Not welcome

Written By: - Date published: 2:50 pm, December 20th, 2009 - 6 comments
Categories: auckland supercity - Tags:

A Papakura local has sent us this story of the would-be Emperor of Auckland’s foray into Papakura.

Wannabe Super City Mayor Goofs up in Papakura, and is told to hoof it.
John Banks visited Papakura last week, to meet with Callum Penrose Mayor of Papakura. Penrose has been heading an effective rearguard campaign against the Super City, and has recently called for Papakura to secede from the union.

However for reasons unclear this meeting between Banks and Penrose didn’t go ahead. Either Banks was late, or Penrose refused to meet him, or a mixture of both.

So John Banks preceded to his next Papakura engagement, a meeting with the Papakura police at the local police station. However, this meeting also didn’t go ahead, because John Banks was late.

Having time to kill John Banks decided to take a stroll down the main street of Papakura. On reaching Selwyn Arcade, John puts his head into the little kiosk at the entrance to the arcade that sells bus tickets and newspapers. Our valiant, budding Super Hero is recognised by the female attendant, who asks him what he is doing in Papakura?

After receiving a non-committal answer, the Kiosk proprietor then asks John, “Where are you parked?”

John replies, “Why do you ask?”

“Because I want you to return there pronto and get out of our town.” she said.

Banks nil / Papakura 1.

I reckon that this is a little hint of the difficulty Banks will find in campaigning outside of central Auckland. He is the agent of the people who forced the unwanted supercity on the rest of Auckland and the neighbouring region. When he goes to Papakura or Rodney, or even Manukau and Waitakere, he is inevitability seen as an imperialist seeking to extend his empire. People know that he would still govern for the same narrow CBD business interests and the needs of the people on the periphery of his empire would be ignored.

The opening for Len Brown, to further extend his lead over Banks, is to be the champion of local demcracy. He needs to promise that as supermayor he would devolve more power to the lcoall boards and give local communities a real say in how they run themselves.

6 comments on “Not welcome ”

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  1. wtl 1
    20 December 2009 at 4:58 pm

    In related news, are there any posts planned on the new “Local Government (Auckland Law Reform) Bill” unveiled just before parliament went into recess? (http://www.legislation.govt.nz/bill/government/2009/0112/latest/whole.html#dlm2635057). This is the third and final of the bills that will define the new supercity, and seems to be timed to take advantage of the summer holidays so (submissions close on Feb 12). It has some pretty serious stuff, such as Rodney Hide getting to decide on the shape of the new CCOs and their directors, disallowing any reorganisations in the region till 2013 (i.e. Rodney district can’t secede from the Supercity even if a majority votes for it), and forcing elections to be FPP. The greens already have a submission guide.

  2. Zaphod Beeblebrox 2
    21 December 2009 at 9:15 am

    Expect more of the same next year and into 2011. The existing councils are bleeding staff and basically shutting up shop- which is showing up in the Auckland economy.

    The rural areas as well as places like Waitakere and Albany are very dependent upon local government to facilitate and promote development as they set the rules and I expect there to be a lot of conflict between the CCO’s and the new Local Boards- with the new Auckland Council in the middle after October next year.

    ACT will be gone from the government after 2011 but its hard to be believe that National won’t suffer politically. There are going to be a lot of easy targets for Labour and the Greens by then.

    • Rich 2.1
      21 December 2009 at 4:43 pm

      You can’t get rid of ACT. When they get defeated they just switch to National (e.g. Stephen Franks). What party is Banks these days? ACT? National? Who can tell?

      • Zaphod Beeblebrox 2.1.1
        21 December 2009 at 5:24 pm

        Fair point, though I feel they are becoming a bit of a joke politically- witness the response to the Brash Commission.

        This little brief period where Rodney runs rampant through Auckland will be their last hoorah- too bad for us Aucklanders though. Getting his Wellington run CCO’s created to run our city would make Machiavelli proud.

        We have a Royal Commission to find a way to unify our city against the influence of a whole heap of white haired bureaucrats in Wellington and end up losing it all.

  3. Rich 3
    21 December 2009 at 4:41 pm

    Ironically, the only reason the rural fringes are in the supercity is to provide a pool of docile Tory voters.

  4. Jum 4
    22 December 2009 at 7:14 pm

    I got all excited when I spotted the paragraph starting:

    ‘Having time to kill John Banks’.

    Speaking of embarrassing moments, apparently Paul Hutchison was verbally removed from a calf club day in the Franklin area, a month or two back. Seems the locals don’t like the poor work he’s done on behalf of Franklin people seceding from the ‘union’.

    If Banks came to Franklin which is as blue as they dye them, he would be set upon too. Folks hate ‘im.

    If Len Brown wants to help his profile, he should be looking at helping Franklin, and Papakura, to make their own decision by vote/referendum as to whether they want to accept a place in the so called super city.