Women under-represented on CCO boards

Women are underrepresented in Government appointments to the boards of Auckland Council’s new council-controlled organisations (CCOs), the Green Party said today.

“Only eight of the 29 appointments announced this morning by Local Government Minister Rodney Hide are women,” Green Party Women’s Affairs Spokesperson Catherine Delahunty said.

“There is only one woman on the board of each CCO, except for Regional Facilities Auckland which has two.

“It looks very much like the Government has appointed one token female to each board, but beyond that has made little effort to identify strong female candidates.

“Women are more than half the population, but make up less than a third of the appointments announced today.

“The seven CCOs will have a huge amount of power and influence over the direction of the new Auckland Super City and the running of crucial infrastructure affecting day to day life for Aucklanders.

“Already these crucial functions have been removed from the democratically elected council representatives and placed in the hands of Government-appointed CCO boards. Now the boards themselves are decidedly unrepresentative of Auckland’s population.

“Not only are women underrepresented, but only four of the 29 appointments are identified as being of Maori descent in the Government press release.

“As far as I can tell, there are no representatives of Pacific peoples on any of the boards, and one board member of Asian descent.

“This is simply unacceptable when, according to the 2006 Census, 18 percent of the Auckland population are of Asian descent, 14 percent are Pacific peoples, and 11 percent are Maori.

“Auckland is a culturally diverse city, and the Super City reforms provided a real opportunity to ensure this diversity was taken into account and represented in local government and services.

“Today’s appointments are an opportunity lost in this regard.”