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Posts Tagged ‘local boards’

Hide blatantly misleads on local boards

Posted by Phil Twyford on March 5th, 2010

The Government must know they are pushing the super city up hill in the face of an increasingly sceptical public and news media. This morning’s Herald declares:

The way it is shaping up, the single mayor and council will be a puppet show, purely for democratic appearances, while the real decisions are made by people the public has not elected and will never see. It cannot stand.

The Herald was talking about what it calls the Orwellian-named Council Controlled Organisations, but the issue of local boards is just as troubling to the Government right now, with widespread suspicion that the boards will be paper tigers. A good indicator is the level of  Government spin.

Rodney Hide and his associate minister of local government John Carter are going around town saying their local boards will have the power to “make by-laws”, when they have specifically ruled out the local boards having any rule-making powers.

Have a listen to Hide on BFM’s The Wire yesterday. Breathtaking spin. And select committee chair John Carter has been trying to pull the wool over the eyes of submitters all week with this line about local boards being able to make by-laws.

The sad truth of the Hide super city model is that the local boards can only advocate to the Super Council for a by-law, and lobby them to pass it, just like any other lobby group in Auckland can. In fact, the government banned the local boards from having any regulatory powers in their second super city bill passed last year.

The Super Council is only allowed to delegate certain non-regulatory powers to local boards in areas like parks and libraries, except where a coordinated approach outweighs the benefits of a local decision, except where decision making would be more effective if integrated with other Council decisions, and except where the impact of a decision goes beyond the local board area.

You could drive a truck through all those exceptions. Does anyone really think the new Council will willingly delegate powers downwards to local boards?

Rodney  Hide can spin all he likes about how local boards “are key to encouraging Aucklanders to become more actively engaged” but that won’t happen if the government leaves local boards as toothless talkshops.

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Filed under: Auckland, democracy, local government
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Would a New Lynn happen under super city?

Posted by Phil Twyford on March 1st, 2010

It was speeches and a cooked breakfast at the New Lynn RSA this morning to celebrate the first passenger train to go through the New Lynn rail trench. A carriage load of politicians, ARTA and Kiwirail officials, mayors, local Westies, transport activists, Waitakere City councillors and staff picked up the 5.44am from Henderson and were greeted by a brass band on the flash new New Lynn platform quarter of an hour later.

There is much to celebrate. The New Lynn town centre redevelopment, of which the rail trench and station are the vital first phase, is a half billion dollar investment in urban renewal. It is the latest centrepiece of Auckland’s rail modernisation and just the kind of ambitious place shaping the city desperately needs. Big hats off to Mayor Bob Harvey and Waitakere City, my colleague New Lynn MP David Cunliffe and many others for making it happen.

But would something like the New Lynn project happen under the kind of ultra-centralised super city this Government is putting in place?

Large capable local councils with significant powers as recommended by the Royal Commission might have been able to exercise some of the place shaping leadership demonstrated by Waitakere City as it has carved out identity and jobs in a once-neglected part of Auckland’s outer suburbs. But the toothless local boards planned by the Government won’t have anything like that kind of clout. See this morning’s Herald for stories on reaction to Friday’s announcement on the powers of the boards.

And will Waitakere’s two councillors out of 20 on the new super council be able to muster enough political will to get the city to focus on much needed projects out West?

Not sure. But I do think that centralising power in the hands of a mayor and only 20 councillors, delegating huge authority to unelected corporate entities, and giving local boards the power to choose the colour of the carpet in the library is unbalanced and won’t be sustainable.

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Filed under: Auckland, democracy, local government
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Local boards get to choose colour of carpet

Posted by Phil Twyford on February 26th, 2010

John Trust Me Carter has been reassuring angry Aucklanders since the middle of last year that the Government is going to give real powers to local boards. There are many undemocratic aspects of the Government’s super city agenda but for my money this is the one that people care most about. And if it is not sorted out, it is the thing that will do the Nats most damage across the Auckland electorates.

Mr Carter has been at it again this week at the select committee, repeatedly assuring submitters the boards will get real powers and inviting them to hear a briefing from officials this afternoon on the Government’s plans for board powers.

