Moana Mackey has been looking at old Hansards in a post on Red Alert. The topic was the Local Government Act changes in 2002. It is a revealing look at the change of attitude by National MP’s on the process of consultation for local government changes.
A couple of examples:
Phil Heatley: I was disturbed to hear the Hon Chris Carter say that he was rushing this bill through Parliament and wanting a commencement date of July next year, because the councils wanted certainty. That member has forgotten that councils are there as servants of the people, and those people are the ratepayers. They are the ones who pay the bills, and the ones who will foot the bill for the consultation required because of this document. So the Hon Chris Carter might like to rush the bill through this Parliament to suit those regional and district councils and unitary authorities, but he should remember that it will be the ratepayers who pay the bill. To date, those ratepayers have not been given the chance to consider the 300 changes to the 600 clauses in this bill. That is what concerns me.
Well it obviously doesn’t concern him anymore. He won’t even tell Auckland ratepayers what it’s going to cost them and he’s certainly not going to give them the chance to consider this particular piece of legislation.
Then from Dr Mapp:
Dr Wayne Mapp: His third position is, as far as I can see it is: ‘Auckland is a mess. We’ll impose a solution, and basically it can go to hell, because the Government knows best.’
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
Ouch… I wonder what they would say if asked on their attitudes to the current super-city fiasco? Something like “..the Government has the numbers to defeat..” like Rodney Hide did.
At least the Labour-led coalition put those extensive changes through the proper democratic processes like select committees. From memory they didn’t need urgency to bulldoze their solution. But as we know NACT are less concerned about the democratic process than they are about winning.
BTW: The posts on Red Alert are pretty damn good – keep up the good work.
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