Parliamentary Debates (Hansard) - New Zealand Parliament

3690 Local Government (Auckland Reorganisation) Bill 16 May 2009
government will be required to shed its commercial activity … Roads and piped water
will be supplied on a fully commercial basis.”, etc. I would like to table that policy so
everyone can be quite clear as to why we have the suspicion that the ACT agenda is to
privatise the $28 billion of assets in Auckland. People can read it for themselves.
The other thing I take issue with is some of Gerry Brownlee’s comments. He said
that nothing in this bill can override any other bill. In fact, the reason we are here today
is that the bill overrides the provisions of the Local Government Act 2002 that stipulate
that there should be a formal consultation and a poll of electors in any part of New
Zealand where a reorganisation takes place. This bill has overridden the right of
Aucklanders to have a poll in order to make a decision about whether they want to see
their eight councils obliterated and whether they want this new, highly centralised
Auckland Council to be foisted upon them. This bill overrides the other bills. I do not
know why Mr Gerry Brownlee suggested that it could not override other bills, because
it does.
Then he asked why we would assume that this bill would take away the right to
parental leave of the women who are part of the 6,300 employees in the existing
councils. Well, why would we not assume that the rights were going to be taken away,
when the bill takes away virtually everything else in Auckland governance? The bill
takes away the rights of eight existing local councils to be sovereign and to implement
the wishes of their electors. It effectively ties the local councils’ hands behind their
backs, and they will have to go cap in hand every time they want to spend more than
about $5,000. So why would we not assume that this bill seeks to override the rights of
women employees to have paid parental leave?
It is incredible that we are debating the issue of paid parental leave. I have actually
been doing some research, in between coming to the Chamber, on women’s liberation.
Paid parental leave was one of the things that women were calling for in 1970. Here we
are in 2009 and the National Government is seeking to take away paid parental leave. It
is truly alarming, which is why this amendment is so critical. If the Government is not
trying to take away the rights of women to paid parental leave in the transition, why
would it not allow this amendment for the avoidance of doubt?
The other thing that I would like to table today is a definition of “blitzkrieg”. That is
what is being done here. One of the fundamental tactics of Rogernomics is speed—do
not give people a minute to breathe, just keep moving, and give them no time for
reflection. Blitzkrieg was developed in Nazi Germany. Major General Fuller defined
blitzkrieg as “Speed, and still more speed, and always speed was the secret … and that
demanded audacity, more audacity and always audacity.”
TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): I move, That the question be now
put.
CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour): This is a very important matter and I find it very
troubling that Mr Brownlee thinks that this is silly or trivial. We are not being silly or
trivial.
Hon Tau Henare: He said you’re silly and trivial.
Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I apologise to my
colleague. Mr Brownlee certainly did not say that you were silly or trivial, as Tau
Henare has accused him of doing. If we are going to have those interjections, I think
that he has to get them right.
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I thank the member for that. Members
should make sure they are relevant when they are interjecting.
CAROL BEAUMONT: This matter is not silly or trivial.
I want to support the amendment that my colleague Steve Chadwick has put up. This
bill affects assets of $28 billion, but, more important, it affects the working conditions