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Posts Tagged ‘privatisation’

Rich Patient, Poor Patient

Posted by Iain Lees-Galloway on January 22nd, 2010

Health Minister Tony Ryall says a proposal to introduce a two-tier system allowing private medical care in public hospitals is “worth a look.”

He should rule this insanity out right now. The idea that our hospitals have the capacity to deliver private health care on top of their current workload is so far removed from reality it’s staggering that Ryall would even countenance the idea.

Just this morning in my own electorate, Mid-Central DHB informed staff that it would be closing surgical beds due to a drop in acute surgery needs. I understand that when asked why the beds couldn’t be used to boost elective surgery numbers, management replied that surgeons were unavailable due to their private sector commitments.

If there isn’t the capacity to meet current needs, where will it come from to meet the additional requirements of fee-paying patients?

That aside, the point of having public hospitals is that everyone gets access to medical care based on need, not wealth. The kind of queue-jumping this would encourage is totally unacceptable.

Just where is Tony Ryall taking our health system?

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Filed under: health, privatisation
11 Comments

What privatisation agenda? (Ports of Auckland)

Posted by Phil Twyford on December 9th, 2009

So there is no privatisation agenda?

The latest piece of evidence for the “non-privatisation agenda”  is the Government’s decision to repeal the law that would prevent the privatisation of the Ports of Auckland unless a majority of Aucklanders voted to approve the sale. This was confirmed by Local Government Minister Rodney Hide in question time today.

(Strange that Hide didn’t announce this last Friday when he unveiled the content of the third super city bill.)

Add that to the decision to allow our water dams, pipelines and treatment stations to be owned by the private sector for 35 years. And to the decision to repeal the requirement that councils consult the community before contracting out public services to the private sector.

It is starting to walk and quack like a duck privatisation agenda as far as I can tell.

Aucklanders don’t want the ports flogged off. We fought off privatisation in the 1990s and we’ll fight it again now under this National-ACT Government. The most recent poll showed 78% oppose privatisation of the ports. That is why Hide wants to clear the decks of any requirement to give Aucklanders a say in a referendum.

It is also why they are bringing in a three year moratorium on the sale of Auckland Council assets.  But let’s be clear, this moratorium is cynically designed to pave the way for privatisation after the 2011 general election.

Hide has been busy advocating mandatory referenda for rate capping, but can’t stomach the idea of a referendum on asset sales.

Essentially he has been lying to Aucklanders all year. He has consistently rubbished the idea that there is a privatisation agenda for Auckland’s assets. Meanwhile he is setting about dismantling the legal protections that give Aucklanders a say before their precious assets are sold off, and opening up water infrastructure to private ownership.

Rodney Hide is not fit to be Local Government Minister.  But at least he is honest about his intentions. His gutless coalition colleagues on the National benches are too timid to campaign on a privatisation platform, but they vote for the same odious policies.

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Filed under: Auckland, act party, local government, privatisation
12 Comments

Three strikes and you are out

Posted by Phil Twyford on November 9th, 2009

I didn’t intend to post three times in a row about the Government’s privatisation agenda for local government. But hey, they keep giving me new material.

The latest is a Cabinet decision in just-released papers to set the new $5 billion Auckland water company up for privatisation in 2015.

All year the Government has been denying they have any privatisation plans for local government. National and ACT MPs voted down my private member’s bill to protect Auckland’s assets from privatisation under the super city. Hide said the issue was a distraction and a ‘pretend debate’.

But Aucklanders have been deeply uneasy all year that Rodney Hide, the Nats and their surrogate Cits and Rats local body organisation is lining up the super city’s assets to be sold off, and council services contracted out.

Well, here is why those fears were well grounded:

1. Two weeks ago Hide announced the Government would amend the Local Government Act to encourage public-private partnerships and allow private ownership of our water infrastructure for periods of up to 35 years.

2. At the same time Cabinet decided to repeal s 88 of the Local Government Act which requires Councils to consult the public before privatising or contracting out council services. And then, drum roll…

3. On 19 October Cabinet decided to over-ride the provisions of the Local Government Act restricting private involvement in the water system, and allow the new Auckland Council from 2015 to “determine the governance arrangements and asset ownership for the delivery of water services, rather than fixing Watercare’s form in legislation”.

If it looks, smells and sounds like a privatisation agenda, I reckon it is one.

Stranger still though, the Minister is now apparently saying that the 26 October Cabinet decision to amend the Local Government Act to loosen up the restrictions on public-private partnerships in  water services overrides the 19 October decision to allow full privatisation of the Auckland water company. Which is very bizarre.

