DARIEN FENTON (Labour) Link to this
I move, That the Rodney District Council Bill be now read a first time. At the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be referred to the Local Government and Environment Committee.
The purpose of this bill, as set out in clause 3, is “to constitute the Rodney District Council as a unitary authority”. As such, it will have the responsibilities, duties, and powers of a territorial authority and a regional council in respect of the Rodney District. Clause 4 of the bill specifies that the Rodney District will retain the boundaries that it has had since the local government reorganisation in 1989. It will also retain its existing wards. Because of time constraints, it is necessary to defer the local authority elections for Rodney for 1 year. There will be an election in 2011 to cover a 2-year period, and triennial elections will resume in 2013. This is set out in clause 7 of the bill. Consequentially, Rodney is excluded from the Auckland region and the new Auckland Council under this bill.
The whole saga of Auckland governance has been a confused jumble and an unbelievably undemocratic process. Because of the Government’s mishandling of the decision making around Rodney’s inclusion in the Auckland super-city, Labour believes that this bill should go to a select committee for a fair hearing. I state firmly that Labour supports the original boundaries as proposed by the Royal Commission on Auckland Governance, but in the interests of democracy—
I say to Mr Garrett that in the interests of democracy this bill should be given a fair hearing. That is because the Government has ignored the legitimate concerns of the people of Rodney, and Rodney has not had a fair say on it. This is another chance for the Government to get this issue sorted out once and for all.
This is a local bill promoted by the Rodney District Council, which has been through all of the hoops required to get this bill to Parliament. If the member David Garrett does not understand what it has to do, he should go and read up on it. The Rodney District Council and the media have repeatedly asked Rodney citizens whether they want to be part of the Auckland super-city, and the answer has never changed from an emphatic no. A Colmar Brunton survey in April showed that for every person in Rodney who supports becoming part of the super-city, two oppose it. The pattern of opposition is the same in the north, the west, and central Rodney, as well as in the Hibiscus Coast.
There are some differing views about this bill, which reflect the results of the poll—one person in three does not agree. The Northern Action Group, for example, wants the boundaries changed to reflect the select committee’s original recommendation that the Rodney District should be divided in two, with the boundary based on a line between the mouths of the Pūhoi and Makarau rivers. It is fair to say that the council and the citizens of Rodney have sent a consistent message to the royal commission, the select committee, and their local National MPs that they want no part in the super-city. They have been saying consistently that Rodney’s future should not be decided in Queen Street instead of Warkworth, Wellsford, Matakana, or Whangaparāoa.
The Prime Minister, the Minister of Local Government, the Associate Minister of Local Government, and local National MPs have given the people of Rodney false hope. They have repeatedly offered their support to this community and their community representatives, telling them that they should make submissions and that they will respond to them. There was no response. They told the community they should trust the process to deliver the right result, but I ask for whom will it be the right result. They told the community they should put in a petition and the Minister will receive it on the steps of Parliament. A petition was put in on the steps of Parliament; it had over 6,000 signatures from the Northern Action Group and the Wellsford Community Group. The Minister Rodney Hide received it and then it disappeared. Rodney residents were told they could opt out via a reorganisation proposal, but then the Government legislated to ban any reorganisation for the next 3 years. They even told the people of Rodney to get their council to put together a local bill. That is what the people of Rodney have done. Here is their local bill, and the Government should be supporting it.
Unfortunately, I hear that more false hope is being generated and held out to the Northern Action Group, with hints that another local bill to exclude north Rodney and join it to the Kaipara District Council would have every chance of success if it were not for this bill, because this bill gets in the way. If that were true and it were that easy, I have to ask why the Government did not support my amendment to exclude north Rodney when the Local Government (Auckland Law Reform) Bill was going through Parliament in June. It is true to say that the Government panicked over the north Rodney boundaries. Despite what the select committee report recommended on the second super-city bill, the Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill, just 24 hours before the select committee brought the bill back to the House, the Government did a complete flip-flop on John Carter’s decision and decided to bring the whole of Rodney in. John Key attempted to blame the decision on reports that he had received from select committee members. That was outrageous; one of his own Ministers was the chair. The fact is that the Government has dithered around on the issue, has made the wrong call, and has been forced to adopt the initial royal commission recommendation in the wake of widespread public outcry.
