Auckland could end up a super tanker, not a super-city

Auckland’s proposed new super-city is likely to end up as a super tanker - a huge, remote monolith that is too big, too inflexible, and too distanced from the community to be effective, or to solve the myriad of challenges facing Aucklanders, Green Party Local Government spokesperson Sue Kedgley said today.

Ms Kedgley is presenting a submission to the Auckland Governance Legislation committee in Select Committee room 4 at Parliament today, at 11 am.

“International research shows that the further Councils are removed from their constituents, the less effective they become, and the less people feel connected to their local council,” Ms Kedgley said.

“A huge super city with 6000 employees and $28 billion in assets will be inaccessible to most Aucklanders and unable to represent the diverse communities of Auckland effectively.

“The reality is that local government works best when it is genuinely local, in touch with its local community, and is sufficiently flexible to be able to respond rapidly to changing conditions.

“That’s why it’s vital that local boards are given far greater powers to represent their communities, deliver local services and manage all community facilities in their area. They also need to be enshrined in law and given guaranteed funding.”

Ms Kedgley will make clear her opposition to the novel and unprecedented executive powers of the Mayor proposed in the bill, which do not exist anywhere else in New Zealand.

“There are no checks and balances on the unprecedented executive power of the Mayor. Under the bill, the Mayor would be able to control the Council, sideline Councillors who were not part of the team, and ram an agenda through it.

Ms Kedgley will call for all Councillors to be elected from multi-member wards –with at least two Councillors per ward—using the Single Transferable Vote, or STV system. She also supports at least three Maori seats on the Auckland Council.

“The legislation must be amended to ensure that strategic public assets which have been built up by the community over generations could not be sold off without a referendum,” Ms Kedgley said.