Just for once, let Auckland have a say | Auckland News | Local News in Auckland

Rodney Hide and John Key are too scared - or cowardly - to do it, so we're doing it for them. We're giving Aucklanders a vote on their local government.

It's something every other New Zealander has. Under the Local Government Act 2002 communities have the right to a vote on the boundaries, format, style of their council. Unless they live in Auckland: this fundamental, democratic right was taken away when the Government passed the first of three Acts setting up Auckland's new regional authority.

Key and Hide compounded that insult by appointing the unelected, secretive Auckland Transition Agency and giving it untrammelled power to design our local government. To no one's surprise it has come up with a corporate city, with Government-appointed directors, that has failed everywhere it's been tried overseas.

The Government again failed Auckland by handing over authority to set out local boards' powers to the Transition Authority.

The Local Government Commission fiddled with its own rules for setting boundaries. Not only does "Auckland" stretch well into Taniwha and Mooloo country, we now have one of the 20 divisions with 180,000 people, more than Hamilton, the country's fourth largest metropolis, and another with 800 residents. Go figure.

The loose ends - and there are plenty - are supposed to be tied up in the third bill, due in Parliament on May 24. We await that with no great confidence.

We expect to be criticised for taking sides. Some have a quaint notion that a newspaper shouldn't speak up on behalf of its readers. We make no apologies: that is what we have done since 23 April, 2009, when the Royal Commission's report was binned.

What we asked then, what we asked before the select committee in March, and what we are asking for now is a vote - for Aucklanders to decide on the formula for their councils, their local boards, and boundaries. Everyone else in this country can.

If Hide and Key were so convinced theirs was such a good, workable plan, they'd put it to a public vote.

If they can engineer the merger of eight councils, 8000 employees and consultants, the public buildings and works, the IT systems, the dog rangers and the public toilets within 18 months - when the Royal Commission recommended 3-5 years - they've easily got time to do what our coalition has managed: print off a few hundred thousand ballot papers and post them out, and set up a website.

But they won't. So over the next three weeks, we'll show the leadership and integrity they haven't. - Ewan McDonald, Editor

Three passionate Aucklanders have tried to have a say in the new local body set-up. Each feels they - and the region - have been ignored, reports Edward Rooney.

It's like a bunch of cavemen have taken over Auckland

Susie Vincent calls it "this Terrible Situation". We talk on her sunny deck among dense Waitakere bush about her many concerns with the reorganisation of the Auckland region.

She frequently expresses relief that someone at last wants to hear her and the words tumble out of this vibrant 62-year-old like a waterfall. The former management consultant for PricewaterhouseCoopers in London says she's still in shock after realising what is happening to her beloved adopted people and place. Here are her thoughts, in her own words:

"It's like a bunch of cavemen have taken over Auckland and are ignorantly dismantling everything that makes the place work.

"If you put money and political power first, over society, culture and environment, then you get China. This isn't smart new thinking, this is neanderthal thinking. Has this Government really gained no wisdom and insight since they were last in power?

"I have great power as a ratepayer in Waitakere. I can get the road fixed with a single call to a receptionist. They even give me a job number. There is never a wait on the phone. I can talk to the Mayor, even get a meeting. I want this. I want to keep this and I don't have a choice, and I'm furious.

"In 2010, a Government that deliberately removes legal protections against private ownership of its water utilities isn't just stupid - it's actually very, very dangerous.

"I left Britain in despair when Margaret Thatcher was taking apart everything I valued and selling it to overseas investors. I am watching the preparations for this happening here now, and I'm horrified.

"Everything precious we have here seems to be seen as a commodity that needs to be available to commercial interests. Is this Government desperate for money? Our ports, water, hillsides - at this rate we'll find Maori art initiatives being run by Shell Oil.

"The Government's plans for Auckland are based on thinking that has been discredited for about the last 20 years. Singapore and Dubai are not the model for a city of the future. We are a city of villages - Ponsonby, Mt Eden, Panmure, Devonport, Titirangi, Mangere, Onehunga, Albany. We have had devolved power and active communities who are becoming increasingly self-governing. This is exactly the right model for the city of the future.

"We are losing the identity we've aspired to, the one that inspires other countries, and who we actually are. Everyone I know overseas admires us because we're supposed to be environmentally smart, independent thinking, good at communities, strong participative democracy, kids still run around safely in natural spaces.

"Prosperous without brash materialism .These are incredibly rare qualities in the world. Instead of enabling us to live up them, this Government wants to copy Australia. Not one fair-minded OECD country admires the way Australia is stripping its natural heritage to bolster its GDP right now, but all of a sudden, we're copying Australia. This is psychopathic.

"I can't even imagine what Maori feel. They have been seriously dishonoured. I hope that they will stand in the confidence of their mana and inheritance, and speak out very loudly, very soon. We need their voices urgently.

"There is such a lot of deceptive drivel being spoken. Best practices? We are already creating them here. There are few models in the world better than what's being done between people and local government in Waitakere, Manukau and North Shore, for example. The eco-city model for Waitakere is one of the smartest things to come out of New Zealand since we discovered cows. This Government is canning all of this. They actually don't understand this, and I am amazed. There is so much intelligent thinking and action, and they're completely ignoring it.

"We have a thing called the Auckland Sustainability Framework already in place, part of a planning framework for Auckland called the One Plan, which is workable, contemporary, globally relevant and intelligent. I assume that someone has simply shot it.

"If you were to ask Aucklanders to itemise the changes, I would bet my house that hardly any would be able to do so. The Auckland Transition Agency says, 'Oh no, we're not setting policy' - but they've gone much further than setting policy. They are gib-stopping the walls on the new Auckland right now, way before the Mayor and Council have even been elected, far less sat down to develop the vision. Like a builder completing the house off his own bat before you've even hired the architect.

