Hard News: Auckland: where only one man votes
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as much as portions of the country just love the idea of Auckland getting thoroughly fucked by "the man",
Which portions are they? This Wellingtonian is absolutely concerned on your behalf, as is his Hamiltonian father when they talked last.
Various communities, particularly in the South Island, consider Auckland to be nothing more than a giant leech on New Zealand. Assuming your father associates with some of the farming community from the Waikato, it's very unlikely that you're more than three degrees of remove away from people who think that Auckland's getting its justified comeuppance.
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Pop quiz: what % of total supercity budget spend will be controlled by the new unelected Transport agency?
Did you get to vote for anyone on the board of ARTA, Sacha? Don't let the outrage get swamped by the truthiness there...
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Nice sidestep - answer is 54% by the way.
ARTA is currently legally bound to follow the strategic direction that ARC's elected members decree. The lastest supercity Bill removes that obligation for the new Transport CCO. It is proposed that they will have no meaningful local democratic accountability and their meetings and decisions will be conducted in private.
Even those regarded as of the right are not amused. It barks.
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Cheer up everyone! At least dog control will be the responsibility of democratically elected bodies.
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Sacha, it's not a side-step at all. We were talking about electing representatives, not about control of council mechanisms.
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Matthew, it's a sidestep when the passage quoted talks about % of spend and the response talks about voting for the current body.
Was I unclear that the elected representatives will have less control of the proposed new arrangements than they do now?
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Sacha, you were the one who changed the topic, not Craig.
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Eh? I responded to Craig's comment that "at least Aucklanders will still get to vote for their regional representatives at the end of the year" - compared with Chch if commissioners are appointed.
It seems entirely relevant - if not widely known - that over half of the Auckland region's total spend will be controlled by appointed not elected representatives. Rodney Hide and Steven Joyce get to decide who they are, not Auckland voters.
And no, that's not the same situation as we have now.
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ARC's CEO talking to the select committee today:
Auckland Transport will be preparing the Regional Land Transport Programme, and Auckland Council will be providing over 50% of its rates revenue for the implementation of that programme. However, the Council won’t even have decision rights on what is included in the Regional Land Transport Programme, because according to the Bill it will only be consulted if affected. The Bill also proposes that the Regional Land Transport Programme would not be required to give effect to the Regional Land Transport Strategy.
Our submission has provided a comparison of the accountability arrangements for Auckland Transport with those for crown agents. We note that the Government has significantly more control over NZTA than the Auckland Council will have over Auckland Transport, yet Auckland Transport will be around 70% of the size of NZTA. What is worrying is that the Auckland Council will have less control over Auckland Transport than the Government has over even very small crown agents such as the New Zealand Tourism Board or the Health Research Council of New Zealand.
The Government would not tolerate such weak accountability for its own crown agents, so why should the Auckland Council tolerate them? Especially for an agency that it will be expected to hand over more than half of its revenue to every year.
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Ooh, and a nugget from the same speech revealing possible motivation for just one of the underhand dealings - this time by ARC Chairman Mike Lee:
The ARC is opposed to the provision in the Bill that repeals section 77 of the Local Government Amendment Act 1992, which required the ARC to continue to hold the Auckland Centennial Memorial Park, which is part of the Waitakere Ranges.
I know that Ministers have stated that this was a mere technical amendment that was made erroneously, but I find it interesting that this emerged at the same time that I received a letter from the Minister of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations stating that he was looking to use the Centennial Memorial Park in Waitakere Ranges in Auckland Treaty settlements.
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Eh? I responded to Craig's comment that "at least Aucklanders will still get to vote for their regional representatives at the end of the year" - compared with Chch if commissioners are appointed.
It was my comment, not Craig's, and your response was totally irrelevant. Whether or not CCOs will command most of Megatropolis' assets has zero bearing on the election, or not, of regional representatives at the end of the year. And the CCOs still have to work to the strategic plan set by those elected representatives, whereas an appointed commission to run ECan is likely to be given free reign to ignore anything it desires, given the current form of Rodders et al.
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And speaking of the Megatropolis transport agency, we have this pearl:
On Friday, Mr Joyce said Auckland Transport was being modelled on the Transport Agency - the Government's transport operating arm which is run by a board.
Like everything, he said, that agency had its strengths and weaknesses, "but I think it's got the right balance between political oversight and operational governance".