Rodney Hide has been going around the country slagging his ministerial colleagues as distracted and inattentive. But if the report is true he cannot manage his own portfolio to avoid the Cabinet making inconsistent decisions in consecutive weeks. What a shambles.

More to the point, the 19 October decision to open the door to full privatisation of the Auckland water company is clear evidence once and for all that this Government has a privatisation agenda when it comes to local government and the super city in particular. Mr Key has some explaining to do.

For more see Bernard Orsman and Brian Rudman in the Herald.

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Filed under: Auckland, local government, privatisation
15 Comments

What privatisation agenda?

Posted by Phil Twyford on November 8th, 2009

Further to yesterday’s post on Rodney Hide’s fitness (or otherwise) to be Minister of Local Government, there is a new development in the Government’s unfolding privatisation agenda.

Now John Key’s happy centrist government wants to repeal the provision in the Local Government Act which requires councils to consult communities before embarking on privatisation or contracting out of public services.

When Mr Hide announced his proposed changes to the Local Government Act two weeks ago, this little gem was mysteriously absent from the press release or backgrounder, or any of the Ministers’ public statements. But it is lurking in the Cabinet Minute listed along with six other “Minor legislative amendments”.

Apparently, according to the Cabinet Minute section 88 of the Local Government Act which requires public consultation before assets or services can be privatised or contracted out “is biased against the use of the private sector to deliver council services”.

Put this alongside the announced intention to loosen the controls on privatisation of water, allowing private companies to own our water infrastructure for up to 35 years at a stretch, and the Government’s repeated denials that they have any intention to privatise assets looks more and more like a joke. A bad joke. And with the super city looming, a joke on Aucklanders.

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Filed under: local government, privatisation
18 Comments

Is this man fit to be Minister of Local Government?

Posted by Phil Twyford on November 7th, 2009

hide-smirk-revForget the shonky fundraising practices where he charged $45 to hear him talk about his ministerial portfolio.

Don’t worry about the fact that the one time perk buster spent $60,000 of taxpayers’ money on a round the world trip with his girlfriend, timed to coincide with her brother’s wedding, touring international capitals to talk about the super city and lecture right wing think tanks.

So what that the man who made his career campaigning against MPs’ travel privileges used those same privileges to take his girlfriend to Hawaii, costing $10,000, and quietly paid it back last week, not mentioning it in all the public debate about his round the world trip.

Never mind about his blow-hard bragging to ACT party members that the prime minister “doesn’t do anything” and was highly regarded, while “ACT did everything and we are hated” and that he was amazed at how much he could get through Cabinet, because “you turn up with your papers” and “they are too busy with their own stuff they’re not bothered”.

These are matters for Mr Hide and the voters of Epsom to consider.

What makes me question his fitness to be Minister of Local Government is the barking mad right wing agenda he is pursuing.

With the blessing of John Key’s Cabinet Hide is loosening the controls on the privatisation of water to encourage ‘build, own, operate and transfer’ (BOOT) schemes which will allow private companies to own our water infrastructure for up to 35 years at a time.

This from a Government that has denied they had any plans for privatisation of local government assets, and voted down my anti-asset sales member’s bill because they said there was no threat of privatisation. They said Labour was scaremongering.

Eighty eight percent of Aucklanders are opposed to any privatisation of council water systems. To proceed with this policy after repeated denials of any privatisation plans is dishonest and undemocratic.

But wait there is more. He actually recommended to Cabinet the removal of nearly all controls on the privatisation on water. Never mind BOOT schemes, Hide wanted to open the door to wholesale disposal of water systems to the private sector. And the repeal of obligations on councils to retain control of pricing, management and policy on delivery of water services. He recommended this against the advice of Local Government NZ, and the Ministry of Health.  Barking mad.

So should we be grateful Key’s Cabinet  didn’t go all the way with Hide’s privatisation agenda and opted for extending private ownership of water assets to 35 years?  Should we be grateful for a disaster just because we averted a catastrophe?

Hide is, I believe, unfit to be Minister of Local Government on the basis of his extremist ideology. But you can’t blame him for disregarding the views of the huge majority of New Zealanders. The man only needs 5% of the vote to keep a grip on the baubles of office.

As Prime Minister, John Key is supposed to govern in the interests of all New Zealanders.  It is Key who allowed Hide’s resignation threat to determine the Government’s decision on Maori seats in the super city.  It is Key’s Government that has imposed their flawed and undemocratic super city on Aucklanders. It is Key’s Cabinet who signed off the plans for water privatisation. He is responsible.

