Prasad Rajen: Rodney District Council Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Prasad Rajen: Rodney District Council Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 21 July 2010. Volume:665;Page:12554. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD (Labour) 
: 
 This bill the Rodney District Council Bill really demonstrates this Government’s inconsistency and duplicity. In my contribution to this bill I want to demonstrate that. Fundamentally the bill is about enabling the voices of the people of the Rodney District Council to be heard in this Parliament. By the very reaction that the Government is taking and by the actions taken by those who should be representing the interests of this conservative electorate the Government is really disabling the views of the people of Rodney from being heard. The Government has failed the people of Rodney by not fronting up and also by making little of the arguments that they are presenting. Not one National member north of the bridge has come forward to say that he or she would at least put his or her name to a local bill which is the tradition. Not one of those members has done that. The people of Rodney will not forget it. 
The people of north Rodney are good and reasonable folk. They essentially want to represent the views of the people whom they have campaigned very actively with. They make it quite clear that they want to get north Rodney out of the super-city following the view of the majority of the members in this area of that city. That argument is pretty important and pretty powerful yet they are not being enabled to be heard here. 
Government members are being absolutely inconsistent. They take a particular position when it suits them but on the same principle they discount it when it does not suit them. I remember very well when the Hon Maurice Williamson came to this House and said what a wonderful thing it was that the people of Howick the people of Te Irirangi had had a big meeting had signed petitions—he brought the box into the House—and how important democracy was. On the basis of that the Hon Pansy Wong and the Hon Maurice Williamson supported the name change and carried the day. 
I ask what happened in this particular case. Howick does not even describe Te Irirangi which is a beautiful name. It has local meaning as well but members opposite used in that case the principle of “the voice of the people”. Well what happened this time? The people of north Rodney have come together with 6000 signatures. They have described to us how they walked street after street to find people at home to sign the petitions but the Government is being inconsistent and illogical. My colleague Darien Fenton and I were invited in the summer of this year to go to north Rodney and have a public Labour Party meeting there. I asked my wife to come along. I said that it was a very conservative electorate and there would probably be 20 people there if that so we could go and have a meal. 
Dr Cam Calder 
: Did you take the red machine? 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD 
: They are the people who elected the Government last time so Mr Calder should listen to what they said. When we went there the hall was full to overflowing. The people were angry. They were absolutely annoyed that the Government was not listening. It is an insult to those people that the Government has not listened. 
The position taken by Tau Henare today was that those people were interested only in themselves and that is why the bill is here today. That is an absolute insult to the people of north Rodney. I hope they are listening to this debate or will read the transcript because they will realise that the Government is not interested in actually living by the democratic principles that this country operates on. The party opposite sings its praises all the time but it is inconsistent. The Government talked about mining but now it says that the people do not want it so we will not have it. Yet the people of north Rodney do not want to be part of the Auckland super-city. 
This bill is about giving a voice to the people of north Rodney. They will not have that voice. I thank Darien Fenton for bringing the bill forward. It is a shame and a black day in the history of this Parliament really that the people of north Rodney cannot come and have their say. Thank you very much.