Brian Rudman: One person one (unequal) vote in the brave new world of the Super City

Brian Rudman. Photo / Supplied

Excuse me for being picky, but why has the Local Government Commission decided that my vote in Herne Bay is to be worth 48 per cent less than that of a ratepayer in Rodney, come the brave new world of the Super City? Admittedly, it's not totally the commission's fault. The Government set it an insoluble task.

It told the commission to go away and create a city with 20 councillors, each representing the same number of voters, give or take 10 per cent. The spanner in the works was the added proviso that the two outlying rural districts of Rodney, population 53,590, and Franklin, population 63,650, be guaranteed a councillor apiece. This blew the arithmetic for a start.

To ensure a one-person, one-equal-vote scenario in this new city of 1,416,190 residents, each of the 20 councillors would have had to represent a ward of 70,809 people.

The Local Government (Auckland Council) Act 2009 permits a deviation of plus or minus 10 per cent from this 70,809 average. But by insisting on both a single ward for Rodney and a maximum of 20 councillors, the maximum deviation is unachievable. The result: a vote in Rodney is automatically worth 24.3 per cent more than the average vote citywide. With Franklin, the added value is 10.1 per cent, or just a smidgen over the legal maximum.

But even when not forced to, the commissioners breached the maximum deviation in both directions with gay abandon. Indeed, in their proposed set-up, only eight of the 20 councillors would be elected within the permitted deviation. The inner city voters of the Maungawhau-Hauraki Gulf are the hardest done by, under-represented by a whopping 24.3 per cent, followed by Waitakere - 17.3 per cent - and voters of New Lynn, Avondale, Orakei and Maungakiekie - 14 per cent. Over-represented by 14-15 per cent are the East Coast Bays suburbs and Howick, Pakuranga and Botany.

Surely, if the Government's requirements did not compute, then the commissioners should have trotted off to Local Government Minister Rodney Hide and said so and requested new instructions or a change in policy.

When it comes to drawing up parliamentary boundaries, each electorate has to be within 5 per cent of a set population quota - at present 57,562 people. Those drawing up the Auckland City boundaries had double that flexibility to play with. They should try harder. The principle of every vote being equal is rather a long tradition to overthrow so cavalierly.

What the release of the boundaries does highlight is how hard it's going to be to retain the local in Auckland local government, particularly with the commissioners' decision to make eight of the 12 wards two-member constituencies. The smallest of the two-member wards, Howick-Pakuranga-Botany, has a population of 121,700; Waitakere is largest with 166,150. Compare that with Dunedin (pop 118,683) and Hamilton on 129,249.

I still lean to 20 single-member constituencies - parliamentary electorate based - as the best way of getting some local representation into the super council. Large, double-member seats just ensure the dominant ticket in a wider area wins two seats.

The local safety valve still promises to be the local boards. The commission is proposing just 19, though it was told to create between 20 and 30. The explanation for falling short is "that boards will need to be of a sufficient size to ensure they can attract capable people to stand ... and have the ability to generate sufficient resources to undertake effective local-decision-making". Having said that, they then create boards representing from 44,000 people in Papakura to Waitakere's 166,150. I've left out Great Barrier Island (pop 840) and Waiheke (pop 8300) boards, because they were required by the law. Sensibly, most of these boards are divided into electoral "wards" of their own, representing localities like Devonport, Three Kings and Albany. But oddly, to one who lives there, the Maungawhau board is not - all five members are to be selected at large. Why not a representative each from the CBD, Parnell, the Western Bays, Grey Lynn and Mt Eden?

Of course, what the commission has presented is just the table settings. What we still await is the legislation outlining just how weak - or powerful - the local boards will be. It matters little how representative they are, and how tidily arranged their boundaries, if they're born gutless and powerless.