Rodney District Council is doing exactly what councils should do. This council has gone to its people, has asked what they want, and is now reflecting that through this bill. This bill is the result of the democratic process required for local bills, which is different from that of other bills, and it should not be ignored. The Government has badly mishandled the creation of a super-city, and the decision making on Rodney’s inclusion has been a fiasco. This bill is now the only option open to the people of Rodney District.
This local bill is not perfect, but it is the only democratic response left in a highly flawed and cynical National-ACT process. The people of Rodney have behaved honestly and honourably. They have been tricked and have been given false hopes. They have been sold out by the people whom they relied on to represent them in this Parliament. The people of Rodney District ask this House once more to let them determine their own future. I ask the House to please support their local bill.
Hon TAU HENARE (National) Link to this
The first thing I want to say in the first reading of the Rodney District Council Bill is that most of the time when there is an issue of real importance in the community, people protest. One such issue was the foreshore and seabed. Something like 25,000 to 30,000 people parked up outside Parliament. Without getting into the rights and wrongs of that legislation, I would say that the protest showed that a lot of people had a view that was contrary to the view of those putting forward the legislation. During the process of the three pieces of legislation on the super-city, the biggest demonstration was on Māori representation. Then came the huge demonstration that was organised by none other than the great organiser, the great leader of 50-odd people—
No, it was my colleague across the Chamber who decided that it would be the biggest protest about the super-city.
Well, I did not say the name. There were only 40-odd people and an ambulance there—and the ambulance was not there for me. I like protests, because I think they show what people are thinking about issues and whether they support issues. The next big protest was the Queen’s Birthday weekend vehicle protest against the super-city and in favour of having their own little fiefdom up there.
Louise UpstonThere were thousands of people leaving Auckland on the Friday, and even on the Thursday, to get away for Queen’s Birthday weekend, and there were no hold-ups.
Actually, they have always voted Labour. People like that have always voted Labour. The fact of the matter is that at the next election we will see the Hon John Carter, the Hon Phil Heatley, and the Hon Lockwood Smith all hold their seats, which are based in that area. Do members know why? It is because those people not only support National and their local members of Parliament—because they are good local members of Parliament—but support the idea of a super-city.
It is hard not to read the bill. There is so much rubbish in it, one laughs when reading it. It is a bit like a cartoon. It has been put together by people who want to protect their own jobs. That is all it is. The bill is only about protecting the power and the wages of those who will lose their jobs in October of this year. That is all they are worried about. They are not worried about being part of a local community board. They are not worried about being part of a bigger prize at the end of the rainbow. They are after the protection of their jobs and their wages or salaries and all.
It is an insult. It is an insult to the people who want to see this country go ahead.
I cannot believe my luck—this is the third opportunity I have had to speak in the House since that event some 30 smoke-free days ago. Do members know what this issue is all about? It is all about getting the pump of the economy going. We will not be able to do it by supporting the establishment of little backwater fiefdoms. That is not democracy; that is just self-interest at its worst.
Chris TremainExactly—no one. Those who have sold out are those with these “good” ideas. All they have done is try to protect their own wages and protect their own outdated and outmoded philosophies.
Hon Darren HughesLet us talk about some party-hoppers. Winston Churchill was a party-hopper, and, frankly, I quite like Winston Churchill. I think Winston Churchill was a great man—a fantastic man. I wish members opposite would calm down. I know what happens to the old ticker when people get stressed out. The only words I can bring to this debate before I sit down are “calm down”. I tell those members to calm down and open up their arteries so the blood can flow through, and let Auckland—[ Interruption] I have had 30 smoke-free days. I do not smoke anymore; it is a disgusting habit.
Actually, I do not care whether people smoke.
Most people in the area of Rodney, further north, want to be part of a great big Auckland movement. They want to be part of the new Auckland. If there is a chance that we have not got it right, there is an opportunity to tweak and change. But we will not be going back to the old left-wing philosophy of having little fiefdoms all over the place, because the people who get control of those little fiefdoms are the people on the left in central government.