There's the small matter of the Minister of Transport appointing all the directors of NZTA, whereas the Super Mayor gets to appoint two of seven. The NZTA is also required to keep the Minister appraised of its activities, whereas the CCOs can operate in an information vacuum.
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Then this
Protests have begun on Gladstone Rd in Parnell now.Outside the Quality Inn which if my memory serves, is opposite the Rose Gardens. Not sure why it's there. Perhaps that is where the meetings are being held?? -
And the CCOs still have to work to the strategic plan set by those elected representatives
Bollocks, unfortunately - please follow what's been going on a bit more closely before you so blithely dismiss what I'm saying here.
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Sacha, looks like the situation has changed from what I read last week. I would say I wish Rodney would make up his mind, but that's asking a bit too much. So you're right that the CCOs may or may not (looks like it depends somewhat on which CCO is under discussion) have to follow the strategic plan, but that still doesn't make it in the least be relevant in relation to the election of Megatropolis councillors vis an appointed board to run ECan.
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And to complicate matters, I caught a bit of local government academic Peter McKinlay on RNZ this morning (streaming 28mins, MP3 9.4MB) arguing that the Statement of Intent process in the legislation does have enough leverage for the new Council to control what its CCOs do.
Pretty much everyone else involved has been disagreeing with his take on it, so I'm not sure what to think. There may have been some further response during the day.
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So finally we get a bit of attention from the media.
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Funny how the Harold waited until after the select committee hearings to finally get on board.
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Funny how the Harold waited until after the select committee hearings to finally get on board.
They probably didn't want to influence the process.
Ehehehahahahah I'm so funny.
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Sacha, that's not exactly fair. Granny's been happily publishing criticism of the Megatropolis concept and process right from the beginning, and if you look back to December it appears that just how unaccountable the CCOs have ended up being has turned out to be rather unexpected. ATA has outdone itself in failing to do what the unwashed masses thought it ought.
In the middle of February we started getting articles, not just opinion pieces, about how the CCOs will lock Aucklanders out of a say on the operation of much of the city's asset base. -
Finlay McDonald joins the dots between road safety and public transport.
If traffic policy is about harm minimisation, then surely the obvious priority is putting fewer drivers and pedestrians in harm's way. And the simplest way to do that is to take as many vehicles, drivers and passengers as possible off the roads. And you do that by improving public transport.
Instead, we spend an inordinate amount of time and cash researching and improving ways to make cars safer, modify driver behaviour and crash-proof roads.
And Dyan, you'd like this bit:
There is now mounting international evidence that communities blessed with decent public transport systems are also the least obese. It stands to reason – just walking to and from train or bus stations to school and work is more exercise than your average car commuter gets.
In Auckland, the fat congeals in parts of town almost abandoned by public transport planners. Indeed, if advocates of better urban planning wanted to gain more traction they could join forces with the health lobby to make their case: a fitter population by design.
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Matthew, the tone has shifted recently - and submissions had closed before articles like the February one you link to made their way into print.
None of the implications are that surprising if you actually questioned smug pronouncements from those in power - but then our journos and their bosses seem to be a little out of practice at that.
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Matthew, the tone has shifted recently
Yes, it has, and I don't mind that the Herald has used a more restrained tone until recently.
But there's something quite extraordinary going on in the background of this story, and that's that a lot of people involved in the process are starting to talk about how troubled they are by what they're seeing.
This is not a story that will lack for sources.
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a lot of people involved in the process are starting to talk about how troubled they are by what they're seeing
I believe that's been true for some time - what's changed seems to be people are hearing it now.
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Thoughtful profile and interview with Mark Ford by Chris Barton (if only we could clone good journalists and editors who support them).
Suggest to him people are worried the CCOs won't talk to one another and he says: "You're being provocative. I'm not sure people are worried." He disagrees, too, that the CCOs will have no reason or incentive to engage with local boards.
"If I was a CCO chief executive, why wouldn't they? [The local boards] are my customers, my stakeholders. I can't see why I would want a silo because the risks are enormous if you don't co-operate."
Purely from a commercial point of view, Ford says there are lost of reasons why CCOs will talk to one another. "Why wouldn't I try and put a pipeline down a road about to be resealed as opposed to paying for reinstatement of that - it has huge commercial consequences."
Ford sees his job as making the legislation work as it stands. If there are concerns that the Auckland Council bill is taking the local out of local government he says: "Don't talk to me about that, talk to Rodney Hide or John Carter."
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