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Nats feeling pressure on Nat Radio?

Posted by Brendon Burns on February 23rd, 2010

The fantastic Facebook page Save Radio NZ – now numbering 12,700+ fans -

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Save-Radio-New-Zealand/312651831782?ref=mf#!/pages/Save-Radio-New-Zealand/312651831782?v=wall&ref=mf

- just turned up this gem from Nat backbencher Jonathan Young…..

Dear Teresa Thanks for your email and views. I am a great fan of Radio New Zealand and feel the discussion and debate; as well as the attention to the arts and culture make it an iconic and important service to New Zealanders. I enjoy listening to it a number of hours each week.

I will seek a briefing from Hon Jonathan Coleman on the present status of things and discuss recent developments, as I normally sit on the Commerce Select committee where Radio NZ’s financial review is discussed, but was absent last week due to electorate commitments in New Plymouth.

Kind regards

Jonathan Young | Member of Parliament for New Plymouth

Perhaps the New Plymouth MP is a signal of wider disconent within the Government about the cuts proposed for Radio NZ? Coalition partner Peter Dunne was quick to express opposition.

I hope Jonathan Young can help persuade the other Jonathan when they have a wee chat that freeze-shrinking Radio NZ will not be supported by most NZers.

Even Grandma Herald agrees in an editorial today Little to gain from cost cuts at Radio NZ – http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10627866

I hope there might be some Nats who join the Facebook-organised protest rapidly being organised for Parliament’s forecourt on Thursday lunchtime – http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=312651831782&topic=12312

Myself and  some Labour colleagues intend to be there – though organisers note, the House is currently under urgency which makes timing a bit trickier.

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Filed under: Labour Party, broadcasting, media, public services
7 Comments

Making a silk purse out of a sow’s ear

Posted by Phil Twyford on September 16th, 2009

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.

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Filed under: Auckland, democracy, local government, parliament
20 Comments

Day of reckoning for Auckland

Posted by Phil Twyford on September 4th, 2009

Local government’s worst kept secret has finally been revealed with the tabling in Parliament of the Auckland super city committee’s report. Major decisions have already been announced by Government (powers for local boards, Maori seats) or leaked (the carve up of Rodney), but check out the bill and commentary to see just how badly this has turned out.

It’s a shocker.  After the Royal Commission’s marathon and widely praised effort, and months of public debate and select committee hearings, the Government is offering up a flawed, unbalanced and undemocratic super city model.

Key elements:

  • Too few councillors – only 20 to represent 1.4 million people.
  • Councillors elected from multi-member wards that will be so big as to be at-large under another name.
  • Executive powers for a mayor that will unbalance the relationship with councillors.
  • Local boards – too many and too small, chopping up established communities of interest like Manukau and Waitakere.
  • The denial of Maori representation.
  • The carve up of Rodney and Franklin that will put the Hunua dams, the northern beaches and precious regional parks outside the city.

Nothing to protect public assets from privatisation. Nothing to give 6500 local government staff any assurance about their jobs.

The whole process has been mishandled from day one: first the Nats’ breaking their campaign promise to consult Aucklanders on the findings of the Royal Commission; then the first bill rammed through under urgency; the confiscation of Aucklanders’ right to a referendum on the changes; and then a compressed and rushed select committee process; topped off by Rodney Hide’s resignation threat scuppering a proper decision on Maori seats.

What should have been a bright new day for Auckland local government has been tarnished. So flawed is this bill that Labour will be voting against it.

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Filed under: Auckland, democracy, local government
35 Comments

Nothing paltry about this

Posted by Brendon Burns on July 2nd, 2009

New Zealand’s Food Safety Agency says it is going to do more work on “inconclusive’ research on whether our health might be at some risk from the routine use of antibioticsfed to chicken on poultry farms.  But it has no plans to alert us to this.

This emerged when the Primary Production select committee this morning quizzed Food Safety Minister Kate Wilkinson on her departmental estimates.  It seems NZFSA has twice reviewed the widespread use of antibiotics on poultry farms and whether this might have impacts on humans. Today an official could only say the results were inconclusive and more research will be done. Though not urgently, perhaps starting in six months.

Some might consider this to be playing chicken with peoples’ health?

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Filed under: Uncategorized
12 Comments

Banks off the hook

Posted by Brendon Burns on July 1st, 2009

There will be no inquiry into bank interest rates by the Finance and Expenditure Committee. This afternoon  it voted by a majority Government decision not to proceed with an inquiry into bank  rates, notably short term.

