Burns Brendon: Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill — In Committee 
Burns Brendon: Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:657;Page:6484] 
BRENDON BURNS (Labour—Christchurch Central) 
: 
 I am very pleased to take a call on the Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill. As a Christchurch MP I can say that if we ever approach local government restructuring in Canterbury I only hope that we do it a hell of a lot better than what has been done here with this rushed inconsistent and often flawed process. 
In my view local government is about two things. First it is about representation. The bill should be about the best possible representation for the people of Auckland. Second local government is about the relationship between those people who have been elected to run the super-city and those who have elected them. It should not be about any of us in effect as central government politicians. It most certainly should not be about any agendas that central government politicians might have. 
One of the things that struck me about the bill from the outset is the potential it presents in bringing together the Auckland councils for privatisation of Auckland assets. That remains a very real and key concern. We are bringing together in the Auckland super-city some $28 billion worth of assets—most notably assets such as Ports of Auckland and Watercare Services. They are very much two glittering prizes for privatisation and certainly many in the investment community would look at them as such. There is nothing in the bill to protect those assets. I acknowledge the very good work that my colleague Phil Twyford has done to promote that issue through a website and other means. 
But I believe that in other policy settings the Government is going the other way towards the potential for privatisation. I note most particularly that in March the Government announced a review of foreign ownership to make it easier for foreigners to invest in this country. Even more recently it announced that any Australian investment body wanting to buy assets in New Zealand can now do so up to a limit of $500 million—that is half a billion dollars in assets. Of course the net effect even though the investors are our good friends from Australia is the same. It still has the potential to drive our current account deficit to become even wider to drive our dollar further upwards along with our interest rates and in effect to make us beggars in our own land. 
Water is the basis of the new economy and Watercare Services will be providing water to over a million New Zealanders in Auckland. If we have in Mr Hide—and this is not anything contentious—a very strong belief in the privatisation ethic and if we have embodied and articulated in him a belief that core services do not even stretch to the provision of such essential services in my view as libraries then the potential for privatisation is very strong. 
Another comment I will make is around the formation of the new community boards or councils. I support them as a very good concept but the key for any community board or council is the resourcing and funding it receives. In Christchurch we have about half a dozen of these bodies. They are served by very well-motivated people who work very hard on behalf of their particular sections of the Christchurch community. But I have to say that their powers are very limited. They can for instance decide where a bus stop can be sited but they have no power over transport issues like the running of bus services. They can fund the resowing of a sports field but they do not have the capacity to purchase or create a sports field. I think the key to the successful future of the boards in Auckland comes back to the same thing. It comes back to the resources and funding they have and the protections that are in place to ensure that publicly owned resources remain in public hands. I am not convinced that that is provided for in this bill.