in such a state the politics is all yours.. bye-eeeee!

I’ve not seen anyone argue that the supercity concept is a bad one. The argument is about what form it should take, and the process for deciding that. Join in whenever you like.

For now, I think we should perhaps work on our prospective select committee submissions. We should point out what we like about the proposal, what we don’t like, make an excellent submission and presentation at a select committee hearing, and see what comes out of it. Then, if these glaring issues are not fixed up we can really yell and scream about a referendum.

One must remember that under the Royal Commission proposal an even smaller percentage of council seats were going to be elected by the ward system. Maybe the government in their haste thought they’d find a middle ground between what they thought Aucklanders wanted (more ward based councillors) and what the Royal Commissin had suggested (more at large councillors). As, over time, it has become fairly obvious the public wants to shift away even further from at large councillors… the government might feel they have the scope to shift even further away from the recommendations of the Royal Commission on this issue.

the seen from the inside definition ‚ yes the very thing Labor people would no longer wish for themselves.. which puts you correct — for the wrong reason entirely.

So.. if you’ve gotten the balls for it go seek thine education..

if it aint plain it is neither common nor sense..

in the immortal plain word of G.W. Bush — “See!”

So wait until the 2013 elections.
Or have an interim council consisting of all the councillors from the old local bodies, electing a leader from their number.
Or vote at the 2010 elections for new and old councillors and mayors, with the new ones to take their seats if the new structure is approved by the people.

Lack of time isn’t a reason to abandon democracy.

The problem is that Rodney Hide & John Key haven’t said that they will pass their proposal(s) past the citizens of Auckland. What they are planning on doing as far as I can see is to simply impose it on Aucklanders from Wellington after some window dressing select committee work. There will be no effective consultation because they abrogated the work of the Royal Commission with Rodney’s proposal.

In which case the implementation will be extremely difficult, because if I know my fellow Aucklanders, they will resist it including at the polls for both local body and general elections.

That means that effectively the government to date hasn’t done any consultation apart from Rodney telling the mayors that he may listen to them. Sure there will be some select committee work. However the short time scale means that the select committee process will be abbreviated if they want to use this structure for the 2010 local body elections. It is a very similar position to the short consultation periods periods that the EFB had, and will have much the same kind of effect – legislation that has significant flaws, is not widely accepted enough, and has loud vocal and effective opposition.

Just on the proposal it is easy to pick holes in the structure that have (maybe) unintended side-effects. Moreover they are structural flaws that cannot be removed easily without destroying the intent. The powerlessness of the local boards is a good example. The excessively large ward districts for councillers, and the even large party level campaigns of the at-large elections will require a complete re-jigging of the funding restrictions of the local body campaigns. etc….

Moreover unlike the MMP, there isn’t intended to be a referendum.

It then drafts a bill, Parliament debates it. It goes to select committee where people have their say. The select committee makes changes. It goes back to the House, they make further changes in the committee of the whole. A final, fully-fleshed-out proposal now exists in legislative form. It passes its final reading.

And it comes into force if the people of Auckland approve it in a postal ballot six months later.

Which has a fundamental problem – the timing. We are what? 16 months from the local body election. Less about 3 months for the actual organization of the election. There simply isn’t time for Rodney’s rushed schedule if there is a proper job done.

Understand, I’m all in favour of a super-city. I’m just not in favour of this proposal. So if it came to a ballot I’d organise against it. If they do it without a ballot, then I’d work against it – for instance by helping organise petitions to split wards under the Local Government Act until they are at an acceptable size. Or by getting it to be Labour policy to repeal the legislation so we can go back for another try to get it right.

It’s all Aucklanders’ city

What is? Or should I say ‘which is’ ?

Let’s have a written constitution that supersedes the Treaty and embeds, or eliminates for ever, these ‘rights’ that the left like to raise all the time. Then we will know what governments can and cannot do. I for one would favour restriction of total taxation year on year to inflation without a referendum!