No real surprise here. After breathing hot on the issue a few short weeks ago, the Government has for some days been blowing cold. I was at John Key’s Christchurch forum only three weeks ago today when he stated banks could try harder to cut rates. Bill English was saying similar things. Cue to Parliament a few days later and English was praising the banks to the hilt. Questioned as whether he’d met the banks in recent days, he agreed he had.

So Reserve Bank governor Alan Bollard might say the banks are not doing all they could to assist New Zealand’s recovery, but English just said in the House that these are not matters that a Parliamentary committee of ‘backbenchers ‘could assist. Much better to leave it to him and his various positions, obviously

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Filed under: national, select committee
1 Comment

Auckland’s Big Pay Out?

Posted by Brendon Burns on June 24th, 2009

Interesting appearance at Finance and Expenditure committee this morning from Auditor General Kevin Brady. He mentioned the last major local govt reforms in 1989 not all being plain sailing. I picked up his cue and asked if this meant he had concerns of a repeat of “technical redundancies.” These saw senior local government staff leave one council on a Friday with a huge redundancy cheque, then start the following Monday at the reshaped new council, sometimes in the same job! Ratepayers were rightly outraged. Might we see the same of someone leaving Manukau or North Shore and joining Auckland Super City Council with a few hundred thousand in the bank? Mr Brady confirmed he and his deputy only yesterday began discussing this risk. They will report further on this issue.

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Filed under: Auckland, local government, select committee
9 Comments

John backs John for super mayor

Posted by Phil Twyford on June 7th, 2009

When John Key endorsed John Banks for super-mayor in his speech to the National Party conference yesterday there were gasps according to the Radio NZ report. Were people shocked by the lack of political judgement in backing such a divisive candidate so early?  Or were they dismayed that National’s super city crusade was about to take another body blow, its integrity undermined by association with such a blatant bid to install a National crony at the helm of the new super city?

Really. The Government is in the process of setting the rules of the game for our largest city’s democracy. It has used its majority in Parliament to ram through legislation under urgency and legislate away Aucklanders’ right to a referendum on this forced amalgamation. It has broken its manifesto promise to consult Aucklanders on the Royal Commission findings. And then in a highly unusual move installs the associate minister as chair of the select committee tasked with hearing public submissions on its second piece of super city law.

Just when all this unseemly haste and control-freakery made you start to wonder whether National-ACT have an agenda here, the Prime Minister virtually launches John Banks’ campaign for the super-mayoralty.

So is all this about getting the democratic institutions of our largest city right so Auckland can be a great city? Or is this about installing a National-ACT oligarchy to run Auckland and dispose of our assets?

It starts to explain why the Government wants councillors elected at large – it’s back to the pre-ward says of domination by the eastern suburbs. And it starts to explain why they dont want an empowered and resourced second tier that might actually reflect local voices and act as something of a check on the top tier.

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Filed under: Auckland, democracy, local government
14 Comments

Hikoi people power

Posted by Phil Twyford on May 26th, 2009

Kia ora to Ngati Whatua, Ihiaotearoa, and all the organisers of yesterday’s hikoi for showing leadership. The hikoi was a good natured, vibrant show of people power. Ostensibly a demonstration against the Government’s rejection of the Royal Commission’s recommendations for Maori representation on the new Auckland Council, the Maori organisers generously welcomed all those concerned about the Government’s anti-democratic super city model.  In doing so, they united a rainbow coalition of iwi, the Mayors, countless community groups and concerned citizens, along with the Maori Party, the Greens and Labour. Even conservative pundit Bill Ralston despairs of the Government provoking such a coalition.

Key and Hide downplayed the hikoi, with Key wishing Maori would  just make a submission to the select committee. Hopefully they will do that too, but he misses the point. Yesterday’s demonstration of people power was a healthy indicator of political engagement in our democracy by Maori and non-Maori alike. It was Aucklanders concerned about their communities, and wanting a say in their future. The exact opposite of Key and Hide’s corporate takeover of Auckland democracy.

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Filed under: Auckland, democracy
8 Comments

Auckland: city or corporation?

Posted by Phil Twyford on May 22nd, 2009

Great post on the Auckland Transition Agency over at No Right Turn: this afternoon Rodney Hide announced the oligarchy that is going to run Auckland from now until the local body elections in October next year. It’s a competent looking panel but that is not the point. While rich in corporate governance experience it is weak on democracy or community – with only one of the five, former Rodney mayor John Law, having any political experience in local government.

Any fears that the NACT Government see this process as a corporate merger will have been well and truly underlined.  Rodney Hide in his press release made much of the board’s role “developing the new governance structures and roles to manage the $28 billion of assets effectively” but had nothing to say about communities, neighbourhoods, or the quality of democracy.