The Auckland legislation brings more power to the people of Auckland. It brings more power to the people of north Auckland, east Auckland, south Auckland, and west Auckland. [Interruption] That is what this crowd do not want to happen. They do not want the power to be left in the hands of the people; they want the power to be left in the hands of their mates like Bob Harvey and Len Brown. They are all the same. They want to control their own little fiefdoms and their own little power bases. That is all I have to say.
Hon GEORGE HAWKINS (Labour—Manurewa) Link to this
I just want to say how good it is to see the previous speaker, Tau Henare, back in the House. He is quite an interesting member. I think he started many years ago in New Zealand First, then he turned to Mauri Pacific, and now he is in National. By the speech he just made, he is smoke-free and will be joining the Māori Party in its policy.
I think local bills demand a bit more respect. This Rodney District Council Bill would be unnecessary if the Government had done what it should have and had a referendum of the people of Auckland. Then this bill would not have reached the House. I want to thank my colleague Darien Fenton for bringing it to the House. It took a Labour list member to do it. Other members of Parliament are associated closely with Rodney, such as the Speaker of the House, the Hon Dr Lockwood Smith. I can understand his reasons why he may not want to address the House. John Key, the Prime Minister, is probably too busy.
Hon Maryan StreetHon GEORGE HAWKINS Link to this
Well, he is going around everywhere smiling. He is going around saying we will not have any mines, with an ear-to-ear smile as he says it.
H V Ross RobertsonHon GEORGE HAWKINS Link to this
That is right. So the people of Rodney who want this bill before the House are disappointed. There are other members of Parliament from the North Shore, like Wayne Mapp. He dodged the crossfire; he did not want to be involved. We have Jonathan Coleman, but he did not want to know about it. Of course, we have—
Hon GEORGE HAWKINS Link to this
Or Murray McCully. He is over in Afghanistan, and many people hope that no harm comes to him. But I doubt that all those people would come from Rodney, because they are very disappointed. They want to stay by themselves. Labour supported the reorganisation principle, right from day one, but the National Government forgot one thing, and that was to listen to what people were saying. I suggest to Rodney Hide and John Carter that they take a call on the first reading of this bill and say why they will not support it. We know they will not support it. I know that Rodney Hide is busy trying to get his vote up. I was at one of his meetings, on Monday, where he shared the platform with Penny Bright. That is desperation politics, but that is what happened. Will those members support local people like Bill Townsend, who worked like nobody’s business to try to make submissions and have the Government take notice of him? It did not happen. Penny Webster, Mayor of Rodney District Council, and a former member of this House and former member of ACT—
Hon GEORGE HAWKINS Link to this
Well, they cannot afford too many formers or that member will be gone. I must say I would not advertise the fact; I would sit there quietly, take a deep breath, and get on with things. People who by substantial majority in a referendum say they are opposed to what is happening should be shown the decency of seeing this bill going to the select committee. I know that the select committee will bury it; that is what happens. I am doing a local bill for Manukau City—a prostitution by-law bill—but I know that it will not go very far, because Manukau is going into Auckland. But Manukau goes in with its eyes wide open; Rodney is fighting it, and other communities are still very, very unhappy. Papakura people are bitterly disappointed that the Government did not listen to them. They were told by John Carter: “We’re listening.” But they were not hearing. We need a voice in the House to represent that area, and I am really pleased that Labour is doing it, even though we do not hold a parliamentary seat on the North Shore. When all else is lost, people come back to Labour. That is what they will be doing; they will be coming back to Labour. The people of Rodney will not forget this betrayal.
Dr CAM CALDER (National) Link to this
It is a pleasure to rise and speak on the Rodney District Council Bill, which is a local bill. This bill seeks to create the Rodney District Council as a unitary authority and separate it from the Auckland super-city.
I acknowledge that, indeed, the people of Rodney are extremely passionate about this, I tell Mr Robertson. Some are passionate to have a change, and some are passionate to stay in the super-city concept. I have here a very recently received email from a western corridor focus group that constitutes a representative forum group, with one representative from each of the ratepayers and community associations of Riverhead, Coatesville, Taupaki, Kūmeu-Huapai, Waimauku, Muriwai, Helensville, Parakai, Kaukapakapa, and Shelly Beach. These people are not in favour of this bill, so I think it is wrong to suggest, as we have heard in the House, that this bill has unanimous support in Rodney. I acknowledge the contribution from my colleague Tau Henare. It is good to see him back in the House after his somewhat chequered last 30 days.
