Auckland Commission: presentation today

City of Auckland

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Overview

The Auckland region could benefit from a system of unitary metropolitan bodies and a de-centralised local government to maintain a balance of accountability.

Any change from the status quo should be ultimately put to a referendum in the areas affected by any change.

Iwi having mana whenua within the region must be able to assert a territorial jurisdiction as a discrete unit of local government having equivalent status as other autonomous sub-divisions (inter alia Community Boards) upon and over their own tribal lands at the very least. Maori representation on an ethnic basis alone (ie. the "Maori roll") can not adequately represent tangata whenua as they are in a minority position in the region.

To enable effective co-ordination of public transport and the expansion and upgrading of the urban rail system an Auckland Transit Commission should be established under it's own legislation and its own independent mandate to allow it to focus on its task without interference. Members of the commission should be accountable to the region by election.

Community Boards generally should be smaller than they are at present to enable better access to elected representatives and more informed decision-making on local issues. Boards should be given more responsibilities than they have at present. If all present councils (including the ARC) should merge to form a unitary council then the decentralisation and devolvement of responsibilities to Boards must occur.

Any unitary council should have no more than 33 members in order to stop the proliferation of commitees.
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Regional Map

Geographical demarcation:
The urban (and likely future urban area in 50-100 years) to form a unitary city/regional authority (Waiwera to Bombay, Maraetai to Waitakere) named City of Auckland.
The area of the Auckland Region to the north (the rump of Rodney District and possibly parts of Waitakere rural west) to change name to North Auckland District and hold referenda on whether to join Northland Region or become a unitary District/Regional authority.
The area of the Auckland Region to the South (the West of Franklin District and possibly Clevedon and Hunua part of Manukau City - following the Eastern catchment of the Manukau harbour) to change name to South Auckland District and hold referenda on whether to join Waikato Region or become a unitary District/Regional authority.
Aotea/Great Barrier Island to have referendum on whether to join North Auckland District or Thames-Coromandel District or Hauraki District.
Waiheke and inhabited inner Gulf Islands to have referendum on whether to join City of Auckland or Hauraki District.

Mandating process:
Referenda on the above scheme put to all voters in Auckland Region in postal vote in mid 2009 against the status quo.
If successful the City of Auckland in early 2010 would then have a referendum on three or four options on a preferential basis and the winning scheme would be implemented in time for the October 2010 triennial local body elections.

Timing of elections:
To get Aucklanders to think of their city as a whole, running the elections for the council in the year we have free at the moment - instead of the year of the normal local body elections (where the community boards would be elected only) - and not in a general election year (although general elections can change over time due to snap elections).
Eg:
General election: 2011
Mayor and councillors at large: 2012
community boards, district health boards, licensing trusts: 2013

The City of Auckland
The City of Auckland is the unitary local government authority for the Auckland urban area. It operates for the benefit of the people of Auckland and the communities which constitute the City. The relationship between the City council and the communities is quite different from the status quo and will need legislative changes to reflect their unique status in this new arrangement. The City is a collaboration between all of its citizens and each of the community boards, rather than community boards being wholly dependent creatures of the council. If communities are to keep the enlarged City apparatus accountable it is desirable to have them represented on council.

Mayor
The chair of the council needs a higher level of support than the current first-past-the-post plurality can give. Some form of STV or PV system needs to be implemented for the Mayoral election contest. That would give the outcome legitimacy and public credibility. Any voting system needs to be as simple as possible, while retaining public credibility and yielding results in line with the will of the people. London's first choice/second choice system seems a workable solution.

Councillors elected at-large:
Like London (which has 11 at large) we could elect some councillors at large for the whole of the City of Auckland rather than from wards as at present in order to have people focused on the big picture. The issue with having more than seven, will be that it will become a party political contest and everything that involves eg. national politics entering the stage and extremist parties may make it past the threshold (inter alia the success of the BNP at the recent London elections) - but this could bring them "inside the tent" and they would have to co-operate which could potentially mitigate their otherwise divisive tendencies. Once again a first-past-the-post plurality system would be simpler, but minority candidates would find it very difficult and the contest could be dominated by well-funded parties rather than grass-roots movements. Having a slightly complicated system that yields fair results is better than a simple system that yields unfair results.

Councillors elected by Ward:
The communities constitute the wards.
4 Wards: Tangata Whenua Ward, Waitemata Ward, Tamaki Ward, Manukau Ward.
The last three wards will be of approximately even population and the boundaries would be expected to correspond to near the portages on either side of the isthmus. These three wards to be allocated min.15-max.33 votes each - distributed around the communities within the ward on a population basis. Each community to have one vote minimum. These votes are the number of members they can return as Councillors - or members of the ward committee that then may appoint their allocation of Councillors. Councillors from communities could be on a rotating basis to ensure every community participates in the Council. The point is that there will be a direct link from the Council to the Communities - and perhaps each community. This new model would work best with responsiveness of the council to the many community boards and their expanded activities maximised through direct representation onto the council. The role of a ward committee may develop over time. There may be pressure from residents of the North Shore and Waitakere to constitute their own ward each rather than be lumped into a single Waitemata ward. This will have to be looked at, with a view to a 2-2-1 split among Waitakere, North Shore, and Whangaparoa/Orewa/Dairy Flat.

The Council:
1 x Mayor
9 x Councillors elected at large
5 x Councillors Waitemata Ward
5 x Councillors Tamaki Ward
5 x Councillors Manukau Ward
1 x Councilor Tangata Whenua Ward
26 TOTAL

Communities:
Any suburb(s) or district(s) over 10,000 population should have the right to form their own community board.
The communities must be able to decide their own Community rate - to be collected by the City on their behalf and put into their own account. Residential and commercial rating would have to be worked out so as not to give communities with large commercial areas windfall amounts, while leaving communities with little commercial areas disadvantaged. The appointment of a community manager that is paid for and reports directly and exclusively to the board would be a good way to ensure community services are run effectively and responsively; however that arrangement may sit uneasily with current models of local governance.

Mana Whenua/Tino Rangatiratanga
Hapu/iwi should be given the option of forming their own community boards on their own tribal land (ie. land in their rohe held in Maori title by their members) and that they could then form (since there are a few tribes in the Auckland area) their own ward if they wanted (rather than joining other wards) so they could then be represented through this ward at the council level. Possible rotating representatives from each community in turn could be a way of making sure each iwi is fairly represented without unduly increasing the numbers on council. The issue of defining the boundary of each rohe must be resolved through a process, but it is quite likely that they may overlap and that they may agree that it overlaps - this need not be a problem. Every member inside the rohe should be entitled to vote for their community board. Whether every non-member resident on tribal land should be entitled to vote is another question - perhaps left up to the community concerned to work out. It may be that there are more non-members living on tribal land than members, and so that risks changing the nature kaupapa/tikanga of the community should non-members not be integrated with the community and vote for representatives who do not uphold the kaupapa/tikanga. There is a possible remedy to this via the ratepayers roll, where if every member of the hapu/iwi can vote as land owners they could out-vote the non-members. The issues are complex, but the Commission should not shy away from making some form of acknowledgement of Tino Rangatiratanga for the Tangata Whenua. Perhaps viewing any initiative as a pilot scheme - rather than a template - for other local bodies and iwi would be the right way to think about this.

Thank you for your time. Are there any questions?