Twyford Phil: Local Government (Auckland Law Reform) Bill — In Committee 
Twyford Phil: Local Government (Auckland Law Reform) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:663;Page:11450] 
PHIL TWYFORD (Labour) 
: 
 On this side of the Chamber we look forward to a free-ranging debate over the next couple of days as we work our way through the Committee stage on the Local Government (Auckland Law Reform) Bill. I hope that we will see plenty of the Government’s Auckland MPs in the Chamber. I note that only five of the Government’s Auckland MPs are currently in the Chamber— 
Hon John Carter 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. It is not appropriate to refer to the absence of MPs. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: The member must desist from doing that. 
PHIL TWYFORD 
: Speaking to the point of order— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) 
: I have ruled that that is the case. If the member wants to raise another point of order it ought to be on a separate matter because it is a long-held tradition of this House that in no way do members refer to the absence of any member from the Chamber. 
PHIL TWYFORD 
: I certainly will not refer to any absent members of this Committee by name. I recall that when we debated the Committee stages of the second super-city bill the Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill one of the mayors of Auckland was so moved by the complete absence of Government members from the debate that he took to texting them late at night to ask them why they were not in the Chamber to be held accountable for the legislation that they were pushing through and to be accountable to the voters in their communities. 
Let me say at the outset of this Committee stage debate that Labour believes Auckland’s local governance arrangements are in need of reform. We support the idea of there being one mayor one council one plan and one rates bill. We support most of what the Royal Commission on Auckland Governance had to say. We believe that as our largest city Auckland has a vital role to play in the life of our nation. It is our gateway to the world and it must become a magnet for tourists investors and skilled migrants. It must develop for the sake of the economic prosperity of our country a concentration of energy ideas and skills that will drive our creative industries and generate the science and innovation that our economy needs in the 21st century. We need to have the ability in Auckland to make the big decisions—for example on building a modern public transport system. The city must have the tools to manage its growth as the population heads towards 2 million people over the next three decades and we must develop our assets revitalise our central business district and open up the waterfront. We need to have smart economic development that will generate high-quality jobs and opportunities for a rapidly changing population. Reforming Auckland’s governance could go a long way towards setting up the city to meet those challenges. The process of shaping a unified Auckland could go a long way towards gearing the city up for an exciting period of change. 
But this bill is the culmination of a year-long process that has undermined public support for change and corroded public confidence and support for a unified Auckland. The provisions in this bill reflect the same defects in thinking that we have seen in the earlier two bills and the same concerns that Aucklanders have been raising consistently over the last 18 months. I will touch on the key concerns that Labour has with this bill. 
The bill imposes a corporatisation model on Auckland government. It ignores the cries of Aucklanders over the last few months that they do not want central government to tell Auckland what it should and should not corporatise in the new Auckland. It imposes the commercial model on the transport council-controlled organisation which will consume more than half of the Auckland rates bill in a way that is happening in no other city around New Zealand. 
On the powers of local boards this bill fails to deliver on a promise that this Government has been making consistently for the last 12 months that it would empower local communities. The bill does not do that. The powers of local boards are highly constrained and the boards that are being created are nothing like the empowered capable second tier of government that the royal commission had anticipated. 
This bill strips away the right that Aucklanders currently have under the law to have a direct say on whether the Ports of Auckland should be privatised. It takes away the right of Aucklanders to decide in a binding referendum whether the ports should be sold off. 
This bill puts in place a toothless Maori advisory panel and that is unsatisfactory to members on this side of the Chamber. We believe that the Government has missed a huge opportunity to move into the 21st century with Maori at the top table making decisions about Auckland’s future. That is a wasted opportunity. It half-heartedly sets up advisory boards for the Pacific community and other ethnic communities. It gives power to the mayor to set those boards up and has nothing to say about the election or selection of the members of those panels from those communities. We believe that is weak and half-hearted. 
In spite of the many soothing noises made by the member for Auckland Central during the weeks when we heard public submissions this bill fails to deliver any kind of mechanism to guarantee youth participation in the new Auckland. 
Nikki Kaye 
: Yes it does. 
PHIL TWYFORD 
: The member opposite will regret the promises that she has made to the young people of Auckland. 
On the issue of campaign spending this bill sets up an undemocratic ceiling for campaign spending. It will effectively mean that in the mayoral campaign in the last 3 months before an election a candidate can spend up to $580000. That is undemocratic. It is a gift to candidates in this election and in future elections who are backed by big business or who have huge personal wealth. We are against that. It is undemocratic. It does not provide a level playing field for candidates who want to stand for the mayoralty. 
For all those reasons Labour has issued a minority report setting out its arguments against these changes and explaining why it is opposed to this bill. 
The Government has said time and again that it is listening to Aucklanders. It may have listened but it certainly has not heard. The people of Auckland asked for three things from this Government—three things. They said local government in Auckland should not be corporatised local boards should be given real guaranteed powers in law and it should not be made easier to privatise the Ports of Auckland. The Government has said no no and no; it has not listened to Aucklanders. The Government pretends to listen but on the fundamentals the content of this bill shows that the Government has been determined to steamroller through its agenda in spite of massive public opposition. 
This bill passes considerable power from citizens and their elected representatives to hand-picked boards. It imposes corporatisation on Auckland in a way that no other city or district in this country has been subjected to. It over-centralises power away from communities right across our country’s biggest city and it gives that power to a 20-member council. It ignores the message of the royal commission that the new unified Auckland must recognise that its population is becoming younger and more diverse by the day and that the new Auckland Council should work overtime to create a place in Auckland for all those groups and give them a stake in the political process. 
A toothless Maori advisory board ethnic and Pacific advisory panels with a 3-year sunset clause and no obligation for their members to be elected from their communities no youth council and taking away the democratic safeguard against the privatisation of the Ports of Auckland—all those factors have fed into the fact that a solid 50 percent of Aucklanders do not like the super-city. No matter how they are asked about half of Auckland’s population say they are not happy with it. When asked in a recent  
Herald- 
DigiPoll whether they thought the amalgamated super-city would be a better place to live in 48.5 percent said no. When asked whether the single Auckland Council would be better or worse for them 52.7 percent of Aucklanders said it would be worse for them and only 31 percent said it would be better. When asked whether replacing the existing eight councils with a single council would improve the management of the region—the central claim that Rodney Hide has made all the way along in this process—49 percent of Aucklanders said no it would not result in improved management. 
That is a damning indictment of the process that this Minister and this Government have run over the last 18 months and Aucklanders deserve better than that.