We’ve just had the briefing. Newsflash: Local boards will get to choose the colour of the carpet at the local library but will have precious little else in the way of real powers.  Actually to be fair, they will also have the power to shift park furniture around and allocate the graffiti clean up budget.

The Government has failed again to deliver on its promise to empower local boards in the Auckland super city.

Key, Hide and Co are turning Auckland democracy upside down. Local boards elected by local citizens wont be able to pass a by-law. And yet, the new transport and water corporate structures whose initial directors are appointed by Rodney Hide will be able to make by-laws independently of the elected Council.

The boards wont have any regulatory powers at all, not even the power to regulate dogs, brothels, and liquor licensing that Rodney Hide promised in April last year.

On any issue that matters the boards will have only the power to talk among themselves, and beg the Super Council to do something.

They will be able only to “propose” local by laws to the super council, and “give input” to regional by laws and plans. They won’t be able to hire staff, own property or have any legal status.

They won’t be able to move a bus stop or paint a yellow line on the side of the road. These things and the great majority of the Auckland Council’s operations will be handled by powerful corporate entities that operate completely independently of local boards.

What is left: libraries, local parks and facilities? Officials told the select committee that libraries and facilities will be run on a regional basis, but local boards can have input into things like design and fit out. In other words they get to choose the carpet.  Welcome to the new face of local democracy.

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Filed under: Auckland, democracy, local government
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The people are speaking

Posted by Phil Twyford on July 8th, 2009

Aucklanders are communicating loud and clear with the select committee on the super city which is now into its third day of hearings. Assuming these three days are somewhat representative of opinion across the city, and bear in mind the committee has been sitting in central Auckland and is yet to move around the cities and districts, a number of themes are emerging:

1. People are grumpy about the rushed process.

2. Rodney Hide’s toothless local boards are getting the big thumbs down. People want community councils with the powers and resources to carry out local tasks. Many have argued for the principle of subsidiarity, that is that unless there is a sound reason for putting a task at the top level then it should be done at the second tier. There is quite a range of opinion on the question of how many community councils there should be.

3. Of the individual submitters a strong majority are in favour of all councillors being elected from wards, as opposed to at-large councillors.

4. Most submitters in favour of special Maori representation. (A sub-committee is spending several days hearing submissions on marae but Maori submitters can also choose to address the full committee.)

5. Many submitters in favour of STV as the voting system especially for the mayor but many arguing for it across the board.

6. Particularly from individual submitters, a lot of scepticism about the proposed package of mayoral powers and the ’strong mayor’ model.

7. And although not everyone keen on my member’s bill requiring a referendum before any assets are sold, a strong common view in favour of keeping local government assets in public ownership.

There is plenty of argument and opposing views as you’d imagine. But I have to say it is heartening listening to so many thoughtful and heartfelt submissions by people who care passionately about our democracy. The powerful current coming through from individual submitters today is people wanting a strong local voice, and wanting their politicians to be accountable (not elected at-large, fewer powers for the mayor). Good democratic impulses I’d say.

The Nats are signalling they are ready to move towards empowered community councils. It will be interesting to see how they handle the pressure on Maori representation and at large v.ward-based councillors.

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Filed under: Auckland, democracy, local government
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Climb down on super city second tier?

Posted by Phil Twyford on June 29th, 2009

Just maybe, the Government is preparing for a climb down on the Auckland super city’s second tier. It has been probably the most vexed aspect of the Government’s super city model. And much as I would like to see Messers Key, Hide and Carter die in the ditch over such an unpopular and misconceived policy, it is good for Auckland if they are about to throw this particular doozie overboard.

To recap: the Government rejected the Royal Commission’s recommendation of six local councils with the power to deal with local issues.  Instead they proposed 20-30 local boards with very limited local powers, and the job of community engagement. These have been widely derided as toothless talkshops (by me and many many others). In fact I struggle to recall anyone who has publicly defended the Government’s second tier other than Rodney Hide. Almost everybody else has weighed in against them, most notably two of the Commissioners Justice Peter Salmon and David Shand, but also Lawrence Yule of Local Government NZ, the three horsemen (Mayors Len Brown, Bob Harvey, Andrew Williams), both the Fairfax and APN community newspaper chains, and an array of campaigners and community groups, plus Labour and the Greens.

