KEY POINTS:
No taxation without representation is a time-honoured rule of good government. The rule should not be overlooked when legislation sponsored by the Auckland City Council proposes to tax the ratepayers of North Shore, Waitakere, Manukau and other nearby councils for some of the city's attractions.
The Auckland Regional
Amenities Funding Bill, soon to be introduced by Labour's Judith Tizard, will list 11 organisations selected for financing from a levy to be made on all councils in the region. The chosen recipients range from cultural groups to rescue services and include the Auckland Festival, the Observatory, the Maritime Museum and the Zoo.
Most have been established by the Auckland City Council or under its patronage. They are used also by residents beyond the isthmus whose councils have long been making a derisory contribution to their costs. At least the city finds it derisory. The other councils have taken the reasonable view that they, too, have amenities accessible to everyone in the region and they bear the costs of those.
It is a matter of degree, of course. The suburban cultural efforts pale by comparison to the city's professional companies, but even if the outer councils had nothing to offer the region as a whole, they should not be forced to pay for the city's initiatives. Representative bodies should not be taxed for decisions they did not make. They may choose to make a contribution, and they should, but the legislation will remove their choice. Their ratepayers will have to pay for decisions of bodies they did not elect and cannot hold to account.
The city council has gone about its bill in a high-handed way. It appointed a panel of 10 citizens to receive nominations for institutions that considered themselves worthy of wider support. It settled on the 11, none of them projects of the other cities.
Nobody might mind supporting organisations such as surf life saving, the coastguard and the rescue helicopter but theatres, stadiums and cultural groups are more contentious. A North Shore rates watcher reasonably asks where it might end. "Are people in the suburbs going to want to pay for Vector Arena?"
Aucklanders in other parts of the region should not begrudge the preponderance of civic and cultural attractions in the city centre, and would not begrudge paying for them if local government boundaries did not divide their interests.
The bill makes some attempt to broaden the administration of the fund and the chosen recipients. The annual levy would be set, and a funding board appointed, by an electoral college of the levied councils. The board would keep a watch on the recipient organisations through their "business plans". But this puts decisions at too greater arms-length from those who must pay for them.
If all Aucklanders are going to be obliged to pay for the upkeep of these amenities, they should be voting directly for the council that decided to take on these costs. The bill is a good argument for a single city. It could be the precursor of much greater change if the principle of democratic taxation is applied.
The National Party, which had wanted to await the Government's promised royal commission into Auckland's government, has now agreed to support the bill for a select committee airing. On reflection there, all parties might come to the view that the bill puts the cart before the horse. A unified Auckland government would render the argument redundant. By the time the bill is passed it may have turned into a Trojan Horse, persuading its advocates and detractors alike that the answer is a single city.