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Filed under: Auckland, democracy
1 Comment

Hide sidelined as Carter gets pushed to the front?

Posted by Phil Twyford on May 21st, 2009

Is Rodney Hide becoming an embarrassment to the Government over his handling of the super city?

Rodney got kneecapped at Cabinet over his nominations for the transition agency with senior National Party sources telling the Herald there were concerns about conflicts of interest over Mr Hide’s proposed appointees. Now we have Associate Minister John Carter being wheeled in to chair the Auckland select committee, which is very unusual. You don’t normally have an associate minister who has been actively involved in the policy development deployed to chair a committee charged with scrutiny of the bills. Carter is also fronting the Nats’ raft of taxpayer-funded public meetings – see the caption competition below.

Then this morning Hone Carter tells Radio NZ he’d been asked to chair the select committee  ‘because I am the face now at the, ah, grassroots level of what the Government’s doing and so it is important that I get fully informed.’

Hide has never been a popular figure. His arrogant approach to the super city clearly has the Government worried. It’s only a few weeks since his bull in a china shop impersonation prompted John Key to shuttle around hosing down Auckland mayors with his “I’m listening” mantra.

Check out this week’s incendiary editorial in The Aucklander – APN’s community paper, slamming the Government’s approach to the super city. And the Suburban Newspapers’ ongoing campaign. With the Hikoi shaping up as a fine demonstration of public anger next week, how long will it be until the Nats’ Auckland MPs take a delegation to the leader’s office?

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Filed under: Auckland, democracy
8 Comments

Caption competition

Posted by Phil Twyford on May 21st, 2009

bennett2

This pic was taken last night in Waitakere at a public meeting on the super city hosted by Paula Bennett MP.

Who can think up the best caption? Tonight I will post a caption that reveals what they were in fact laughing about.

(Photo: John Chapman)

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Filed under: Auckland, Uncategorized, democracy, labour, local government
26 Comments

The gentle art of filibuster

Posted by Phil Twyford on May 14th, 2009

It’s ground hog day all over again as the House drifts towards the end of a day-long 15 hour sitting. Labour, the Greens and Maori Party are resisting National-Act’s undemocratic super city bill under urgency.  The day has been spent debating numerous amendments to the bill that sets up the new Auckland Council, and establishes a transition authority with draconian powers over the elected mayors, councillors who are only half way through their elected terms.

It’s not so much clause-by-clause combat but something much gentler. As literally hundreds of amendments are voted down – Ayes, Noes, The noes have it, Party vote called for – it’s not unlike the soporific rhythms of radio cricket commentary on a summer afternoon.

What else to do in the face of the Government’s bulldozer tactics but resist in the old parliamentary way? If hundreds of people can turn out on a wet night to protest across the burbs of Auckland it seems the least we can do. It is early days in the debate.  Friday night plans to head home from Wellington should now be on hold. I am still hoping the Nats will explain to Aucklanders how gutting local councils is good for democracy, and how much this lark will cost the ratepayer.

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Filed under: Auckland, consultation
11 Comments

Hello Auckland

Posted by Phil Twyford on May 12th, 2009

Finally after weeks of shadow boxing we get to see some draft law on  the Auckland super city. Two draft bills will be tabled in the House tomorrow and pushed through under urgency over the next three days. The first one sets up the Auckland Council (aka super city) as a legal entity and sets up the transition authority.  It will also place some constraints on the existing councils to stop them having any big spend ups while the super city is being put in place. The second bill, which will only go through the first reading under urgency and then off to select committee, puts some of the details in place around the governance structure of the Council, and mandates the Local Government Commission to make decisions on boundaries, numbers of boards, and so on.

Amazingly the Government still isn’t saying how much this pig in a poke is going to cost Aucklanders. Like Rodney Hide last Thursday, the Prime Minister in Question Time today admitted the Government hasn’t costed the transition process nor the annual running costs of the super city. They’ve had more than a month to do it. And they have the benefit of the Royal Commission’s calculations on its proposed model.

So hang on. Let’s get this straight. The Government is foisting its own highly flawed super city model on Aucklanders. Most Aucklanders according to the polls don’t want it. Rodney Hide says Aucklanders are going to have to pay for it. National is not going to consult Aucklanders on the Royal Commission proposals in breach of its election promise. They are about to legislate away Aucklanders’ right to have a referendum on the proposed changes. And they have no idea how much it is going to cost.

Interesting.

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Filed under: Auckland
2 Comments