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Filed under: Auckland, local government, privatisation, water
32 Comments

My bill goes down, and Rodney Hide goes off

Posted by Phil Twyford on August 19th, 2009

My member’s bill went down tonight. It was expected given National and ACT’s declared intention to block vote against it.

It was their opportunity to reassure Aucklanders the super city  is not going to pave the way for privatisation, and that Rodney Hide’s wacko ideology is not going to be the super city’s guiding force. Vote for the bill and they reassure Aucklanders. Vote it down and they reinforce Aucklanders’ suspicions. Vote it down they did.

Perhaps the weirdest thing in the debate tonight was the contribution of the Minister of Local Government Rodney Hide. Clearly unprepared, he waffled for 10 minutes, directing oddly personal and patronising comments towards me as the bill’s sponsor, and avoided addressing the substance of the bill.

When I watched TV3 news during the House dinner break I could understand why he seemed distracted. 3News had a leaked email from a senior member of the National caucus saying:

Clearly we are at a crossroads. The ACT party has threatened to end its relationship with National if we allow Maori seats on the super city. Despite multiple arguments in support, its mind cannot be changed.

The email goes on to say:

Consequently I believe the issue is too far reaching and too important for a party presently sitting at 1 percent in the polls to decide alone.

Hide has become a liability to the Government. His two key proposals for the super city: powerless local boards, and councillors elected at large, have met with a tidal wave of public opposition. The Government has already caved on the local boards, and if they have any sense at all they will cave on the at-large councillors.

And on the third of the three issues that have offended Aucklanders’ democratic values Hide is now threatening to throw his toys out of the cot. If the Government follows the sensible idea of guaranteeing Maori representation, he will pull the pin.

Who do you think wrote the email? My guess is it was Steven Joyce. He’s the head kicker who is increasingly calling the shots. He cannot bear it that Hide on 1% is undermining Key’s smiley inclusiveness.

Thanks to Greens, Maori Party, Progressive and my Labour colleagues for supporting my bill. The Not Yours To Sell campaign will continue to defend Auckland’s democracy and our assets.

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Filed under: Auckland, act party, local government, privatisation
51 Comments

Is the super city a cover for privatisation?

Posted by Phil Twyford on August 19th, 2009

Campbell Live covered my member’s bill and the super city privatisation issue last night. Rodney Hide first tried to say that John Key had ruled out asset sales but Campbell picked him up on the fact that Key was only talking about state assets, not local ones. Then Hide objected to my bill on the grounds that it applied only to Auckland!  He did say he would like to make the case for the privatisation of the ports of Auckland.  Good to see three Auckland mayors expressing their support, but strange that Auckland City Mayor John Banks claimed not to even know about the bill.

My bill gets its first reading tonight, possibly as early as 5pm. For details on how to tune in, click here.

Labour, Greens, Maori Party and Progressive are all voting for the bill. It’s Rodney Hide and the Government’s big chance to prove they are listening to Aucklanders. Let’s see if they take it.

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Filed under: Auckland, act party, local government, privatisation, video
7 Comments

Not yours to sell

Posted by Phil Twyford on August 13th, 2009

This is a video made for Not Yours To Sell, Labour’s campaign to save Auckland’s assets under the super city. Click here to find out more.

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Filed under: Auckland, democracy, economic, local government, privatisation, video
15 Comments

Why we should fear for Auckland assets

Posted by Phil Twyford on August 11th, 2009

Some critics have questioned the need for my member’s bill protecting Auckland’s assets under the super city. The right wing bloggers have worked themselves up into a froth over it. Baseless scaremongering they say. Even Brian Rudman in the Herald questions whether there is any threat to our publicly owned assets. On the other hand, others like Matt McCarten have backed the bill.

Here’s the equation as I see it:

We have a Prime Minister who says there will be no asset sales in this term of government. Hardly a statement to inspire confidence.

Plus: It wasn’t so long ago city fathers sold off one of the most profitable pieces of our infrastructure, the Auckland International Airport.

Plus: Politicians in both central and local government tried to sell the ports of Auckland and nearly succeeded. There are plenty of leaders in the Auckland business community who would like to see the ports sold off immediately.

Plus: Local Government Minister Rodney Hide leads a party that wants to force Councils to sell off their commercial operations.

