Phil Goff set out today what Labour will do to fix the mess National has made of the Auckland super city.
He said Labour will give the power back to Aucklanders to decide what parts of the new city should be run on commercial lines and what should be run in house.
We will restore to Auckland the power to make its own decisions about the structure and powers of the seven council-owned companies that will manage three-quarters of the rates revenue provided by Aucklanders.
Why shouldn’t Auckland decide what goes into its council controlled companies, and what stays out? That’s what happens in every other city in New Zealand.
Four government departments including Treasury advised against setting up the transport agency as a council controlled company and proposed running it in-house instead. They said the Government’s plan lacked transparency and accountability to the ratepayers.
Labour will restore transparency and accountability to the Auckland Council.
We will give the power back to Aucklanders through their elected council to determine what structures they want for Council operations.
Phil made it clear Labour will swing the pendulum back towards local communities, enshrining the decision making powers of local boards in law.
The fundamental difference we will make is we will trust Auckland more, and work with Auckland to sort out the balance between the super council, the local boards and the organisations that control assets like water and transport.
Labour will give power back to local communities.
Labour will legislate to enshrine real decision making powers for local boards.
And we will review the ward boundaries and talk to communities about whether single rather than multi member wards would better ensure that all communities are fairly represented and feel their voice is being heard.
And on privatisation he had this to say:
A real concern I have about the government’s plans is that it is a set up for the ports, airport shares, and even the water system to be sold.
Rodney Hide would be happy to see them sold. He actually admits it, while John key and Bill English tell that to their party members and mates in private but tell a different story in public.
They are sweeping away the legal safeguards against privatisation. The third super city bill repeals the requirement to hold a referendum before the Ports of Auckland can be sold.
The ARC has warned that by transferring Auckland’s assets to council owned companies a future council could sell off strategic assets like the port or the airport shares without even consulting the public as is currently required under the Local Government Act.
Put that alongside the Government’s plan to turn over our water infrastructure to private companies for up to 35 years and you can see the clear privatisation agenda.
Labour believes Aucklanders don’t want to see their community assets sold off.
Labour will restore and strengthen the safeguards in law against the sale of assets.
We will legislate to ensure all Aucklanders have a say in a binding referendum before strategic assets can be sold.
He also signalled that the next Labour-led Government will work hand in hand with the Auckland Council to tackle Auckland’s big challenges.
Labour will make the decisions together with Auckland and we will back those decisions with the resources they need.
Whether it is building a 21st century transport network, or working to end poverty in Auckland, the next Labour-led government will work alongside the Auckland Council in a genuine partnership.
I will invite the Mayor of Auckland to attend Cabinet committees for significant decisions relating to Auckland.
That will give Auckland, where a third of New Zealanders live, a direct voice around the cabinet table before a decision is made rather than simply imposing decisions made without adequate Auckland input.
Not the reported views of Aucklanders as interpreted by the Wellington bureaucrats, but the democratically elected mayor, directly influencing the big decisions on Auckland as they are made in Cabinet.
You can read the whole speech here.
Good to hear someone trusts us. BTW- has anyone given eny thought to the Royal Commissions recommendation re Auckland Council having responsibility for social issues? How about Aucklanders having some say over NZTA decisions? As I see it, you can’t seperate any of this from land use and social planning. Any chanvce of some urban renewal projects under Labour?
To both Phils
The previous government had a Minister of Auckland Issues sitting around the cabinet table in Judith Tizard. What did that achieve?
The important issue is to provide a local government structure for Auckland that enables the people of Auckland to elect a Mayor and a council on a vision and strategy for Auckland and to provide the tools to ensure they can give effect to that strategy and vision. That’s what this government is doing.
The Mayor needs to be dealing with the many challenges in Auckland, not spending their time in Wellington sitting in on cabinet committees. I am sure if the future Mayor gets on the phone the Prime Minister will answer.
I am pleased to see that Labour now supports Local Boards. The Royal Commission did entirely away with local representation and Labour criticised the government at the time for not following the Royal Commission when clearly local representation by local communities is of critical importance to Aucklanders.
I am puzzled by Mr Goff’s failure to mention Labour’s promise for reserved Maori seats for the Council. Is that still Labour’s policy? Or do you now agree with the government that this is a decision for the people of Auckland to make?
