Labour opposes boundaries
Auckland Mayor John Banks says the city’s new local government structure is “an inspired piece of work” while the Labour Party is committed to opposing it and the boundaries that go with it.
Mr Banks, who is going to stand for mayor of the new super city, said the proposition was coming together well and people would not lose their representation.
Manukau Mayor Len Brown, who is going to stand against Mr Banks, said he was pleased the commission had taken account of concerns about Auckland’s assets.
So Banks and Brown both say they are good boundaries, but why is Phil Twyford complaining:
“The proposed boundaries favour rural and the conservative northern and southern areas of Auckland while disadvantaging the isthmus and West Auckland,” he said.
“For example, the changes would give Rodney residents a third more voting power than a central Auckland resident, which is clearly unjust.”
The irony is that the Government actually planned to leave much of Rodney outside the boundaries, despite the fact it would mean more “conservative” voters. Rodney only had it all go back in after an outcry from locals.
But it is interesting that Twyford’s real concern are that Labour may not be able to gain control of the new Council.
Interesting the Chairwoman of the Local Government Commissioner has an active Labour Party backgrounds. Sue Piper was a Labour Wellington City Councillor. It is good to see she has done a professional job, rather than help Mr Twyford with his aim to have Labour control the Council.
November 21st, 2009 at 7:08 am
Sue Piper is a very professional person.
When I first me her I thought this would be a typical Labour party lacky. Not so. She obviously listens and makes decisions in relation to coimmunity needs.
Well done Ms Piper.
November 21st, 2009 at 7:54 am
Heil – Agreed, Some years back she and two other Labour councillors got into hot water for refusing to toe the party line. They just told the local Party committee where to stick it. That was that because they owed their Council positions more to a broad spectrum of local voters than core Labour voters.
November 21st, 2009 at 8:08 am
I should add that I have high regard for Sue Piper also, and never expected that she would do anything but a professional job.
November 21st, 2009 at 8:15 am
“For example, the changes would give Rodney residents a third more voting power than a central Auckland resident, which is clearly unjust.”
By what stretch of logic do you get from that quote to this piece of exquisite cynicism?
“It is interesting that Twyford’s real concern are that Labour may not be able to gain control of the new Council.”
November 21st, 2009 at 9:35 am
Try the previous paragraph when he talks about favouring the conservative areas.
November 21st, 2009 at 9:43 am
Franklin is kicking up a big stink about this. They want to be independent.
As it stands, the boundary is ridiculous – cutting the racetrack in Pukekohe in half etc and lots of other weird things.
November 21st, 2009 at 9:57 am
Labour oppose it because there was nothing in the Auckland Bill(s) about scarf weaving or Thai Cooking classes funded by the ratepayer.
I shouldn’t write in jest. Phil Tryhard has his priorities spot on really – he is concentrating on passing a law to ban depleted uranium:
http://blog.labour.org.nz/index.php/2009/11/18/i-can-smell-the-depleted-uranium-on-your-breath/
Why? Because apparently we could be a world leader on nuclear waste.
Poor priorities and totally out of touch.
November 21st, 2009 at 11:00 am
Twyford just wants to line his own back pockets by pretending to peddle influence. The way he does this is by screaming loudly from the rooftops about anything and everything just to oppose and try and gain some public awareness/traction. Phil T thinks that the word “constructive” is only applied to erecting new buildings and homes rather than getting on with the job that taxpayers pay him for and doing something positive.
He’s also a whining git.
November 21st, 2009 at 3:06 pm
There are some very large deviations in population per councillor. See: http://transportblog.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/wards.jpg
Rodney, Albany-Hibiscus, Howick-Pakuranga and Franklin residents do in fact get far more say per person than residents of Central and West Auckland, and more so than those of Manukau.
The election of these councillors under FPP is going to further increase the disproportionality of the council.
November 21st, 2009 at 3:10 pm
Oh, and the Royal Commission instructed that disproportionality be limited to within 10%. What we have here is 7 of 12 wards being more than 10% disproportionate, two of them being 24% so.
November 21st, 2009 at 4:03 pm
This is a typical problem when you are trying to combine densely populated urban areas with far flung rural populations. if you are trying to create communities of interest the rural areas are always grossly underpopulated. You can’t have separate rural and urban areas unless you a) Gerrymander the distribution (as they have done) or b)Have more and smaller divisions (which the LGC were given no flexibility to do). So in a sense the LGC has been hamstring by some not so good decisions.
In the end I suspect nobody will be happy. The rural people will still feel grossly under-represented and have no autonomy (especially compared with other rural districts in NZ) and the urban people will feel bitter than their votes will be under-valued and that the system is undemocratic.
Personally I see no reason to have rural areas in an urban regional government, and obviously the cabinet initially agreed with respect to northern Rodney, but later caved in.
November 21st, 2009 at 5:41 pm
The only reason the Rodney folk resisted the original plan was that the select committee recommended North Rodney become part of Kaipara District Council – the only time when the mouse has been instructed to swallow the python.
One has to wonder why the Hauraki islands are part of the Super City. The Chathams run their own affairs.
The reality is that distance is more important than population in rural areas. If North Rodney had been merged with kaipara people in Puhoi would have been closer in driving time to Huntly than to Dargaville.
IF you are more than 45 minutes from the town hall would you stand for Mayor? If you would it means your time has no value.
The French have a Mayor for every 350 people for precisely this reason. France outside of Paris is mainly a collection of villages.
New Zealand has more people per councillor than any other country I know of.
Rodney’s representation is a joke.