Bradford Sue: Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill — In Committee 
Bradford Sue: Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:657;Page:6471] 
SUE BRADFORD (Green) 
: 
 One important area that has not been given much attention so far in this debate is the matter of how the new super-city is going to deal with water. Given Auckland’s high annual rainfall and the increasing incidence of weather bomb problems the Green Party is concerned that the Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill recommends that the management of Auckland’s stormwater be separated from the management of Auckland’s water and waste water. This decision adds weight to worries that Watercare Services is being shaped into a neat vertically integrated business funded by revenues from water and waste-water charges and ready for a possible sell-off. That is the deepest fear we have. That business model would be upset by Auckland’s stormwater challenges but then public services do not always lend themselves to market solutions. 
At the moment I understand that North Shore Manukau and Waitakere deliver the three local water services in an integrated way. North Shore City Council for example recognises how intertwined the three water services are whether or not people like it and understands that they need to be managed together for a whole host of reasons. Super-city proposals to break up the water service divisions of North Shore Manukau and Waitakere will not serve anyone’s interests well. In the old days stormwater was managed by council roading departments but even that will not be possible under the new governance proposals because roads are to be managed by a separate transport infrastructure agency which will have little interest I imagine in stormwater. 
Auckland’s stormwater cannot be allowed to flow through the widening cracks in these reforms. Integrated management of our stormwater assets ponds and flow paths is essential. It is also imperative that all water management and control remain within public ownership with clear accountability mechanisms transparent pricing and a strong focus on meeting both ecological and human imperatives. This is a debate that will continue when the third governance bill comes before Parliament later this year but I think it is important that we signal our concerns now about the negative outcomes of clauses 23 and 24 which are already embedded in the legislation we are dealing with today. 
A second and related issue is around who will really plan the super-city and how. The Government has talked a lot about how the new arrangements will aid effective planning for the region. Indeed one of the reasons the Green Party supported the super-city proposal to some extent was that we could see that the region would benefit from far more coherent region-wide planning in areas of critical infrastructure such as water and transport. We want to see sustainability at the heart of the new Auckland configuration and a city where there is a strong healthy safe and fair society living within its environmental limits. The Greens also believe that Auckland should have the right to determine its own destiny without being effectively controlled from Wellington or elsewhere. 
We are concerned by recent events that indicate a major shift in the locus of decision making. For example the Minister of Transport the Hon Steven Joyce is leading the charge by seeking to build a four-lane highway from Puhoi to Wellsford. Despite having had a close association with the Rodney and North Shore Districts over many years I have never sensed a huge upswelling of local support for such an option not in the way there was for example for the Albany to Puhoi realignment or for the Northern Busway. The Puhoi to Wellsford motorway has never figured in any 10-year plan before now and it is not part of the Auckland regional transport strategy. From what I can gather the Minister is simply not listening to Government transport officials who are really uncomfortable about promoting a four-lane motorway when its benefit-cost assessments simply do not stack up against other transport projects. That is putting aside all the arguments about the use of motorways at all when investing in public transport would be a far more appropriate option. 
I further understand that in the process of establishing the new Auckland transport agency to replace the Auckland Regional Transport Authority the Minister has indicated that he wants Auckland transport to basically be centrally controlled from Wellington probably by the New Zealand Transport Agency. Auckland’s right to determine its own future is also being challenged on another front by the existence of the Auckland Transition Agency whose job it is to construct the detail of the new city. As part of its work it has already completely cut across the Auckland Regional Council’s regional policy statement processes while the Government itself continues to undermine the Auckland Regional Council’s growth strategy on issues as diverse as motorways as opposed to public transport; sprawl and coastal development as opposed to containment; and of course through the recent Resource Management Act changes.