Kedgley Sue: Local Government (Auckland Law Reform) Bill — In Committee 
Kedgley Sue: Local Government (Auckland Law Reform) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:663;Page:11460] 
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 What is effectively happening to Aucklanders with the passage of the Local Government (Auckland Law Reform) Bill is that we are wiping out local government in Auckland and setting up what in any other country would be called a form of state Government. We are setting up a council here to represent one-third of the people of New Zealand. Councillors will have constituencies that are larger than the constituencies of members of Parliament. There will be constituencies with 80000 to 100000 people. How can that be called local government? It cannot be called local government and with so few councillors representing one-third of the population of New Zealand Aucklanders will inevitably find that their councillors become inaccessible. The whole idea of having grassroots local government has gone out the window and it has been replaced by state Government. 
I heard a National member asking about the local boards. Well what about the local boards? We have wiped out eight perfectly well-functioning councils including Waitakere City Council which is one of the most innovative councils in New Zealand and likewise Manukau City Council. We have replaced them with 21 local boards. Other members have commented on the fact that these local boards have no powers still spelt out in the legislation. Despite all the promises etc. still there are no powers for the local boards. Even the rather waffly statements in the bill about their powers make it very clear that the governing body the Auckland Council can intervene on almost any decision of a local board saying a matter is in the interest of Auckland as a whole. The council can take over and wipe out local boards so really their main power will simply be to advocate. 
The other issue that people have not really focused on is the tiny number of people who will be on the local boards. There will be four to nine members with a quorum of two. We have replaced eight councils with tiny boards of four to nine members so that we can get a quorum of two who will represent their area. That is not a form of local government; that is not grassroots democracy. That is just a sham. 
The next issue is that the mayor is to have unprecedented powers: powers that no other mayor in New Zealand will have. The mayor will appoint every chair of every committee. All that the mayor will have to do is to set up 10 committees appoint their chairs and then he will have 10 hand-picked chairs who are beholden to him—and the mayor will inevitably be a man; there are no women candidates as yet. The mayor will be able to control the agenda in much the same way that Cabinet controls the agenda of this Parliament. He will control the agenda and will be able to ram through the agenda for Auckland because of these powers. It is called the strong mayor model. No other mayor in New Zealand has such powers except for the mayor of the Auckland Council. 
We will have not only a strong mayor controlling the agenda of the council but also the council-controlled organisations. OK some changes may have been made to the council-controlled organisations but why would we siphon off 75 percent of the functions of the democratically elected councils into council-controlled organisations that are replete with unelected and unaccountable directors? I served for many years while I was on the Wellington City Council on a holding company that was a council-owned company. I can assure members that that basically ran like a company. I was the only one representing the Wellington City Council. The board was basically just like any corporate board. It had a fiduciary duty in that case and basically it was run like a corporate board. This will be the case with the council-controlled organisations in the Auckland Council. Sure one can write a statement of corporate intent but I ask what real influence that will have with regard to the day-to-day running of for example the transport of Auckland. What real influence do the statements of corporate intent to the State-owned enterprises have on the day-to-day running of Auckland? 
The system has all been set up to subvert local democracy to siphon as much as possible of the powers of the Auckland Council into the hand-picked boards of council-controlled organisations. When I say that the board members are hand-picked I mean that none other than Mr Hide in some cases with Mr Joyce will appoint the directors. That is completely unprecedented. Nowhere else in New Zealand does central government get to decide whether council-controlled organisations will be set up by local government let alone who will serve on them. So that is an unprecedented level of central government interference in local government which undermines the whole principle of local government. The fact that the Minister of Local Government will appoint the members of the council-controlled organisations is absolute blatant political interference. 
This system is all set up to enable corporate interests to gain precedence in Auckland and stage two will be for those interests to get their hands on the $28 billion worth of assets that the Auckland Council will have. The supreme irony could very well be that although the whole system has been set up for the corporatisation of Auckland if the people of Auckland elect not the candidate of the corporate interests Mr Banks but Mr Brown we could have a mayor who was not under the control of corporate interests or of this Government. It would be a supreme irony if the upshot of all of this was that the corporate interests effectively lost control of the structure that they have set up so carefully and so diligently over the last few years. 
We will find that National has really set up a state Government. Australia has both local government and state government. That is really what the Government is doing here with one council to represent one-third of the population of New Zealand and 20-odd councillors each representing 100000 people. I guess that that at least will give those councillors something to do. At least they will be able to run around in their wards trying to represent their 100000 people. They will have little else to do because all of the key elements of the council will be siphoned off into the council-controlled organisations. 
I also cannot understand why the mayoral candidates are running around saying the big issue for Auckland is public transport and transport problems and promising to fix those transport problems when they cannot. The mayor will have only very indirect power in that area because even all of the critical issues of transport are being siphoned off into a council-controlled organisation. 
Nikki Kaye 
: They control the spatial plan. 
SUE KEDGLEY 
: Oh well I am glad to hear that there is something left that the councillors do control and that not everything—not everything—has been siphoned off into the council-controlled organisations. 
This legislation realises the most extraordinary goal of the ACT Party. Anyone can look up its local government policy; it is quite explicit. ACT wants to shrink democracy and corporatise the functions of local government. Rodney Hide has succeeded beyond his wildest dreams in this Auckland bill. But let us not blame just Rodney Hide; he could not have done this without the support of the whole National Government. Its members have supported the undermining of local government the undermining of local powers and interference by central government in the affairs of local government on a scale that has never happened before at least not to my knowledge. At the end of all of this we will have funny little boards which are supposed to pretend to represent local communities and local democracy.