Rodney Hide
@ TopCat – Yes we agree with the Royal Commission’s recommendations on active tight partnership between central and Auckland government on social wellbeing. The Govt has pretty much ignored it, and Paula Bennett is doing some kind of talkshop. Agree with you re need to integrate transport, land use and social planning…exactly the kind of integration the reforms were supposed to deliver, but wont be able to because of the council-owned companies (aka silos) being set up. My view is that one of the main outcomes we should be expecting from the new unified city is the capacity to do ambitious urban renewal projects.
This is exactly what I need to hear from you guys, especially the brilliant idea of giving the Super mayor a seat that the top table, so Auckland can have direct input to big decisions on Auckland, rather than those pesky power hungry bureaucrats calling the shots and interpreting what Auckland wants. Great work.
Bravo… Exactly what should be happening now…
As not an Aucklander I applaud the message loud and clear. It is really a call to “Bring Back Democracy!”
Nact are setting up so that they can privatise after the 2011 election. Remember “we will not privatise any public assets in this term of office . They will if this is so, fight long and hard to persue the plan. Look out. The battle lines are drawn!
I say to Goff and Labour: thank you. Thank you for restoring democracy in Auckland.
Thank you for making it clear that it is unfair and wrong for the National Government to hijack the Royal Commission’s findings.
Thank you, Labour, for saying you’ll give back the voice and ownership of Auckland back to the people of Auckland. Thank you, Goff, for speaking out for the long term benefit of Auckland. And thank you for recognising that the country has a stake in Auckland’s real success in the future.
Thank you from a former resident and ratepayer of Epsom.
Goff’s speech in Mt. Albert today was superb. It went on for nearly an hour and that hour flew. The large audience responded with a standing ovation. It makes a mockery of TV3’s Duncan Garner, who opined a few days ago something to the effect… “most of Labour’s own people don’t support Goff”.
@ Anne, yes, and I see Garner’s campaign to destroy Phil Goff is now in high gear. ‘PM puts on a sweat shirt’ is the lead political story? Pathetic. Where’s the super city story?
Interesting to see Rortney Hide commenting. The speech must have really hurt. As usual, the best he can come up with the Judith Tizard ‘dog whistle’ and a re-hash of his twisted, bizarre, rhetoric. Sad, really, that Rortney is now so completely out of touch with Auckland, he actually thinks handing over 75 percent of civic activity to his hand picked mates to ready for sale is what people want.
PM wears hoodie…. I despair for our nation
@Rodney:
Why did you legislate our rights to a referendum under the LGA away..? Hardly the act of the “party of choice”…
Why does the third bill state that the Auckland Transport (AT) CCO isn’t required to take into account the Council statement of intent..?
Why does the third bill state that the AT CCO must only take into account the Government Policy Statement and the Regional Land Transport Strategy, when it previously had to give effect to the RLTS..? Putting Auckland control of it’s transport future in Wellington hands…
Why will you not require the AT CCO to make all decisions in a consulted, open and accountable way..? Is it because the polls indicate the people overwhelmingly support public transport..?
Why are you writing 35 year leases for infrastructure CCOs into the Supercity legislation if there is no plan to privatise..?
Why are you appointing board members to the CCOs instead of Auckland’s elected officials when you haven’t even been elected by the people of Auckland to be dogcatcher..?
Why do you insist on saying that corporatising 75% of Aucklands assets is what Aucklanders want, when poll after poll says otherwise..? Is it not obvious to you that Aucklanders wanted the Councils in the region combined and for us to continue to have the same say over our own affairs as before..?
I am sick of your deceitful rhetoric, you state, “The important issue is to provide a local government structure for Auckland that enables the people of Auckland to elect a Mayor and a council on a vision and strategy for Auckland and to provide the tools to ensure they can give effect to that strategy and vision. That’s what this government is doing.” while ensuring that it is only a vision that you believe is best that can be implemented, in the process stripping Auckland of it’s right to self-determination and introducing a system of taxation without representation (especially regarding transport) and saying that that is more democratic..!
This parliamentary term has exposed you supposed freedom loving and perk-busting drivel for the lies they are and I hope we see the back of your and your sad little party forever in 2011 with the Supercity to be quickly reformed along democratic lines to remove any hint of a “legacy”…
Where are the Maori seats? Something that seemed rather missing in Goff’s speech.
Re: Local Boards.
They will meet monthly or whatever- but they won’t have a base and they won’t have permanent staff. I’d be interested to know where the staff helping the Boards are to be physically located. There are to be five service centres and two sub-service centres- so most of the Boards, let alone residents won’t even have access to a council office.
I’m not sure why the Boards even exist under Rodney’s model.
