Beaumont Carol: Local Government (Auckland Law Reform) Bill — In Committee 
Beaumont Carol: Local Government (Auckland Law Reform) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:663;Page:11465] 
CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour) 
: 
 Talofa lava Mr Chair. As an Auckland MP I rise to speak with considerable sadness about the Local Government (Auckland Law Reform) Bill. Today is not quite the historic day that the member opposite Nikki Kaye was referring to as we are in the Committee stage on this bill. As I am an Auckland member of Parliament this bill affects me. It affects my access to representation in local government. It affects the services provided to me to my neighbours to the electorate I work in to the people of Panmure to the people of Ellerslie and to the people of Onehunga. Across the Chamber members are fooling themselves if they believe that those people believe the rhetoric about this being a great day for Auckland and that this measure will deliver all these fantastic outcomes. Aucklanders do not believe that. 
This bill the third Auckland bill is the culmination of quite a considerable amount of work. It is about the future of Auckland’s local government. Others have mentioned the appalling processes that took place around the Local Government (Tamaki Makaurau Reorganisation) Bill and the Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill. I will talk about general points in this my first contribution but members can rest assured that Auckland members from this side of the Chamber will be rising to speak frequently and on the detail of this bill. So I can reassure Ms Kaye of that matter. Actually I want to acknowledge Ms Kaye as being one of the two National members of Parliament based in Auckland who are ready and willing to speak on this bill in the House. It is great that she has done that. I congratulate her on that. 
This bill will make Auckland’s governance less transparent less accountable and less responsive to Aucklanders. We object to 75 percent of Auckland Council assets being put into the hands of unelected council-controlled organisations. That is a point of principle and one that is shared by an overwhelming majority of Aucklanders. The local boards should have more power and I think we will talk about that in quite a lot of detail and get into the argument about whether this bill does indeed provide sufficient power. We say that the bill does not. Maori should have guaranteed representation and the council should have more community involvement. 
We are also concerned on this side of the Chamber that this bill paves the way for privatisation of council assets. Again that is another issue that Aucklanders feel strongly about. Aucklanders do not believe National members when those members say they are not interested in privatising council assets. 
We have heard a lot of times that the Government has listened to Aucklanders. In fact if I had a dollar for every time I heard a member opposite say that I would be a very rich person. I sat in on a number of occasions in respect of the two bills that were referred to the select committee. On many occasions I heard very sympathetically and earnestly stated comments about listening to Aucklanders. Well the reality both in substance and in process is that this bill is flawed and the outcome does not show that the Government has listened to Aucklanders. 
The stakes are high. Auckland is New Zealand’s largest city. A third of our population live in Auckland. It is the entry way for most people visiting our country and it is the exit route for many of our exports. It is a very important city. It is a place where many of us live raise our families go to school go to work and enjoy ourselves in what is as Mr Shearer said an incredibly beautiful city. The stakes are high in terms of getting this right. 
But what are we facing? We are facing the centralisation of power both in terms of mayoral powers and in terms of a lack of genuine authority being given to the local boards. We are facing community becoming corporate. We are facing transparency becoming opaqueness. One of the things that sadden me the most about this bill is that there has been a real missed opportunity. The value of local government the public good that is done by local government is not well understood by New Zealanders. I think that the missed opportunity was the opportunity to ensure that we took Aucklanders with us on this journey. It was the opportunity to inform people of the role of local government and to actually find out what they want from their local government. It was an opportunity to improve understanding of the processes of local government and how people can participate. 
This could have been a real opportunity to engage properly with Aucklanders to commit to some key principles to commit to an appropriate time frame instead of the very rushed job we have seen all the way through and to try to build a high degree of consensus about the sort of Auckland we want. That takes time and commitment to the process. Auckland is an incredibly diverse city; it is clearly the most diverse city in New Zealand. 
Simon Bridges 
: You haven’t been to Tauranga. 
CAROL BEAUMONT 
: I have in fact been to Tauranga quite recently. As I was saying Auckland is a very diverse city. It has some of the richest New Zealanders and some of the poorest. It has many social issues that we need to deal with. This process has missed the opportunity to talk to Aucklanders about all of those things to build that consensus and to put in place reforms that would have stood the test of time. 
I acknowledge the efforts of Aucklanders to try to have their say. People have been out on the streets they have protested they have written submissions and they have attended meetings. I have been impressed by the quality of the submissions to the select committee on two of the three Auckland governance bills. There were 786 submissions on the Local Government (Auckland Law Reform) Bill and 348 of those were heard by the committee. I acknowledge each and every one of those people. Certainly there were a range of very fine submissions from the Maungakiekie electorate where I work. They came from a range of groups such as existing local government politicians business associations community groups and young people’s groups. The submissions were of a very good quality. But we have ended up with just a continuation of the approach of this Government—that is spin. It is all about messaging: “We are listening.” Labour members have listened and heard a number of tokenistic changes that are meant to reassure Aucklanders that they have been listened to. 
In the select committee process on the third bill it was interesting that people had seen through that approach by the Government. But on the second bill where Mr John Carter and others had said: “We are listening.” people gave them the benefit of the doubt. They thought: “OK they’re listening to us and they are going to do these things.” But when people submitted on the third bill there was just enormous anger from many of them because they knew they had not been listened to at all. 
I want to talk about a number of issues that deal with what this means. Ironically it may well mean a better turnout in our local government elections this time because of the level of anger. That would be a good thing and hopefully that would mean the election of a decent council that will try to make the best as others have said out of what is in the legislation. But the Government needs to take heed of the view of Aucklanders and I know that it is not something the Government is keen to do. 
I just quote a little bit from the  
Onehunga Community News 
 which is a fine monthly publication. It states: “Supporters of this legislation must take heed. There are many areas which give grave cause for concern. If the new structures limit people’s perception of their ability to practise democracy locally then they still have a national election on the horizon. The 2011 election gives the super-city a year to get bedded in or will local MPs discover the truth of the adage: ‘He who lives by the sword shall die by the sword’?”. 
Aucklanders are angry and will hold the Government to account for these changes. So there will be an opportunity in the Committee stage and Labour members will be raising a number of Supplementary Order Papers. I urge the Government to look at them and to look at improving the legislation. Fa‘afetai soifua.