One thing we know is that the previous Labour Government called upon a royal commission to investigate the problems occurring in Auckland. That royal commission found, after 18 months of consultation, 3,500 submissions, 500 oral submissions, and advice from experts, that there were huge problems—suffocating red tape, transport bottlenecks, and lost opportunities for development. The commission said that doing nothing was not an option and that an Auckland super-city was the way forward. The commission found many things holding up Auckland in relation to the way the city was run. In particular, it felt there was a lack of leadership, and that Auckland required a leader to unify all the district communities and provide a single vision for the greater community. The commission wanted important Auckland-wide matters, which were getting tangled up with competing interests of local councils, to be dealt with by a single authority.
The commission did not think to ignore the local communities, and the people of Rodney can take some comfort from the fact that the local boards will be the face of local government. They will have an important role to play, and the people elected to local boards will play a huge role in the Rodney community. They will be locally elected people, who understand their community’s concerns and hopes. Local boards will be required to meet regularly with the communities they represent, and they will be required to formally consult their communities when developing their local board plans. They will have a wide-ranging role. They will make decisions on local matters, provide local leadership, and strengthen and build that local community. Local boards will also provide important local input into region-wide strategies and plans, including those of the council-controlled organisations. Auckland needs to move forward together. I think it is for that reason that National has good reason to not support this bill. Thank you.
DAVID CLENDON (Green) Link to this
Kia ora koutou. It is a privilege to speak to the Rodney District Council Bill, which is essentially a rearguard action by the people of Rodney, who have been steamrollered into something they did not want a bar of—and for very good reason. I have some affinity for the area, having lived at Whangaparāoa for some 13 or 14 years, and I recently held a public meeting in Whangaparāoa. It was on an entirely different topic. The meeting was attended by Green Party members and supporters, but also, predominantly, by members of the public who were perhaps not politically affiliated. One needed only to scratch an inch below the surface to find a great deal of anger and frustration at the fact that Rodney has been pushed into this unwanted and, in many ways, unnecessary amalgamation.
Our colleague Tau Henare, who spoke earlier, was reflecting on what I think is an extremely optimistic view, which is that the Government will not take a political hit on this issue. I will disabuse the member of that belief. There will be a political cost to this. There is a great deal of anger and frustration at the loss of democracy, as there has been throughout the very ungainly and unsatisfactory process of melding Auckland into one mass.
This local bill is a result of the frustration about that hostility and that attack on democracy, which has occurred in Auckland and elsewhere, particularly in Canterbury. Throughout the region, people feel disenfranchised. They have spoken but they have not been listened to. Mr Twyford and I, and other Labour and Green MPs, ran a series of meetings. We went around the entire region to hear people’s stories, including the stories of people from Rodney. They presented very compelling arguments as to why at least north Rodney—if not, in fact, the entire district—ought to be left out of the amalgamation. Over 6,000 people signed a petition. They went to the trouble of presenting that petition to Parliament. They also sought people who supported the amalgamation, and they managed to find only a few hundred in north Rodney who supported that contrary view.
It is true that a number of people think that the super-city is a good idea. Many of those people are under what is clearly a false belief that they will get a bigger slice of a larger pie. In some quarters there is some understanding and expectation that Rodney going into the Auckland super-city will mean that more money is spent in Rodney on roading, on infrastructure, on transport, and on other public amenities. We know that whoever comes into the council in a few months’ time will use a great deal of money, expenditure, and other resources simply to establish the super-city and simply to get some workable form to the very poorly designed super-city and the increasingly poorly implemented process of creating the super-city. It will be a very long time before the Auckland Council has the time or the wherewithal to consider the outlying parts of the city—Manukau District, Franklin District, and, indeed, Rodney District.
There is a reason why the proponents of the super-city were so determined to have Rodney District in the super-city, particularly north Rodney, which is primarily a rural environment and far from Queen Street, far from the west, the south, and the North Shore, which are primarily urban developments. I have one word and that word is land bank. Some would have it that Greater Auckland should aspire to have a population of some 2 million people, which is 600,000 or 700,000 people more than we currently have. Clearly, those people will want to live and work and enjoy recreation somewhere. It is very clear that Rodney District is being preserved as a land bank for future development, despite the wishes and aspirations of people who currently live there, particularly given that there is a strong push to move the metropolitan urban limits in the false belief that the spatial plan will render such an organism unnecessary.
