Dispatches from the Mirror Universe: Herald vows to fight super-council
Today, The Herald relaunched it’s ‘Democracy under attack’ campaign with a front page editorial. The editorial is damning of National/ACT’s plan for an Auckland super-council. Here are the main points:
- “everyone, regardless of their political hue must oppose the removal of representation without consent”
- “the precedent is that when a merging of councils is proposed there should be a referendum for the people to decide”
- “Key and Hide can not claim that the Royal Commission report constitutes the people having their say. Especially when the plan they have unveiled bears no real resemblance to the Royal Commission’s proposal”
- “the local boards will be useless. They have no powers and appear to have been created merely to give the appearance of democracy”
- “There is a reason why National and ACT have proposed this scheme and Left-wing groups have opposed it. The design of the super-city will clearly favour Right-wing candidates by excluding the voices of the many”
- “The super-mayor and super-council will, in all probability, be white, rich, business owners, and male. Others will find it impossible to be viable candidates. That’s not democracy as we understand it in modern New Zealand.”
- “This is not about politics, this is about democracy. The Herald will oppose the creation of an undemocratic super-city without consent every step of the way”
Back in the real world, The Herald showed it’s hysteria last year was not really about democracy at all, it was about getting National into power.