Aucklanders get shafted by National’s new boundaries

You have to hand it to National, after annexing the entire city via a misuse of urgency, after killing off Maori representation, after hand appointing Rodney Hide’s mates to run the transition team, National now get a dream run by setting the boundaries to favour their white rich provincial voting base.

As Labour’s Auckland Issues spokesperson Phil Twyford points out…

“For example, the changes would give Rodney residents a third more voting power than a central Auckland resident, which is clearly unjust. And a vote in Waitakere is worth almost 3/4 of one Hibiscus-Albany-East Coast Bays vote.

“Labour will strongly oppose the current structure and is urging all Aucklanders to make submissions in favour of fairer ward boundaries.

“I’m also concerned the proposal for eight two-councillor wards will further disenfranchise some voters, especially in particularly diverse communities.

“In the Orakei/Maungakiekie ward there are extremely wealthy communities and others with entrenched poverty. Labour’s concern is that the voices of the more vulnerable might be shut out of local democracy as a result – and that smaller single-councillor wards would help counter this,” Phil Twyford says.

“The Government’s decision to restrict the number of councillors to 20 for a population of 1.4 million does, of course, lie at the heart of all these representation problems,

How is that change feeling Auckland? Rodney gets a third more voting power than central city Aucklanders? WTF?

You’ve been had Auckland.