"Just now, the ATA put out two 'discussion documents' deciding the shape of the whole thing, putting everything into boxes. I would bet that no more than one in a hundred Aucklanders even knew about them. Of those who did, some managed to write and say, no, they don't want this terrifying structure. But if we look at what's happened over the past 12 months, I think we can assume that these proposals will simply be implemented. These are matters that should be decided by referendum and full consultation, and they are being decided by a group that we haven't elected, and who aren't even talking to us.

"As for the new Mayor - the so-called head of Auckland governance. Imagine you were appointed chair of a board, but your board had no power in the appointment of your CEO, nor the boards of subsidiaries, nor how the whole thing is structured. Would you take the job? You'd be laughed out of Rotary.

"How is it that the whole living environment and all the common assets for 1.4 million folks are suddenly under the absolute control of some bully who has temper tantrums? Do you even know anybody who voted for ACT?

"Public safeguards are getting dismantled like swatting flies. Our local government legislation was beautiful. It was based on high-level principles, and it's gone. The word 'sustainability' has disappeared from our language. The accountability of local government to enable the 'four well-beings' has disappeared. Even the basis for voting is now skewed.

"There is outright deception here. Some MP has said that London only has one council. Please! London has dozens of councils, fully empowered to make bylaws. In the UK suburb in which I used to live, the ratio of people to councillors is about 1:2200. Beneath them are about 40 parish councils with about 350 parish councillors. Here the ratio of people to any kind of councillor will be less than 1:8000. Why should I want this?

"And the deception about good old Council Controlled Organisation (CCOs) - trusty and friendly like dear old dogs. But they've changed the rules for CCOs.

"The legal protections have gone, and the council control has gone. And things don't get so beautifully packaged for sale through clerical error.

"Into these pretty new CCO boxes suddenly go our ports, transport and roading, the Waitakere Ranges, the War Memorial Museum, the local stadiums - our whole asset heritage.

"This process contravenes everything we know about good governance practice and good change-management practice. The ATA members know very well how to do both of these things and they are not doing it. They're behaving like lapdogs, and this worries the hell out of me.

"I think one sad thing is that among many intelligent and influential people in Auckland, opposing the abuse of power is seen as loony leftism. Even talking about the importance of society, culture or the environment is seen as loony leftism. This is a terrible state of affairs, because if people of influence don't stop this, then we have lost Auckland and our common wealth.

"We are like possums in the headlights. Some media people have been broadcasting the dangers of all this for at least a year. We can't keep up with the pace, but can Aucklanders really claim ignorance anymore? We are so innocent-minded - the servants are stealing the silver and we have no idea what
to do.

"Maybe we're all expecting some moral authority will come from somewhere and reprimand them. But, actually, we are the moral authority, we have to reprimand them, and I think this is what we are all missing."

We have never been listened to

In rural Ihumatao, near Auckland International Airport, Roger Gummer and his partner Delwyne Roberts tell me how they went to the Royal Commission and the Select Committee to sound their concerns. They are convinced no one took any notice.

"We were a box being ticked," says Mr Gummer. "Members of the select committee were getting up and going to the toilet halfway through our submission."

Mr Gummer, a 38-year-old high school technician, has taken a year off work to represent his community on far-reaching resource consent applications from the airport and Watercare. He'd rather be finishing renovations on his home, the former Takapuna Brass Band clubrooms the couple moved south.

"If we are to go forward, then we need to go forward with improvements," he intones. "When I was a teenager, I looked at the privatisation of the airport and it seemed right in principle. Twenty years later, it's all gone rotten. The idea was to make it efficient and cut out the dead wood. What we have now is high landing fees, high car parking charges - and they are making quite a profit.

"The airport company has a monopoly and it doesn't even have to run an airport. It's got Auckland and New Zealand by the balls. Is that the model that we want to roll out across the region? Amalgamation sounds good but the CCOs are being set up as separate organisations. It appears they won't even have to talk with each other.

"Out here we have examples of this with the airport and Watercare. They have their own interests. They don't even share each other's resources. Little guys like us are the meat in the sandwich."

We walk outside in the autumn sunshine and Mr Gummer sweeps an arm at the view of rundown houses and poorly maintained farmland.

"Does it look to you like the airport and Watercare have been good to the community?" he asks, rhetorically. "The best anyone from around here can hope for their kids is a job at The Warehouse.

"Is this what the rest of Auckland wants?"
 
We've never been asked whether we wanted this

John Murray is a grandfather of seven - "They're all marvellous," the former chartered accountant tells me. It's a brief moment of brevity in a grave conversation.

A cool southeasterly breeze is coming off the Hauraki Gulf and I shiver slightly on this open deck in Castor Bay. The wind disturbs a fig tree below and its drying leaves rasp together like sandpaper.

Mr Murray was secretary of his local residents and ratepayers association for almost 40 years before standing down last year. He was promptly re-conscripted by the association to help make submissions on the restructuring of the region.

Like Roger Gummer (left), he didn't enjoy the experience of talking to the Government's select committee, either. "When they weren't smiling at us, they were laughing," says the 84-year-old, with obvious disgust.

Mr Murray - a former Otago rugby rep - outlines his concerns methodically, patiently. The stripping of democracy with most services being handed to Government-appointed directors is a key one.

But he doesn't even believe the North Shore and Hibiscus Coast belong in a super-sized council with suburbs across the Waitemata Harbour.

"It's just a shambles," he summarises. "We've never been asked whether we wanted this."