Plus: Hide is leading a Cabinet-mandated review of he Local Government Act pushing an agenda of rolling back the scope of councils to certain ‘core services’ (namely transport, water, drainage, roads, waste disposal).

Plus: The Government has loosened up the rules on overseas investment. We know that when key infrastructure assets have been sold in the past they have mostly ended up in the hands of foreign owners, with the result of profits heading off shore.

Plus: Infrastructure monopolies like the port and the airport and the water company are natural monopolies. Put into private hands they lead to monopoly rent-seeking behaviour. In public hands they can more easily be regulated to protect the public interest.

Plus: The new super city wraps up $28 billion worth of Auckland assets under one organization, instead of 8 fractious councils, making privatization that much easier were it to be attempted.

Equals: Our community-owned assets need protection. Aucklanders should have the final say on any move to sell them.

One way to do it is to require a majority vote in a referendum before they could be sold. That’s what my bill would do. Check out Not Yours To Sell for more info, and have your say.

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Filed under: Auckland, economic, local government, privatisation, public services
15 Comments

I don’t think so

Posted by Phil Twyford on August 3rd, 2009

Kiwi music legend Don McGlashan wrote and recorded this song for  Not Yours To Sell – Labour’s campaign to save Auckland’s publicly owned assets from privatisation.

The song is called I Don’t Think So.

Click here to find out more about the campaign. You can sign up as a supporter, and send a message to National’s Auckland MPs asking them to support my member’s bill that would require a referendum before assets were sold.

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Filed under: Auckland, democracy, local government, video
13 Comments

Tolley – it is all for sale

Posted by Trevor Mallard on July 28th, 2009

In the House today Anne Tolley refused to rule out the transfer of currently owned school land and buildings to PPPs and refused to give one example of an educational service that she would not consider privatising. Of course that includes teachers.

Brash is sure back.

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Filed under: economic, education, public services
11 Comments

Another 1990s failure back on the agenda

Posted by Chris Hipkins on July 27th, 2009

Twelve years ago as a first year university student I attended my first ever student protest march. The 25th of September 1997 has stuck in my mind ever since because it was the first and only time I have been arrested. Thankfully neither the District Court nor the High Court agreed with the Police decision to arrest 75 of us for trespass while we were protesting in parliament grounds.

It was an important test case because it confirmed the principle that all citizens have the right to protest peacefully at parliament. That case finally came to a conclusion a few weeks ago when the Police agreed to pay compensation and parliament’s speaker (which was actually Doug Kidd at the time) agreed to issue apologies.

Twelve years later, it’s interesting to see the issues that led to that protest march once again emerging from the new National government. Back in 1997 the then Bolger-led National government released a Green Paper on tertiary education. They proposed to introduce a corporatized, pro-market system for university and polytechnic funding. Democratically elected governing councils made up of stakeholders were to be replaced by boards of directors appointed by the government.

The Tertiary Review Green Paper followed hot on the heels of Max Bradford’s pro-market electricity reforms and came at a time when the public had tired of the privatisation agenda. It was yet another sign that the National government’s continued trumpeting of the New Right free market agenda was out of step with ordinary New Zealanders. Two years later Helen Clark’s Labour team comfortably won the 1999 general election.

Interesting to see, therefore, that the new Minister of Education Anne Tolley is putting some of those issues back on the table. The Sunday Star Times reports the government plans a radical overhaul of polytechnic governance, dumping about 250 of the 400 existing councillors. Maori and Pasifika representatives would be axed, along with representatives of employers, unions, and former students.

Tolley’s decision to resuscitate elements of the controversial and failed Tertiary Review Green Paper reforms is another signal that pro-market corporatisation and privatisation is firmly back on the government’s agenda. Education will be viewed as a commodity to be bought and sold, while students will be viewed as consumers, not learners.

Twelve years ago my opposition to these very reforms compelled me to join a protest march. What happened next was one of the key events that led me towards a life in politics. When Tolley brings her legislation before parliament, this time I won’t just be protesting outside, I’ll be fighting her every step of the way inside the House too.

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Filed under: democracy, education, national, parliament, public services
4 Comments

The ‘For Sale’ signs are up again

Posted by Chris Hipkins on July 26th, 2009

It seems more than a little coincidental that the National/ACT/Maori Party government have started talking about privatisation in the same week that they announced changes to the Overseas Investment Act to make it easier for foreign investors to buy strategically important NZ assets. The government seems to be following the Roger Douglas mantra of “never waste a good crisis”.