This bill represents a good statement of the very deeply held feelings of the Rodney District people, and the Greens will be very happy to support the Rodney District Council Bill on that basis. Kia ora.
DAVID GARRETT (ACT) Link to this
I do not know about the members on the other side of the House but I am a resident of Rodney District, and I have been in contact with councillors—or, should I say, they have been in contact with me—for some time on this whole issue. I want to correct the record. Statements such as “The people of Rodney think this”, or “The people of Rodney think that” could not be further from the truth. The best that one can say is that the people of Rodney are highly divided on this issue. It would be fair to say that there are many—and I am happy to admit that I am one of them—who think that the best solution would probably be a split between the Kaipara District Council and the super-city. The question, of course, is where that split should be.
I attended select committee hearings where a number of options were considered and put forward, such as the northern railway line that runs past my house, which would have put me in the Kaipara District, and the ridge for the catchment of the Kaipara Harbour, which would have put me in the super-city. There was no consensus on that but there was certainly consensus on one thing. Aside from a small number of Rodney District councillors and a few of their supporters—perhaps a few hundred; Mr Clendon talked about the petition, and I think he said 600—
That would probably be the total number who wanted a unitary authority.
There are 90,000 people in Rodney. I had a meeting with Mayor Penny Webster, a former MP, as Mr Hawkins noted. She timed it very badly, because a few days before the meeting I received an email from a woman in Australia who was complaining about the number of MPs we have to run this place. She asked why we need 122 MPs to run New Zealand when the Greater Melbourne Council has 20 councillors and they have a population of 1.8 million.
When I went to see the Rodney District Council I made that point. The councillors were rather sheepish. Then I asked them how many fulltime-equivalents they had. I do not want to misrepresent what I heard, but it was in excess of 400—400 fulltime-equivalents. I was astounded. Then the mayor said it was a very wide area. I asked whether she had been to Melbourne. I said it takes half a day to get across it by train.
So the Rodney District Council has 20-odd councillors, I think, for a population of 90,000, and Melbourne is able to manage 1.8 million with the same number. That is a perfect example of why this is a very bad idea. I am not sure whether Ms Fenton has actually been past the great castle in Centreway Road, Ōrewa—the “not to be for much longer” headquarters of the Rodney District Council. It is astounding. It is a huge castle of a building for 90,000 people.
Last year a councillor rang me, gave his name, which I will not give, and told me that the Rodney District Council budgeted $6 million—this is last year—for new vehicles—
—it was $6 million—when it knew it was going out of existence in November the following year. That is an absolutely scandalous misuse of ratepayers’ money—and I am one of them. I am a ratepayer in the Rodney District. The Rodney District Council was so dysfunctional some years ago that the Government had to put commissioners in to run it. I believe they were actually physically attacking each other. So as an example of a unitary authority model, one could hardly pick a worse one than the Rodney District Council.
I will end as I started by saying I agree that the community is divided. Many people, and I am one of them, think that probably—probably—the area should be divided. The area I live in, Kaukapakapa, is definitely rural. It does not have very much in common with Parnell—in fact, nothing, thankfully, which is why I live there. Most of the people around my area would be much happier with the Kaipara District Council. But the crucial thing is that we will all get a shot in 2013 to make submissions and move the boundary, but in the meantime one could not pick a worse example of a council as a unitary authority than this one, and any claim that the people of Rodney wish this to happen is simply nonsense. Thank you.
RAHUI KATENE (Māori Party—Te Tai Tonga) Link to this
During the select committee process associated with the Auckland Council law reforms, Ngāti Whātua Ngā Rima o Kaipara referred to a historical request from 1860 from the rangatira Paora Tūhaere. The rangatira issued a plea for unity between Māori and the Crown in governance. It was a plea that appears to have fallen by the wayside in recent months, but not for want of trying. I believe that this Rodney District Council Bill is an expression of the effort made by both local government through Rodney District Council and mana whenua by merit of the work undertaken by Ngāti Whātua Ngā Rima o Kaipara.
