Shearer David: Local Government (Auckland Law Reform) Bill — In Committee 
Shearer David: Local Government (Auckland Law Reform) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:663;Page:11562] 
DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert) 
: 
 That was an excellent speech from Pansy Wong—talking about democracy being based on a 700-person telephone survey. If that is what democracy is to this Government—that between 50 percent and 60 percent of people surveyed by telephone thought they might like to change the name of Te Irirangi ward back to Howick again—then things have come to a really sad point. It is obviously appealing to people who were already in the Government’s camp but I say to Ms Pansy Wong it is certainly not what one could call democracy. 
I will speak on a couple of issues that relate to the council-controlled organisations and the threat to real democracy. This is not the telephone-type of democracy or the 50 percent or 60 percent in favour with eight or nine points of error kind of democracy but real democracy which is the democracy of what happens when the assets of Auckland are put into council-controlled organisations. 
A few months ago the  
New Zealand Herald  
talked about the real challenge of the Auckland governance legislation having to serve in a sense two divergent aims. On the one hand it is intended to give Auckland unity and on the other hand it is intended to make sure that the decision making is close to the people. I put it to members that although this bill has improved—I acknowledge the improvements we have made to this bill in the last few weeks and the acceptance of the most recent change the amendment of George Hawkins to require council-controlled organisations to have two meetings a year—as far as Labour members are concerned it does not go far enough. It has been tweaked around the edges but it is certainly better than where it stood when we were debating the Auckland governance issue 1 year ago. 
With regard to council-controlled organisations the opinion of four Government agencies was not to set them up in the way that the Government wants to do it. The Ministry for the Environment Treasury the Department of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Economic Development said not to do it this way. The reason is that they believe that it is less democratic and it increases the possibility of the assets of Auckland being put into council-controlled organisations and therefore being flogged off and privatised. That is what we talk about when we talk about democracy. That was what overwhelmingly the people who came and gave evidence during the select committee process talked about. Overwhelmingly they worried about the ability of the assets of Auckland to be sold off. The overwhelming number of Aucklanders do not want that to happen. For example section 77 as set out in Part 2 clause 45 removes the precautions on the Ports of Auckland being taken out and sold off. It preserves it for a period of time but it certainly does that. 
The other point is the issue of water. Extending the length of time that a private company can take over water assets to 35 years means that for half of a lifetime the assets can be locked up in one company. It does not enable those living in Auckland to have a degree of confidence in knowing that the water is still theirs and that it is still being used in their interests rather than in the interests of a company. After 35 years of the water assets being locked up it is impossible to understand how a tendering process would not then return the water assets to the same company for another 35 years. The privatisation debate—which many of my colleagues will talk about in the minutes to come—is at the heart of the fears of Aucklanders today. They fear that democracy is being undermined.