In the Super City debate today in the House (9am-midnight) Labour is introducing these amendments:
- Maori representation – ensures that the new Auckland Council will include Maori members elected in proportion to the number of Maori in Auckland on the Maori electoral rolls.
- Number of Councillors – Change the total number of councillors to 25.
- Northern Boundary – Ensure the boundary set out by the Royal Commission is followed.
- Southern Boundary – Ensure the boundary set out by the Royal Commission is followed.
- Number of local boards – Change the total number of local boards to a range of 14 – 20 (currently the range is 20 – 30).
- Multi-member wards – Limit the number of councillors per ward to 1 if the voting system if FPP.
- Multi-member wards – Limited the number of councillors per ward to 2 if the voting system is STV.
- Local Government Commission – Ensure that public consultation over its determinations (including the number of local boards, and boundaries) is mandatory.
- Review – Introduce a review of the governance arrangement after 5 years.
- Council Assets – Introduce provisions that protect assets from sale.
- Staff Transition – Introduce provisions to protect staff over the transition period. It will call for a code of practice to drawn up.
- Performance Auditor – Introduce provisions giving effect to Royal Commission recommendation to adopt a performance auditor.
- Social Issues Board – Introduce provisions giving effect to Royal Commission recommendation for a Social Issues Board.
- The establishment of a Pacific Advisory Board
- The establishment of an Asian Advisory Board.
- The establishment of a Youth Council.
We will be supporting Green Party amendments that:
- increase the minimum membership of Local Boards from 4 to 11.
- change the voting system from FPP to STV.
- substitute the Mayors power to appoint the deputy mayor and committee chairs for a power of nomination.
And a Maori Party amendment thatestablishes two Maori members on the Auckland Council to be elected by Maori electors.
Can I suggest also proposing amendments to hold referendums in Auckland on STV and Maori seats (perhaps at the first election)?
Why insist on Maori seats now when they dont exist under the current councils? Smacks of double standards to me. Or is it simply going for the headline again?
Bikerkiwi, perhaps you are not personally connected to greater Auckland, but in assessing the super city reforms, it would be helpful to bear in mind that they affect the governance of a third of the population and about 40 percent of GDP, and a Council with an annual budget of $3b and assets of $30b. This is not a rural hamlet, or even a provincial town, it is vitally important that it be gotten right. Hide’s reforms are a coup d’etat by the elite, so it’s not surprising that the informed public should resist.
Jennifer – so you are saying that the district councils that are there now are small and insignificant therefore Maori seats were not necessary for those ‘hamlets’, and that labour didnt need to get it right then?
(assuming you think that maori seats are right?)
What Im pointing out is that labour (yet again) are making a ho-0ha over something that they were not willing to do themselves.
Perhaps they don’t want the southern boundary changed because if the water catchment is not part of the ‘Super” city it will be able to be sold off easier.
So now you have:
Maori seats.
A Pacific Advisory Board
A Asian Advisory Board.
A Youth Council.
Your commission for Social inclusion will love that. Any chance you could have special advisiory board for gays, what about English and South African immigrants? A special task force for left handed people perhaps.
Woah, looks like a long night ahead.
Bikerkiwi, it is reasonable to assume that had Labour formed a government after the 2008 election and received the Royal Commission report, and was now legislating to enact their recommendations, it would indeed be legislating for Maori seats on the Auckland Council. The new Auckland Council is in fact a special case, as I pointed out earlier, because it concerns the governance of a third of the population. In local government terms, it’s the elephant in the room, in fact the heard of elephants in the room. The entire apparatus of local government in the rest of the country is about on par with it. The nwe executive Mayor will have as much influence over public policy as the Cabinet. Don’t you get it?
Mr Twyford, why has Labour changed its position from advocating six or seven local boards to arguing for 14-20 local boards? How did you arrive at this magic range? Was it because you backed down on your earlier commitment of 7 after hearing from Waiheke and Great Barrier that they wanted their own boards? I understand you have been very critical of the government’s 20-30 proposal but you haven’t come up with an explanation as to why your magical formula is better.
How did you decide that the royal commission was the best place to determine boundary and numbers of local boards, as opposed to the local government commission?
Labour’s position on the super city has been very confusing, I have to admit. It hasn’t been clear just what Labour stands for. Labour has made much of the different aspects that the government has rejected from the royal commission report but seems strangely silent in advocating aspects itself that are different to what the royal commission has proposed.
The whole messy saga around what labour believes in hasn’t been helped by your hysterical political wolf-whistling, misrepresentation and campaigning on some of the side show issues, and in earlier discussions on this blog you haven’t really engaged in any explanation as to how you come to these curious positions.