National went to great lengths prior to the election last year to convince New Zealanders that if they elected a John Key government nothing much would change, except of course they would get big fat tax cuts, a promise they clearly had no intention of keeping. It was already becoming clear at the time that the economic going was getting worse, but Bill English continued to insist that large tax cuts could be afforded without any cuts in government spending. He even kept saying things like “New Zealand doesn’t have a debt problem, we have a growth problem”. How quickly he changed his tune once comfortably ensconced on the Treasury benches.

In the past few weeks the government have sent out stalking horses such as the PM’s close confidant Mark Weldon and Treasury Secretary John Whitehead to start re-invigorating the privatisation agenda. It’s now highly likely key strategic assets like Auckland International Airport will end up in the hands of foreign investors, but the even bigger risk ahead is that we could see our electricity infrastructure follow it.

If the government is looking for privatisation targets, the four biggest State Owned Enterprises will be at the top of the list. They are the 3 big electricity generators and NZ Post/Kiwibank. Over the next year to 18 months, we can expect the government to do all it can to undermine public confidence in those companies in an attempt to strengthen their case for hocking them off. The real question is will they have the guts to go to the people at the next election with a transparent privatisation agenda, or will they break their promise before then and start hocking off the family silverware to overseas investors before ordinary Kiwis have a chance to have their say?

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Filed under: finance, national, public services
11 Comments

Not Yours To Sell

Posted by Phil Twyford on July 10th, 2009

Today I’m launching a new campaign to protect Auckland’s community assets. It’s called Not Yours To Sell.

Over the last few months of the super city debate, and the last four days of select committee hearings on the super city bill, it has been clear to me that Aucklanders fear the super city may be the prelude to privatisation of our assets.

Last week my member’s bill – the Local Government (Protection of Auckland Assets) Amendment Bill – was pulled from the ballot. Over the next three weeks I hope we can mobilise public support for the bill, and particularly pressure on Auckland’s National MPs to support it.

If passed the bill would give Aucklanders the right to a referendum before any public assets were sold off. The Prime Minister has said the Government has no plans to sell Auckland’s assets and it would be up to future Auckland Councils. Well…yes, precisely. It is not so long ago that they sold off shares in the airport, and tried to flog off the port. Add to that the fact that we have a Minister of Local Government who advocates privatisation. And a Rodney Hide-led Cabinet review that seeks to scale back local government to ‘core services.’

So if you want to help save Auckland’s ports, water company, transport, libraries, parks, sports grounds… go to Not Yours To Sell, sign up, and take action.

notyours

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Filed under: Auckland, by-election, democracy, labour, local government
52 Comments

Save Auckland’s community assets

Posted by Phil Twyford on July 2nd, 2009

My private member’s bill to protect Auckland’s assets from privatisation was drawn from the ballot today.

No one trusts Rodney Hide and his cronies to keep Auckland community assets in public hands so my member’s bill will put any decision to sell community assets firmly into the hands of Aucklanders. The bill requires the sale or privatisation of any assets to be first put to a public referendum.

I’m hoping ACT will support the bill. They are big on referenda in local government. In fact Rodney Hide’s recent cabinet paper proposes that councils be required to put any ’significant or irreversible’ decisions to referendum. If flogging off the assets Aucklanders have paid off with their rates over generations is not ’significant or irreversible’ I don’t know what is.

I think one of the big anxieties underlying the super city debate is the fear that the super city is just the prelude to corporatisation of local government, and privatisation of our assets: the ports, the water, and our transport infrastructure, not to mention libraries, parks, halls and other assets. These fears have been fueled by Local Government Minister Rodney Hide’s proposed reforms of the Local Government Act which seek to reduce council activities to core services. And by ACT’s stated policy to force Councils to sell off their commercial enterprises. Bear in mind also that it is only a decade or so since the right wing were trying to hock off the ports.

My bill, the Local Government (Protection of Auckland Assets) Amendment Bill, would require the Auckland Council to hold a referendum if significant asset sales are being considered. An appropriate threshold for the value of an asset that would trigger a referendum will be developed through the select committee process in consultation with Aucklanders. But the Bill would outlaw the sale of a range of assets including parks, swimming pools, libraries and public housing – other than when a sale might be part of the normal day-to-day portfolio management and has been subject to the normal consultation.

Getting the luck of the draw today was perfect timing. Aucklanders will be following the super city select committee hearings over the next four weeks as the committee considers a couple of thousand submissions. My bill will likely get its first reading on June 29 so we have four weeks to get some good debate going on this issue. I would like to hear any thoughts or suggestions people have about how we can best do that.

