The natives are getting restless. All over Auckland, but especially in the traditionally National-voting districts of Rodney in the north and Franklin in the south.
We’ve just finished 11 joint Labour-Green public meetings around Auckland to discuss the Government’s third super city bill for which public submissions close on Friday. Anger and frustration at the super city debacle were expressed in community halls from Mangere to Milford. But some of the harshest words for the Government were heard in unlikely places. Last night in Kumeu, in the heart of the Prime Minister’s electorate, about 50 locals were outraged at a meeting hosted by the local Residents and Ratepayers Association. They see the super city as a power grab by Hide and the corporate wide-boys and fear their community will lose its voice.
Colleagues and I have just met a delegation from northern Rodney who came to Parliament today. They presented a 6000-signature petition to their local MP Lockwood Smith, Associate Local Government Minister John Carter (MP for neighbouring Northland) and Local Government Minister Rodney Hide. They want the Government to repeal part of the second super city bill and take northern Rodney (north of Dome Valley) out of the super city and put it into Kaipara District.
Given the chaotic and arbitrary process so far, they might have a decent chance of getting another U-turn. John Carter who chairs the select committee, last year advised Cabinet to cut Rodney in half – south in and north out – ignoring the Royal Commission’s recommendation that the current Auckland regional boundaries be retained in order to give the city enough rural buffer land to protect the metropolitan urban limit from development pressures. Then 400 angry residents gave Lockwood Smith hell about the partition in a public meeting in Warkworth. Cabinet buckled, deciding to bring all of Rodney in only 24 hours before the second super city bill returned to the House for its second reading.
Add to that the miseries of Franklin and Papakura; their bid to secede quashed by Rodney Hide. Franklin Mayor Mark Ball said he was “extremely disappointed by the minister’s blatant disregard of the wishes of the vast majority of people in Franklin”.
I’ve thought for a while that the Nats with small majorities (Kaye, Bennett, Lotu-Iiga) had the most to lose from the super city fiasco. But I am wondering whether Smith (Rodney), Collins (Papakura) and Hutchinson (Hunua) might well be in a for a caning too. But the stroppy natives of Rodney, Franklin and Papakura are not alone. The most recent poll shows two-thirds of Aucklanders feel the Government has ignored their wishes. Fifty seven percent don’t want to be part of the super city.
Perhaps you should consider running on the North Shore again, Phil?
Thanks for the kind suggestion Banksie but I think after two campaigns I should allow another colleague the privilege of campaigning to represent the good people of North Shore. (No more correspondence on this point thanks – the thread is about the super city.)
How is 50 locals representative of a stroppy blue fringe? And those areas aren’t blue fringe at all their deep-seeded blue seats and they’ll remain that way after 2011.
Ginger – the ‘fringe’ Phil is refering to the edge of Auckland (as in the urban ‘fringe’).
Last night’s meeting in Kumeu was very telling – the audience didn’t give me the impression that they were particularly sympathetic towards Labour or the Greens, but man, they had a sense of injustice about the Super City. They were not happy.
It is clear that the tories in drag, the Zits and Rats, will be punished in October this year. Buying off Hide has come at a huge cost to the tories.
Yes fine they’re not happy. The left wins Auckland. Its rather probable. Labour still won’t get anywhere in electorates such as Hunua, Rodney and Papakura.
@ gingercrush – Did I say that Labour would win those seats? I said National might be in for a caning. There are a number of options: for starters the Nats’ party vote could be depressed, or an independent protest candidate might stand against Hutchinson for example.
Phil, what leads you to believe that Lockwood getting a caning would be considered a bad thing?
Phil Twyford says: “I said National might be in for a caning.”
… and there are still some of us around who are old enough to know that a caning wasn’t the end of the world!
Better than wiped off the Mapp…
So many Nat supporters moan about the MP being the tail wagging the dog, but ACT is turning out to be the tail AND the dog. Steven Joyce is ACT in drag and Roger Douglas has clearly been told to keep his mouth shut publicly but his fingerprints are all over ACT’s “initiatives
@ Banksie
Or being caned by Shearer …
Jeremy Greenbrook-Held who was at the Kumeu meeting last night has blogged about it: http://lifeandpolitics.wordpress.com/2010/02/10/politics-in-the-prime-ministers-back-yard/
Hey Phil,
Good to see you getting some traction on this.
The Warkworth meeting was a jackup, and more about stage-managing expectations than listening to people.Even then the anger was obvious.
The Wellsford meeting a few weeks later was a better reflection of local feeling, and was the genesis of the movement against this travesty.The community centre was packed-standing room only.
As I said a few months back -sure you don’t want to run in Rodney?
FANTASTIC, PHIL – great to discover commitment and passion is spurring the debate! With some luck this could be the beginning of a magnificent Kiwi obsession: Informed voters turning out in their droves to participate in local body elections! We need to be mindful that whoever gets to don the mayoral chain and sit around Auckland’s council table will be invested with incredible powers, alongside the corporate teams running the delivery of our essential services. So let’s make damn sure we collaboratively resuscitate the pulse of our local body politic – ‘cos Stephen Joyce et al. are intent on strangling it!