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Posts Tagged ‘select committee’

Have Your Say on the super city

Posted by Phil Twyford on June 7th, 2009

Labour MPs are hosting a series of public meetings across Auckland over the next two weeks to help people prepare submissions to the select committee on the super city. The meetings will include briefings on the issues, as well as practical advice on how to prepare a submission. All are welcome and of course there will be time to discuss and debate.

Mt Albert – 5.30pm Tuesday 9 June,  Owairaka District Primary School, 113 Richardson Rd, Owairaka, hosted by Phil Goff and David Shearer
Waitakere – 7.30pm, Wednesday 10 June, Kelston Community Centre, Cnr Great North Road and Awaroa Rd, hosted by David Cunliffe, Lynne Pillay and Chris Carter
Auckland Central – 7pm Thursday 11 June, Grey Lynn Community Centre, 510 Richmond Rd, Grey Lynn, hosted by Phil Twyford
North Shore – 7pm Thursday 11 June, North Shore Events Centre, Silverfield & Argus Pl Entrances, Wairau Valley, hosted by Darien Fenton
Waiheke – 1pm Sunday 14 June, Morra Hall, Oneroa, hosted by Phil Twyford
Manukau – 5.30pm Monday 15 June, Papatoetoe Town Hall, George St, Papatoetoe, hosted by Ross Robertson, Su’a William Sio, George Hawkins, Ashraf Choudhary
Maungakiekie – 7.30pm Monday 15 June, College of Chiropractic, 6 Harrison Rd (off Ellerslie-Panmure Highway) Mt Wellington, hosted by Carol Beaumont

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Filed under: Auckland, democracy, local government
8 Comments

Ministers chairing select committees

Posted by Chris Hipkins on May 22nd, 2009

I was interested in the government’s recent decision to appoint John Carter as chairperson of the special Select Committee that has been established to deal with the second part of the Auckland Super City legislation. It’s highly unusual for a government minister to chair a select committee, and almost unprecedented for a minister to chair a select committee that is considering items of business they have ministerial responsibility for (Carter is Associate Minister of Local Government).

The only other examples I could find of ministers chairing select committees are Peter Dunne (currently chairing the Emissions Trading Scheme Select Committee) and David Carter, who briefly chaired the Finance and Expenditure Select Committee (FEC) in the late 1990s whilst also holding a ministerial warrant (he was Associate Minister of Revenue at the time).

Does the new National government’s decision to establish two special select committees, chaired by ministers, to deal with potentially controversial legislation signal a shift in the conventional separation between the legislature and the executive? Should we be concerned that the executive is dominating the legislative process right down to the select committee level? My gut feeling is we probably should be.

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Filed under: democracy, parliament
4 Comments

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

Gerry Turns Down Offer

Posted by Trevor Mallard on May 15th, 2009

There are a couple of blogs below that outline the filibuster on Auckland legislation. The Labour/green team has developed hundreds of amendments and about a dozen extra parts.  We can keep drafting them. We are probably able to keep the bill going well into next week.

We have one objective – to get the bill off to a select committee even for three or four weeks, including about a week of hearings in Auckland. the times are negotiable.

Labour, the Greens and the Maori Party are prepared to pull our amendments and new parts out if the NACTs agree to send the bill to a committee.

Gerry Brownlee has turned down down the offer but it remains open.

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Filed under: Auckland, democracy, labour, national, urgency
28 Comments

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