The purpose of this legislation is to constitute Rodney District Council as a unitary authority. The Māori Party takes as a starting point that a unitary authority must, by its very nature, ensure the authority of mana whenua. Our approach to the Rodney District Council Bill is similar to any bill in the local government policy framework, in that Te Tiriti o Waitangi provided at a minimum that tangata whenua should have an equitable say in the decisions that affect them via Treaty-based representation. But in the case of Rodney, it would appear that a unitary authority for the local authority is a concept that mana whenua have already been working with and alongside of. We know as a result of a memorandum of understanding that Ngāti Whātua Ngā Rima o Kaipara has already consolidated with Rodney District Council that both authorities often work together. This partnership is demonstrated in practical ways to ensure the best outcomes in terms of water infrastructure, with projects linked to wastewater, water conveyance, and stormwater.
As mana whenua, the iwi, the hapū, and the marae have indicated consistently that they will not willingly abdicate their responsibilities regarding kaitiakitanga, and, as such, have advanced a particular role in relation to co-monitoring. This has been evidenced in the Environment Court. In essence, it is observed in means such as facilitating consent. I hasten to add, of course, that the emphasis towards kotahitanga to work together in the process of pursuing a single intent has been demonstrated by Ngāti Whātua through the south Kaipara takiwā for other than the council process alone. I am thinking particularly of a partnership that evolved between five mana whenua marae in south Kaipara and a primary health organisation aimed at improving the health of Ngāti Whātua whānui. That way of working is destined for success, and it has been recognised in the New Zealand Health Innovation Awards.
We also understand that Ngāti Whātua Ngā Rima o Kaipara is a key part in the council’s social well-being strategy. This is the whāriki, the foundation, upon which we respond to this bill. We know that the die is cast already and it is highly unlikely that the bill will proceed through the House, but I think it is important for the record to note that Ngāti Whātua Ngā Rima o Kaipara have recognised the benefit of the memorandum of understanding they negotiated with the Rodney District Council. It is the basis for a relationship of goodwill between the two parties.
The Rodney District Council is the only council out of three others that sit within that tribal rohe that has established this form of relationship with Ngā Rima o Kaipara. As such, it has been of great value to the people. The key question now is inevitably around the new Auckland Council’s capacity to engage with the iwi and hapū of Ngāti Whātua o Kaipara ki te Tonga. We have been advised that Naida Glavish, the chair of Ngāti Whātua Ngā Rima o Kaipara, has indicated that they would engage reluctantly with any advisory board of the Auckland super-city. We are apprehensive that the relationship established under the memorandum of understanding will continue with the new Auckland Council when the council comes into effect. We would not want to place at risk the level of input that Ngāti Whātua Ngā Rima o Kaipara currently holds in regard to the decision-making process around issues relative to Rodney District. We support this bill at its first reading to provide a forum for discussion about how to best invest in a unitary authority that brings mana whenua alongside.
PHIL TWYFORD (Labour) Link to this
Sometimes this Parliament is a court of last resort, and today is one such occasion. For the people of the district of Rodney, this is their final opportunity to have a say, to have their day in court.
The people of Rodney submitted to the Royal Commission on Auckland Governance, they submitted to the Auckland Governance Legislation Committee on the second super-city bill, and they lobbied their elected MPs in good faith. Still frustrated, the people of northern Rodney gathered a petition. I will correct the gentleman from Taupaki—David Garrett, the member for ACT—who said that they gathered only 6,000 signatures. Well, those 6,000 signatures in northern Rodney were collected from a community of 22,000 people. That is an impressive result in anybody’s book, I think.
The Government invited the people of northern Rodney to submit a reorganisation proposal to take Rodney out of the super-city, but in the next breath, under this Minister of Local Government, it banned any reorganisation proposals in the Auckland region for the next 3 years. This local bill, the Rodney District Council Bill, was brought to the House by my colleague Darien Fenton. It is the last chance for the disillusioned and disenchanted of Rodney District.
Why do the people of Rodney deserve to have a say on this issue? There are three reasons. The first is that this ACT-National Government has utterly mishandled and mismanaged the entire Auckland reorganisation process over the last 18 months, particularly in relation to the inclusion of Rodney and the people of Rodney in the Auckland super-city. It has been a fiasco.
