Parliamentary Debates (Hansard) - New Zealand Parliament

3642 Local Government (Auckland Reorganisation) Bill 16 May 2009
recommend that the Government reinstates the three directly elected Māori seats
proposed by the royal commission.” That would be excellent.
Clause 101(2)(f) requires “recognition of the aims and aspirations and employment
requirements, and the cultural differences, of ethnic or minority groups;”. As is well
known, quite big meetings have been held in places like South Auckland, and there has
been very strong Pacific Island participation in those meetings. Those people are
worried about the loss of the identity of Manukau City, and about how account will be
taken of the interests of Pacific people, who are concentrated in that city. But if the
transition agency really takes on board the provision in clause 102(2)(f), then perhaps it
would say to the Government: “Well, hold on. The structure you have put in place,
which strips out local representation and knocks out sub-regional representation like
that for Manukau City, really affects the rights of different ethnic groups, particularly in
the case of South Auckland, Manukau City, and Pacific Island people.” Again, perhaps
the agency would make urgent representations to the Government to make alterations to
the legislation, at the last minute. That would, at least, improve the possibilities of subregional
identity and the interests of the Pacific Island people being taken into account.
The same applies to other non-European groups in our society who feel shut out by this
big structure, where rich white people will tend to get the positions. There will not be—
Jacinda Ardern: Rich white men.
KEITH LOCKE: Rich white men; I apologise.
There is also a provision in clause 101(2)(g) to recognise the employment
requirements of women. Again, as has been rightly pointed out, that may educate the
transition authority to recommend to the Government urgent changes to the structure, so
that women are not disadvantaged in the way that they will be under this legislation and
the companion Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill that will go through
Parliament.
Clause 104, “Appointments on merit”, is quite important, because we know that the
appointments to the transition agency are to be made directly by the Minister of Local
Government, without any reference to a Cabinet process. We know that will be hard to
achieve, so having that provision might at least make his Cabinet colleagues and others
say “Hold on, there should be a merit procedure.”
Clause 105, “Acting appointments”, could be very relevant, because it deals with
resignations from the transition agency. I would expect there might be quite a few
resignations, even though the agency is supposed to go for only a short time. After a
few weeks in the job, a new appointee might say: “I’m in a horrible position here,
operating like a dictator, intervening in agenda items of local bodies all across the place.
The body I’m helping to set up here isn’t going to work.” There might be a lot of
resignations, so this provision could be very pertinent.
Clause 108(3)(a) provides for the maintenance of service delivery levels. That could
be important too, because there would be a tendency for the new—
KELVIN DAVIS (Labour): I am happy to take a call to support clause 101 in new
Part 10, which is in the name of Carol Beaumont. There are three points that I would
like to make in this debate. Firstly, I will talk about the Auckland Council and the
Auckland Transition Agency being good employers. My second point will be about the
aims and aspirations of Māori. My third point will come back to the fact that this is all
about democracy and transparency.
In respect of the Auckland Council being a good employer, I point out that it is really
about caring for and protecting the rights of workers. When I was a school principal we
had a framework saying that any employer or teacher who was dictatorial and lacked
support would breed a resentful child. This is what I see in the legislation that is being