TC – to make it look like there is still a democracy. I’m also sick of people speaking as though they know what everyone in “Auckland” thinks or wants. Myunderstanding was a need to amalgamate the four councils, streamline service delivery to ensure efficiency and saving. That, as I understood it meant, well 4 becoming one, not 4 becoming one, selling off the assets and removing rate payers voting strength.
“most of Labour’s own people don’t support Goff”.
Luckily that isn’t true!
I do get sick of the blatant and unfair spin against Goff.
It sounds like a great speech, I missed it, yay G
FF!!!
@ Spud…looks like this blog is really drawing attention from all quarters! Another Labour success
- You are right, L
T A
Rodney’s Aspiration:”The important issue is to provide a local government structure for Auckland that enables the people of Auckland to elect a Mayor and a council on a vision and strategy for Auckland and to provide the tools to ensure they can give effect to that strategy and vision.”
Rhetorical and empty because like stripping the rights from Canterbury Ecan, (see post by No Right Turn:
http://norightturn.blogspot.com/ third item) and doing the same in Auckland so that the people lose the “right to determine their own destiny.”
Shame on you Rodney Hide!
It is surely fitting that Rodney Hide should choose the day after ANZAC day to come here and display his distain for popular democracy and transparency of public officials. Not once in his first three paragraphs does he mention elections, voting or democracy. His high handed impatience with these sacred things drips from his words. For Rodey Hide efficient, faceless technocrats will get the trains running on time, regardless of the losses.
Yet the enduring warning from from Gallipoli, the Somme, or Bellevue Spur is this: Never again should the people surrender their fate to unelected and unaccountable leaders.
The men who were pointless killed in the pointless battles of that pointless war died because of a lack of democratic accountability allowed key political and military decisions to be made not by elected representatives but by aristocrats and military technocrats.
Rodney Hide – Welcome to Red Alert. I think it is great that you are willing to come here and engage in this forum.
I disagree fundamentally with your comments about local boards. The Royal Commission didn’t recommend doing away with local representation. They advocated capable and empowered local councils to act as a counter weight to the huge regional powers being centralised in the super council. You are the one who is doing away with local representation by setting up local boards which are little better than the current community boards. They do not by any measure reflect the principle of subsidiarity. That is why we are committing to giving them real decision making and rule making powers.
Why don’t we debate this publicly? You and me and a neutral chair, before a public audience of Aucklanders. We could ask AUT to host it and chair it.
What do you say?
@ Gingercrush
During a post-speech question session Phil Goff confirmed – and I paraphrase – that Labour would introduce maori seats into the new supercity model.
Then why isn’t it in the speech and why aren’t any of the Labour MPs comfirming that?
@ gingercrush – because it was answered in an after speech question, not in the speech itself as noted above. Also there is no reason why other Labour MPs would want to make comment on something Phil Goff said before Phil had time to answer for himself. Patience.
Watched Goff give his speech today. All the crap that people have said about his personality is baloney. He is a strong speaker and he obviously believes in an inclusive future for New Zealanders. The hour did speed by. He has substance and vision, something Key does not. It shows up in Parliamentary debate, and as usual when I can bear to watch Breakfast with Henry, he verbally beats Henry as well, just as Helen Clark did. Time they replaced Paul Henry. He’s old and tired. Hardly a go ahead show these days.
The best thing of all is understanding the well-rounded background that Goff has, in trade and in so many other parts of Government that will enable him to understand and to administer good government on behalf of New Zealanders.
We can’t just think ‘Auckland’ because Hide is already gunning for the rest of the country, ‘promising’ them that they won’t be treated in the same shabby undemocratic way as Auckland has been and still is.
I attended the speech just to gauge what media would or would not do. They just concentrated on the ‘mayor at the Cabinet committee’ table question of people. I saw TV1 interview Phil Goff. Let’s see what shows on TV. It will prove to me whether these media muffins are still manipulating New Zealanders with their hyping up Key’s photo ops and ignoring the very real and tangible statements Goff makes.
Are New Zealanders happy for the media, unelected, undemocratic, biased, to manipulate the outcome of the next election by badmouthing Labour and simpering over NAct, like they did in 2008?
Hon. Mr Hide – Accept the Challenge you can beat ‘em!
If people believe there should be a Minister for Auckland then there must also be a Minister for Wellington, Minister for the South Island etc.
There is actually no need for special representation at Cabinet level for Auckland, the Ministerial thing last time probably had more to do with heading off opposition to the local governance structure then in effect in Auckland than anything else.
