACT candidate for super-city mayor John Banks epitomises everything that National and ACT stand for. One example of that is that when he became Auckland mayor we saw positions in the Auckland City Council like that of the Pacific librarian suddenly changed—in that case to the position of new migrant librarian. As a Pacific person I find that difficult to comprehend given that 60 percent of our people are now New Zealand born. We can expect those kinds of actions from the type of council that the National Government supports in the legislation that it is pushing through. 
If we look at what the royal commission recommended with regard to the social issues board we see that it identified a set of social well-being domains. I will look at some of those domains. The commission identified health and it identified knowledge and skills. Let us just look at knowledge and skills. We already know from the legislation that has been passed and the policy direction that this National Government has taken that knowledge and skills are not a priority for National. The commission also identified paid work— 
Nikki Kaye 
: What? 
CARMEL SEPULONI 
:—paid work—as a social well-being domain. Those were recommendations from the royal commission. Yet this National Government has been quite happy to accept that 2000 people per week have lost their job since it became the Government. The commission identified the economic standard of living as a social well-being domain. Again this National Government knows nothing about that. The royal commission identified civil and political rights as a social well-being domain. Again the Government’s attitude towards those rights is already reflected in the fact that it is not supportive of Maori representation on the council. The Government is not supportive of civil and political rights. The commission also identified cultural identity as a social well-being domain. 
Of course the National Government chose to ignore those recommendations because social well-being is not something the National members support. We can see that when we look at their local body counterparts who are in the National Party or the ACT Party. They include people like the Deputy Mayor of the Auckland City Council David Hay who opposed giving additional funding to the Pasifika Festival in Auckland earlier this year. Those people are opposed to these social well-being domains; they do not see them as being of any value. That is the problem I have with the legislation that the National Government is trying to put through.