Henare Tau: Local Government (Auckland Reorganisation) Bill — First Reading Second Reading 
Henare Tau: Local Government (Auckland Reorganisation) Bill — First Reading Second Reading 
[Advance Copy - Subject to minor change before inclusion in Bound Volume.] 
Hon TAU HENARE (National) 
: 
 I ask members to picture if they will CNN BBC News or even Fox News. Newsflash! Breaking news! The class war that people like Phil Twyford would like to believe is still going on has been won and lost. I tell all those members of the Fabian Society that the war is over. There are no victims whom they can prey on. The people of Mt Albert will sleep well tonight after the speech by Phil Twyford. 
A long time ago my ancestors got together even before my uncle and auntie were born and said: “Let’s have an arranged betrothal. Let’s have an arranged marriage.” They sorted out in the period before my uncle and auntie were born that they would marry at some stage. In time they grew up and were betrothed. 
Hon Members 
: What are you talking about? 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: This is a story that the members on the other side of the House should listen to very carefully. My uncle and auntie grew up in the 1920s and they were married. Even though they had their troubles—they had to run a farm and raise a family and one went off to war while the other stayed home and looked after the farm—they were able to stay together for some 60 years. That says to me that the transition committee the organisation of our elders was able to put in place some things that would help them along the way. 
Kelvin Davis 
: A select committee. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: No it was not a select committee. The story tells us that if we put in place a transitional authority then the marriage may—I am not saying it will—last a long long time. 
Carmel Sepuloni 
: That’s a very long bow. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: It may very well be a long bow. Let us also look at the situation 50 years ago in 1963 when I was only 3 years old. That gives away my age—a very young 48. In 1963 we had the development of the Auckland Regional Authority. Since then we have had umpteen dozens of other tries at organising Auckland into the super-city it always has been. Auckland has always been in the minds of a whole lot of people the super-city where the engine room of New Zealand is—and I am not forgetting the provincial areas of New Zealand. 
We have got it wrong for so many years. 
Carmel Sepuloni 
: And you’ve got it wrong again. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Oh! That comment was from the intellectual member of the Labour Party. Let us look at what Auckland really needs. Through all the hyperbole we have heard from the Labour members tonight we have never really heard what Labour stands for even though in the last 9 years it had an opportunity that most of us never have—an opportunity to put Auckland on the road to recovery. 
Auckland has for a long long time been a failure. It has failed its ratepayers. It has failed the community—[ 
Interruption 
] Especially where? Out in west Auckland did the member say? Let us talk about west Auckland then. It is a shame that the only opposition to the Local Government (Auckland Reorganisation) Bill we have heard has been from those people who want to protect their patch. In the parlance of young people the south side is trying to protect the south side from the west side the east side and the North Shore. That is what the opposition to this bill has all been about. It is about some people in high places trying to protect their patch and forgetting about where Auckland should be and how it should be progressing. 
I am proud to be part of a party that sees that the progress of Auckland is in the nation’s interests. It is not in one mayor’s interests; it is in the nation’s interests. That is why this side of the House is the progressive side and the productive side. Governance arrangements for the Auckland region have been a debacle for the last 50-odd years and it is time we sorted them out. We will sort them out in a manner in which we will try to take everyone with us. Yes there will be those who say no. Yes there will be those who are perturbed at their patch being taken. 
The previous speaker Su’a William Sio who is from Manukau and is an old school buddy of mine talked about South Auckland and the issue of representation. How many Pacific Island people serve on that large council for South Auckland? How many have served on it for the last 20 years? It is a handful of people and I could most probably name them. In fact I could most probably count them on one hand. 
Dr Rajen Prasad 
: What’s the point? 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: The point is that so-called democracy and patch protection actually does not work. We need an authority that is looking forward for everyone. 
I turn now to what my whanaunga and colleague Hone Harawira talked about: the issue of Maori representation. It seems to me that there are two schools of thought: one is from those who are interested in the debate about having representation and one is from the truck drivers courier drivers and council workers who want to get on with their jobs so they can put bread and butter on the table. I have a funny feeling that there are not as many victims of what we are trying to achieve as Labour members would have us believe. 
I am hopeful that there is a way forward in terms of Maori and mana whenua representation. By sitting down with people and talking through the issues there may be light at the end of the tunnel. But to go off on a tangent and say there will be no representation—none of this and none of that—is disingenuous. The bill’s proposed changes are what have to happen to Auckland. Auckland is the engine room of the country and we need it pumping 24/7. It cannot be the old dog that it used to be; it has to be the engine room of this economy and this nation.