Fenton Darien: Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill — Second Reading Procedure In Committee 
Fenton Darien: Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill — Second Reading Procedure In Committee 
[Volume:657;Page:6377] 
DARIEN FENTON (Labour) 
: 
 This is my first opportunity to speak on the Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill tonight. I have to say that I am concerned that we are here in the Chamber and are once again rushing through important legislation under urgency. The process the Government is adopting is becoming a little bit of a bad habit. We are seeing this week after week. Here we are making major constitutional changes for New Zealand’s largest city in which a third of New Zealand’s population lives and again these issues are being progressed under urgency. 
I want to respond to the honourable member Jonathan Coleman. He may think that people on the North Shore do not care about this issue but actually they do. 
Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman 
: They do and they’re in favour of it. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: They are not in favour of it. 
Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman 
: How would you know Darien? 
DARIEN FENTON 
: Because I have been to the meetings. That member has not been to the meetings. He was not at the select committee to hear the submissions from the North Shore. He has not been talking to people on the North Shore and he is not listening. Is that member saying he disagrees with the Mayor of the North Shore? Is that what the member is saying? The mayor is saying about the process that after all the community effort to have their voices heard and all the Government’s contrived flip-flops back-downs and Cabinet-level tantrums we are essentially back to square one. I would be interested to hear a response from that member. 
I think what we are seeing again is that National thinks it is fine to ride roughshod over the people of Auckland. National thinks it is fine to pretend that a process has been undergone and then to override that process by making decisions even before the select committee outcome is known. I have to say that Aucklanders have been appallingly let down. Firstly National took away from the people of Auckland the right to vote on the proposals in a referendum under the Local Government Act. Then National set up the rushed process of a 3-week select committee in order for it to make decisions and then at the same time made decisions in the back room with the ACT Party. 
I saw submitter after submitter being given just 5 minutes to say what they thought. The submitters were important community groups from the North Shore west Auckland and right across Auckland. I know that each of them had spent a lot of time preparing their submissions. I know they had spent hours and hours getting ready to present their submissions only to be rushed through when they arrived at the select committee. They were given 5 minutes to say what they thought and then there were a couple of questions from the chair. It is just not good enough. 
What we have also seen is that National thinks it is fine to ignore the people of Hunua and by and large the people of Rodney District until they have created enough stink—a huge stink—to make National nervous. Then we see Mr Key—that nice pragmatic Mr Key that nervous Mr Key—doing yet another U-turn on Rodney District. I am pleased he has done a U-turn on Rodney District. I am pleased for the people of Rodney that that has happened. But what is obvious about that U-turn is that National and John Key care more about what Rodney Hide says than about what the people of Auckland say about the Maori seats. The Maori Party’s questions this afternoon about the difference between caving in to the demands of the people of Rodney District—and I support their demands—and the demands of the people who marched in the street and who went on the hikoi to demand that there be Maori representation are really interesting. I do not understand the difference and I would like to hear from the Minister what the difference is. 
What is also obvious is that National does not care about the workers in the process and in the transition—those workers whom Nikki Kaye says she cares about whose jobs are in jeopardy. The uncertainty must be awful for them. Let us imagine what it is like for those people in the process at the moment not knowing whether they will have a job in October 2010. Yet National expects those workers to keep working to contribute to do the things in the community they do very well and to keep being positive. That is completely unrealistic. I do not know how the National Government thinks things will keep ticking over while those staff wait to hear whether they have been sacked. How on earth does the National Government imagine that those community organisations will survive? The chair of the select committee John Carter praised those community organisations every time they came before the select committee. He praised them. He told them that he appreciated them so much and that he had not realised how much the community organisations did in Auckland.