The second reason is that the people of Rodney District do not want to be part of the Auckland super-city. A Colmar Brunton poll of a sample of 1,200 people stated that 52 percent of the people of Rodney District opposed Rodney’s inclusion in the super-city. A bare 21 percent said that they supported their community’s inclusion in the super-city. Those results are absolutely clear.
But it is not just the people of Rodney who are unhappy about being press-ganged into Rodney Hide’s super-city by this Government. Those poll results can be found throughout the entire Auckland region. No matter which way we ask people the question—whether they feel like they have been listened to by the Government, whether they think their lives will be better under the super-city, or whether they think things will be run more efficiently—almost always about 50 percent of the respondents say no. They do not think life under the super-city will be better; they do not want to be part of it. All the polling that we have seen published in the last 6 months indicates that this Government is lucky if it can muster 20 to 30 percent of people who support the super-city.
The third reason Labour is supporting this bill is that the National Government would not give the people of Rodney their day in court. It would not allow them to have a say at the select committee on whether they should be incorporated against their will, against their wishes, into the super-city.
The member for Rodney declined to sponsor this bill. The member for Northland—even though he is the Associate Minister of Local Government and was quite happy to chair the select committee—would not sponsor this bill. The member for Helensville would not sponsor this bill. The member for Waitakere would not sponsor this bill. Four Government Cabinet Ministers whose electorates overlap with the district of Rodney refused to sponsor this bill, but my colleague Darien Fenton did the right thing and brought it to this House.
Those three reasons are why we are supporting this bill. It is a bizarre fact of this situation that Labour supports, and has supported throughout the super-city process, the royal commission boundaries. We believe, based on the planning and the environmental arguments, that Rodney should be in the super-city. There are very persuasive reasons to protect the metropolitan urban limits and to prevent rampant urban development leapfrogging over urban limits into the hinterland. There are very good reasons in terms of managing Auckland’s long-term growth that Rodney should be part of the super-city. But, in spite of that, we think democracy means that the people of Rodney deserve to have their day in court.
Dr RAJEN PRASAD (Labour) Link to this
This bill, the Rodney District Council Bill, really demonstrates this Government’s inconsistency and duplicity. In my contribution to this bill, I want to demonstrate that. Fundamentally, the bill is about enabling the voices of the people of the Rodney District Council to be heard in this Parliament. By the very reaction that the Government is taking and by the actions taken by those who should be representing the interests of this conservative electorate, the Government is really disabling the views of the people of Rodney from being heard. The Government has failed the people of Rodney by not fronting up and also by making little of the arguments that they are presenting. Not one National member north of the bridge has come forward to say that he or she would at least put his or her name to a local bill, which is the tradition. Not one of those members has done that. The people of Rodney will not forget it.
The people of north Rodney are good and reasonable folk. They essentially want to represent the views of the people whom they have campaigned very actively with. They make it quite clear that they want to get north Rodney out of the super-city, following the view of the majority of the members in this area of that city. That argument is pretty important and pretty powerful, yet they are not being enabled to be heard here.
Government members are being absolutely inconsistent. They take a particular position when it suits them, but on the same principle they discount it when it does not suit them. I remember very well when the Hon Maurice Williamson came to this House and said what a wonderful thing it was that the people of Howick, the people of Te Irirangi, had had a big meeting, had signed petitions—he brought the box into the House—and how important democracy was. On the basis of that, the Hon Pansy Wong and the Hon Maurice Williamson supported the name change and carried the day.
I ask what happened in this particular case. Howick does not even describe Te Irirangi, which is a beautiful name. It has local meaning as well, but members opposite used, in that case, the principle of “the voice of the people”. Well, what happened this time? The people of north Rodney have come together, with 6,000 signatures. They have described to us how they walked street after street to find people at home to sign the petitions, but the Government is being inconsistent and illogical. My colleague Darien Fenton and I were invited in the summer of this year to go to north Rodney and have a public Labour Party meeting there. I asked my wife to come along. I said that it was a very conservative electorate, and there would probably be 20 people there, if that, so we could go and have a meal.