The “Wellington bureacrats” after all are subject to their own Ministers and saying Auckland has a right to have its own Minister in the cabinet and other regions don’t is nonsense especially as most policy and legislation is formulated for nationwide impact rather than regional.
Swampy, I take your point, but “Auckland” is the largest commercial and populated hub in NZ and that has implications beyond regional parochialism. I am probably comparing apples with oranges but There is a Ministry of agriculture, because agriculture is seen as vital that farmers need more specific representation than their vote affords (hark back to FPP days when their vote ensured many seats for national, yet still a seperate minister). I am not be facetious or obtuse.
On the one hand R Hide and Nat are sayig Auckland is SO important, SO crucial that we can’t have a majority of elected members running its assest, we need a pajority of non elected appointed “experts” doing that, on the other that it needs a paring back of its democratic element to achieve it, ut we are not encroaching on democracy and Auckland doesnt need a voice in Cabinet despite its importance. Mr Hide sees Auckland fundamentally as a business delivering services, like farmers, like agriculture… but not worthy of special representation.
At least that is my take on the suggestion to have a “Minister” of Auckland, effectively the mayor in Cabinet. It is, afterall Act and national who have decided to elevate Auckland’s significance, thrust it above others.
@ gingercrush.
To answer your question @11:06pm… as far as I’m aware, all the Labour members of parliament who reside in Auckland and Northland attended the big Hikoi up Queen St last year to protest at the exclusion of maori seats on the new Super City Council. I was there and saw them!
Hi Anne
Watched Goff give his speech today. All the crap that people have said about his personality is baloney. He is a strong speaker and he obviously believes in an inclusive future for New Zealanders.
I’ve noticed that too Jum, not at this speach, but at another.
I went down to parliament to hear the ACC protest earlier this year. Phil Goff impressed me in that he said the most, with the least words, strongest and clearest of the entire group of speakers. It left me with a great deal of confidence in the man, because I came away knowing where Goff, and the Labour caucus stood on that subject. This speach clearly what he, and the Labour caucus stand on the Supercity.
We can’t just think ‘Auckland’ because Hide is already gunning for the rest of the country, ‘promising’ them that they won’t be treated in the same shabby undemocratic way as Auckland has been and still is.
Absolutely Jum! Unless this particular NACT agenda is reigned in this policy will spread across all of the country, and through all council services, until every Kiwi urban dweller is paying a private provider for what we now take for granted – including our drinking water.
Yes, interesting.
Media-manufactured perception can be quite different from reality.
Nice to see what Labour will do if reelected. Will it also offer the people of Auckland a chance to say whether they want this whole foul jamboree (the Super City)in the first place? Perhaps the required referendum on whether the ratepayers want to abolish and amalgamate their councils?
@ gingercrush 11.06pm – Don’t panic. We havent changed our position on Maori seats. We supported the proposal for Maori seats on the Auckland Council elected from voters on the Maori roll just as we do it with Parliament. We felt the Government missed an opportunity when John Key caved in to Rodney Hide’s threat to resign. I think you will find that when Labour is back in Government and looking to pass legislation that will fix the mess created by National then Maori seats may well end up in the mix.
@ Don 1 – We are not promising a referendum. By the time next year’s general election has been held the Auckland Council is likely to have been in existence for a year. Although it is a travesty that the National Government has ignored Aucklanders during this process, we don’t believe it would be the right thing to try and turn the clock back. Not to mention the likely huge cost of doing so. We believe, based on the principles set out in Phil Goff’s speech yesterday, that we can fix the super city, make it more democratic, and build an Auckland that we can all feel proud of.
Yes Labour!
Fair enough Phil. But will there be the opportunity for a referendum in the future? Denying Auckland ratepayers a say in how their city is organised is plain wrong, no matter which party is doing it. What if (as is likely) costs go through the roof year after year? How exactly will Aucklanders let the govt know that they are sick of it all? And – price aside – why don’t you believe it’s the right thing to at least offer Aucklanders the chance to have their say?
I cannot really see John Banks, when he is the Mayor of Auckland supercity, being too interested in sitting in on a Labour cabinet meeting.
In fact the mind boggles.
Think of the leaks and damage he will generate.
Labour will certainly rue this strategic planning.
IF Banks is the new Mayor I am going to have to do some serious talking with my employer about working remotely, literally and metaphorically.
He he he, I’d like to be there at a meeting with Banks and the Labour government!
@ pentwig I tend to take a different view. To me, it shows that Labour is willing to work constructively with whoever the new mayor is to get Auckland fixed. Unlike the governing junta – Key and Hide – who just ram through their will under urgency, take it or leave it.