Tim Ellis, that’s not the question. The question is that how did the government come up with 20-30 in only 9 days? What is profoundly curious is where the super city master plan came from in such a short time. Or was it like those cooking shows on TV, where they have one hidden in the oven that they prepared earlier?
Mr Ellis is clearly a believer in attack as the best form of defence. In the face of the current government’s lack of policy coherence around where the Supercity should be (and Dr Hutcheson is promoting that confusion evermore), never mind what it should do, and its need to ram through changes under urgency (presumably to avoid ever greater public scrutiny of its thinking), the suggestion that Labour’s approach is ‘very confusing’ is rich in irony. If Tim Watkin is correct, Mr Sharples (coalition ally of the government), in endorsing Mr Brown as candidate for the mayoralty, is clear about which political tradition has the best handle on Auckland’s future.
Phil & team
How about an amendment requiring MPs not to double-dip as Auckland Super City councillors? It’d be fun to see National vote that one down, and have to explain why …
Tim,
Don’t you realise that everything you say about Labour’s(not without some justification, mind you) approach could equally be applied to the Government. The plan seems to change by the week, for reasons which are very vague. For instance where did multi-member constituencies, the Rodney council decision, 20-30 boards etc alll come from?? None of these proposals seem to have much support.
Fairs fair- Whats good for the goose is good for the gander.
Sammy, excellent idea.
Tim Ellis, it is a judgement call that requires weighing up various factors. Labour was initially persuaded by the Royal Commission’s arguments for fewer and larger local councils: they would be more capable on account of being bigger, leaving the existing councils intact would avoid the unnecesary loss of councils that work and serve their communities well. They also concluded that a cost-benefit analysis did not justify the expense and disruption of disestablishing the existing councils and creating a large number of new ones. We took the view that the Royal Commission’s recommended six was insufficient to accommodate some obvious communities of interest like Waiheke and Great Barrier and there needed to be some flexibility, so our position was 6-12.
Once the Government decided to give more powers to local boards, but to maintain them as governance and policy making bodies without staff and not responsibile for service delivery, the question of size became less critical. The critical thing then becomes community of interest. Our view now is that 14-20 is a better range than 20-30. Up to 20 should be enough to reflect communities of interest. 30, in our view, would risk chopping into small pieces of some clearly established communities of interest.
Throughout the whole process we’ve been concerned to preserve local boards that are big and capable enough to lead or catalyse serious local place shaping work, like the New Lynn urban redesign project, or like the economic development work done by Waitakere City. A multitude of very small boards are unlikely to be able to work on that scale, and will be confined to much more micro local concerns.
@ phil twyford, are we getting a Maori lesson again today, “41 votes opposed”..?
I only have one question: If Labour wins in 2011 will they ammended the bill(s) with the above list..?
Hi Phil
please keep up the good work! Can I recommend the establishment of an Arts Advisory Board to the super city as well.
One of the positives aspects of this process is that it has forced people like myself (Gallery director) to drive across this city and talk to my peers more often. Whatever the outcome there is strength in numbers and the more we talk to each other to identify who and what we do the better.
Regards
James
wow Phil, reading your amendments shows just how easy it is to sort out, that’s amazing.
bikerkiwi – Jennifer is right on several counts – it is perhaps salient too that the county / city structures that we are currently operating under were formulated at a time when NZ cities were even more than now, mainly pakeha in hue. In country areas, where there was a Maori majority most councils were controlled by the “ruling (white) elite” and it was this group who dictated the structures adopted by their councils in order for said group to retain decision making capability and deter dissent. It is not surprising that it is this group, gathered around Rod Hide, who are combating the Royal Commission’s recommendation for Maori seats. Those same people are wracking their brains for ways in which democracy can be deterred and Maori seats would be just one more impediment to the Remmers blue-bloods retaining unfettered control. Personally I don’t think they need worry – the way the Maori elite are gravitating to right wing ideologies they could well be counted on to extend Remmer’s political domination.
[...] proposed amendments requiring the new Auckland Council to have a Pacific Advisory Board and an Asian Advisory [...]
A Pacific Advisory Board and an Asian Advisory Board?
Do these people know any history? Let’s have none of this ethnic groups rubbish. It’s a divisive dead-end. We’re New Zealanders; nothing more, nothing less.
Ethnicity and culture are private matters. It is a weak mind which thinks they’re bettering the country by entrenching ethnicity into politics and government.
(similar comment put on Kiwiblog)