Local Govenment Minister Rodney Hide wasn’t quite running up the white flag when I pressed him on this last week at question time, but Judith Collins saying the local boards had better be more than ‘tea and scone clubs’ was a hint that support for his second tier was leaking away.  Hell, John Key was backing away the week before.

The climb down is now well underway with John Carter (the kinder, gentler face of reform) telling Radio NZ he’d ‘learned a huge amount’ through Auckland community meetings and discussions on the issue and ‘it’s helped focus my mind on the things that matter for people.  And where I started some six or eight weeks ago, I’ve shifted personally, myself, a lot.’  And then telling the Eastern Courier how important it is to get the lower tier right, how people  were telling him they wanted fewer boards than the 20-30 being proposed, and how they needed to be given their own budgets.

That is heartening. I have no doubt the select committee is going to hear plenty of submissions on this issue so the Government will have no shortage of advice on how to get this aspect of the super city right. For the record, Labour wants to see empowered and resourced local councils with the ability to deal with the important local issues  – to keep the local in local government:

1. fewer local councils than the 20-30 proposed in the bill

2. governance and policy making responsibility over local services and assets

3. control over their own budgets

4. powers and responsibilities mandated in law (not delegated at the discretion of the Auckland Council)

It remains a mystery why the Government got it so horribly wrong in the first place, thinking they could ram through these changes without the public really noticing, under the cloak of blaming the region’s Mayors who, ironically, have been doing a pretty good job of keeping local government local. As the Commission argued, if you are going to centralise the big regional functions in the super city, then you must balance that with an empowered second tier of local governance that has the mandate and the capability to do the local stuff well.

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Filed under: Auckland, democracy, local government, select committee
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Shhhhhh…Rodney’s thinking

Posted by Phil Twyford on June 5th, 2009

Rodney Hide added some light entertainment to the Auckland super city debate when he told Morning Report today his planned local boards ‘won’t necessarily need to have premises…they could meet in the local community library or something like that.’  You can imagine the librarian approaching a board meeting in progress: “Shhhhhhh…people are reading!”

If there was any doubt that Hide’s local boards were inconsequential talk shops there should be none now. They won’t even have their own premises, nor staff, nor budget, nor policy making power. Hide was responding to comments by former High Court judge Peter Salmon, the chair of the Royal Commission on Auckland Governance, who spoke out yesterday against the Government’s decision to junk the Commission’s recommended second-tier of local councils and replace them with 20-30 local boards. The Royal Commission spent a great deal of time looking at the issue of the second tier.  Having signed up to the idea, along with most Aucklanders, that we need a unitary authority with one mayor and one rates bill and one plan, they recognised that this massive centralisation of power needed to be balanced by a substantial second tier that was both close enough to communities to be responsive but big and well-resourced enough to be genuine local players. It was actually quite remarkable  Justice Salmon spoke out yesterday the way he did, two months after the Royal Commission handed in their report, and an indication of how strongly he feels about this issue.

This highlights what Labour has been saying, which is that the local boards proposed by the Government will clearly lack the resources required to enable them to properly represent local interests. Labour has consistently said there must be enough second tier bodies to ensure the “local” is kept in local democracy, while at the same time ensuring they are big enough, and well enough resourced, to be influential.

With the new Auckland Governance select committee now receiving public submissions, the spotlight will increasingly swing back to this and other democracy issues, for instance whether councillors will be elected at-large or from wards. Meanwhile Rodney Hide doesn’t appear to be winning the battle for Aucklanders’ hearts and minds. A poll by the Business Council for Sustainable Development shows most New Zealanders believe the Government has failed to consult properly over its Super City plans and 70% want them subjected to a referendum. Hide told Report he thinks that as we go through the process, and as people  have their say and discuss the issues in the select committee…broad support for the plans will grow.  Unless the Government listens to Aucklanders and changes the anti-democratic nature of its plan I think he is dreaming.

What do you think?

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Filed under: Auckland, democracy
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