Ward Populations
Several on the left has expressed outrage that the Local Government Commission boundaries for the new Auckland Council has the two rural areas with a smaller population per Councillor, than the urban areas.
They blame this on Rodney Hide and the Government. But in fact what has happened is very common, as I will show.
As Parliament is the supreme legislative boday, the law is inflexible and all electorates must be within 5% of the average population or quota. That means boundaries often will cut through existing suburbs or communities of interest, to fit the 5% tolerance.
The law has always allowed more flexibility for local bodies, in recognition they are not actually always contested by party tickets (in fact few are), and that if you want to have rural areas with a dedicated Councillor, sometimes you have to exceed the 10% tolerance target. The Local Government Commission has this power, and has always had it – this is not new.
Here’s some examples.
- The 2010 Christchurch City Council wards have an average population per Councillor of 26,803 but rural Banks Peninsula has only 8,166 while Riccarton-Wigram has 29,310
- The 2007 Auckland City Council wards have an average population per Councillor of 22,390 but Hauraki Gulf Islands have 9,470 and Hobson 24,367. Were the Greens complaining that Waiheke had three times the voting power of Hobson No.
- The 2007 Auckland Regional Council wards range from 85,300 for Papakura-Franklin to 110,967 for Manukau – so even existing ARC boundaies have Papakura-Franklin with 25% more Councillors per population than Manukau.
Here is what the LGC said in setting the 2007 boundaries:
compliance with statutory requirements would require including at least 7,500 and 5,000 more people in the current Papakura-Franklin and Rodney Constituencies respectively, and this would expand the already large geographic areas the representatives for these constituencies have to cover, requiring longer travel times and restraining their ability to provide effective representation to these communities.
The LGC waives the 10% target, when they think it may leave rural areas without effective representation. Take for example Banks Peninsula – if that ward was expanded to include some of urban Christchurch, then the BP community would be a minority in their own ward and be without “effective representation”
Now you can agree or disagree with the LGC, but the point I am making is that this is nothing new.It is not some gerrymander designed just for the Auckland Council. It is in fact pretty much the status quo. In fact going from 13 to 20 Councillors in the Auckland Region has provided more flexibility.
November 24th, 2009 at 6:43 am
Socialist losers boo hooing about boundaries for the new Auckland Council.
Too bad for them, that’s what happens when you lose. Another life lesson served up grand.
November 24th, 2009 at 7:10 am
Pray tell me, am I missing posts from this blog or what? DPF, always ready for sharp analysis, has completely overlooked the real news lately?
[DPF: Okay that is 30 demerits for thread jacking in three separate threads. I have no effing idea what you are even referring to incidentially but regardless if you think there is a topic of interest you e-mail me a link, or post it in general debate not threadjack]
November 24th, 2009 at 7:28 am
dimmocrazy – Give the guy a break. he is on one almighty Tiki tour – with his own money. I think he has done remarkably well keeping up things from afar, especially with erratic standards of internet access and pricing in some cases that would make Telecom look an excellent and cheap provider.
November 24th, 2009 at 7:48 am
I thunk the CBD ward should half the size and so should the rural ones. They pay the bills. I would go further and make the wards roughly equal size in terms of rates paid.
November 24th, 2009 at 7:56 am
Once again the use of facts rather than emotion. Sad really, how DPF never joins in the rush to consensus, but tries to understand the data in context before commenting. So inappropriate for a political commentator.
November 24th, 2009 at 8:31 am
Why be surprised, DPF?
They never let commonsense get in the way of bullshit after all.
November 24th, 2009 at 11:02 am
They will have my sympathy when they bitch about the far lower number of people contained in the Maori seats
November 24th, 2009 at 11:03 am
The thing they haven’t realised is that (assuming the lunatic town planners abandon “smart growth” and allow the urban boundaries to expand) it is the rural wards that will see massive population growth in the next 5 years or so. Setting the boundaries as they are now, provides some future-proofing, does it not?
November 24th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
Really when there are SEVEN wards outside the 10% variation something is seriously astray. ( 12 wards in total)
Comparing to other councils when you have say one councillor out of 20 who is over represented is nonsense.
If this was the same in Auckland it would have been a minor issue
It would have been so easy to go to 24 or 25 councillors and problem solved
THis is the biggest gerrymander ever .
The only advantage is that it will keep Bhatman out the CBD based ward being such a high population
November 25th, 2009 at 7:49 am
@emmess: What Maori seats? Despite the Royal Commission’s recommendation, there aren’t any.
@Countess: Agreed. A good response from Ari over at g.blog.