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Filed under: Auckland, consultation, democracy, local government, public services, regulation, select committee
42 Comments

Written Questions

Posted by Trevor Mallard on June 27th, 2009

Trevor Mallard to the Minister for State Owned Enterprises

“Did CCMAU invite Mark Weldon to address SOE Board members and did Mark Weldon advise them to prepare strategic plans that allowed for privatisation or partial privatisation in 2 – 5 years?”

“Has he made clear to SOE Board chairs that the speech by Mark Weldon made to them last Thursday is inconsistent with government policy with regard asset sales, if so when, and if not why not?”

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Filed under: Budget, national, public services
3 Comments

Why doesn’t the Government want a referendum?

Posted by Phil Twyford on June 8th, 2009

Many Aucklanders want a referendum on the super city. Seventy percent in fact, according to last week’s Shape NZ poll.  But the National-ACT Government doesn’t.  They used to think it was a good idea. And they think referenda should become a regular part of local government in New Zealand. But for some reason they don’t want one on the super city.

Back in 2006 John Key  had a private member’s bill on Auckland amalgamation which proposed a referendum.

The Local Government Act allows for referenda on forced amalgamations which the super city certainly is. But the first of the three super city bills, passed under urgency, took that right away from Aucklanders.

The Government says a referendum is not necessary.  But in a Cabinet paper on planned local government reforms, released last week, Rodney Hide proposes a requirement for referenda when local government changes are “significant” and “likely to be irreversible”. Go figure.

The Cabinet paper is explosive. It sets out an agenda for cutting back local government to core services (such as roads, footpaths, sewage treatment, storm water and refuse collection), and getting Councils out of “social, economic, environmental, and cultural community outcomes”. This would entail a major rewrite of the Local Government Act, and flies in the face of the vision for Auckland laid out by the Royal Commission.

As North Shore Mayor Andrew Williams has said, “Rodney Hide’s agenda to turn communities into corporations has finally been revealed, putting the meat on the dry bones of his rhetoric about cutting rates and red tape…” ARC councillor Joel Cayford has blogged on this.  I’m in full agreement with the Greens on this too.

No wonder Rodney doesn’t want a referendum on the super city. Andrew Williams again: “His paper goes on to suggest there is far too much public consultation in local government and cites the example of the need to ‘consult the public on some decisions – notably decisions to contract major council services to the private sector or to sell shares in a port or airport company’ as an area where public consultation is particularly troublesome resulting in ‘much more information being disclosed’ than is relevant and useful.”

If you had any doubts about the agenda here, it is time to lay them to rest:

Step 1 – ram through your super city  changes in Auckland, using it as a test case for the rest of the country

Step 2 – get your mates elected (we saw John Key signal his support for Banks for mayor yesterday)

Step 3 – roll out a radical privatisation and corporatisation agenda for local government.

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Filed under: Auckland, democracy, local government
27 Comments

The gorilla in the room

Posted by Phil Twyford on May 16th, 2009

The gorilla in the room of the Auckland super city debate stirred into action this morning. No I am not talking about House Leader Gerry Brownlee. Privatisation is the issue. My colleague Charles Chauvel put up an amendment to the Local Government (Auckland Reorganisation) Bill to protect assets during the transition to the super city.

Aucklanders are rightly fearful that as well as losing their voice in this new top-down super city, they also stand to lose strategic public assets like the port and the water company.

Am I being alarmist?  Generations of Aucklanders have built up $28 billion of public assets from the port to the water companies, parks, libraries, social housing, and shares in the airport.  Now consider the policy of Local Government Minister Rodney Hide’s ACT party to shed commercial activities and reduce local government to a narrow core of things like regulation, flood control and roads. Add to that a Government bulldozing through a gerrymandered Auckland Council that would install a permanent right wing majority. Then remember the determined but only partially successful efforts to flog off the airport and port in the nineties. (Mike Lee’s history of Auckland local government makes fascinating reading.)  And more recently John Banks and his C&R mates in Auckland City dispensing with social housing.

Aucklanders be afraid.  In spite of good speeches by Sue Kedgley of the Greens and Grant Robertson of Labour, Charles Chauvel’s amendment was of course voted down by the Nats and ACT. And that is why I am going to introduce at the next opportunity a private member’s bill to entrench public ownership of assets under the super city. Any asset sale will require a majority vote in a referendum. Good idea?

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Filed under: Auckland, local government, urgency
12 Comments

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