They are the people who elected the Government last time, so Mr Calder should listen to what they said. When we went there the hall was full to overflowing. The people were angry. They were absolutely annoyed that the Government was not listening. It is an insult to those people that the Government has not listened.
The position taken by Tau Henare today was that those people were interested only in themselves, and that is why the bill is here today. That is an absolute insult to the people of north Rodney. I hope they are listening to this debate or will read the transcript, because they will realise that the Government is not interested in actually living by the democratic principles that this country operates on. The party opposite sings its praises all the time, but it is inconsistent. The Government talked about mining, but now it says that the people do not want it, so we will not have it. Yet the people of north Rodney do not want to be part of the Auckland super-city.
This bill is about giving a voice to the people of north Rodney. They will not have that voice. I thank Darien Fenton for bringing the bill forward. It is a shame, and a black day in the history of this Parliament really, that the people of north Rodney cannot come and have their say. Thank you very much.
DARIEN FENTON (Labour) Link to this
I cannot say I am surprised at the response from National and the ACT Party and their decision to vote against the Rodney District Council Bill. I do not think the people of Rodney will be particularly surprised, because it is just another event in a very long pattern of their being let down by their parliamentary representatives, being ignored, and being put through a ridiculous and undemocratic process. I am sure that members opposite will be hearing from them directly, and I am also sure it will be noted that there has been no contribution from those members in this debate. I thank the Greens and the Māori Party. I know that Dave Clendon has been, as he said, around the district, and certainly I have too, with colleagues Phil Twyford and Rajen Prasad. For the information of the ACT Party member David Garrett, I live in Taupaki, which is in Rodney District, and nobody has asked my opinion on that side of Rodney.
This is a sad day, as my colleague said. We are seeing a pattern emerging, where this Government is willing to ride roughshod over local views and local opinion. I find it ironic. I like the comparison with the back-down on mining, drawn by my colleague Rajen Prasad. Apparently that occurred because the people have had their say. The people of Rodney have tried to have their say through a proper process, and let me just remind the House what that process entails. A local bill is not something that I just draw up and bring to this House. A local bill has to go through a very complicated legal process. Consultation with the local people is required. They are allowed to have their say. There must be notifications, and the Clerk has to be absolutely convinced that that process has been followed.
Even though I felt privileged to take up this local bill and put my hand up, I believe that the members from the local area have some explaining to do. I would have thought that if the Government was so confident about its process and about what has come out of a year’s work on the super-city it would welcome a debate. It would have welcomed the chance for the Rodney people to come and have a say through the only democratic means left to them, which was a local bill. I think they deserve better from this Government. The people of Auckland certainly deserve better. As I said, it just follows a trend we are seeing from this Government—a Government that ignores local views: for example, the decision to fire the board of Environment Canterbury without any local consultation.
The Government has been intimidated, I think, by the very malevolent presence of the Minister of Local Government, Rodney Hide. So tainted has that name Rodney become, that I would not be surprised if there was an application to the Geographic Board to change the name—
The Geographic Board cannot change his name, but it could change the name of Rodney, and I would not be surprised if we saw that at some stage. I doubt that this will be the last—
Sue MoroneyThey could call it Darien. That is right: the Darien District. That sounds pretty good to me.
I doubt this will be the last time we hear from Rodney on this issue, or from north Rodney. They have vowed to keep fighting. They will do that, through the ballot box next year. Members opposite should not be too confident about picking up those National Party votes next time. Members would be surprised how many people are now saying, all over the place—not just on this issue but on a whole lot of other things, such as cuts to early childhood education, and so on—that this Government has to go.
In closing, I acknowledge all of those who were involved in bringing this local bill together. I acknowledge the Northern Action Group and the Wellsford Community Group. Those people went from farm to farm, from door to door, collecting 6,000 signatures, to bring the issue to Parliament and present it to the Minister because they were promised they would be listened to. They have been let down once again. I also recognise all the other groups in the community that have tried to contribute to the democratic process surrounding what is a massive change. They have been let down. Promises were made, and the people have been let down. I think this whole process has been hijacked by this Government. This is a very, very disappointing day for Rodney.
A party vote was called for on the question,
That the Rodney District Council Bill be now read a first time.
Ayes 58
Noes 64
Motion not agreed to.