Editorial: Council should stay out of smack debate

If the Auckland City Council wanted to add insult to the injury inflicted on its ratepayers recently, it could not have done worse than spend valuable meeting time this week on the anti-smacking bill before Parliament.

The bill, sponsored by Green MP Sue Bradford, proposes to withdraw the parental defence to assault on children. It is a difficult issue receiving plenty of public discussion. But it has nothing to do with the Auckland City Council.

Local government, lest this council needs reminding, is charged with looking after the particular physical, social and cultural needs of its community. Matters of national law are decided by members of Parliament.

Doubtless Ms Bradford would be grateful for the backing of any public body in her effort to convince her colleagues to pass the bill, but councils are not elected to pass judgment on whatever takes their fancy. This one made no attempt to canvass opinion among its electors before it presumed to speak for them on this subject. The council members have used their position to indulge their personal views on an issue of no relevance to their elected task.

Their attempt to justify the discussion under the aegis of the council's "child and family policy" can only lead ratepayers to wonder what else the council is doing in an area of government that is, or ought to be, outside its brief. Taxpayers contribute handsomely to social welfare through national agencies; they should not be paying unwittingly as ratepayers for local bodies suffering an excess of social solicitude.

This may be a little thing beside travel junkets and the like, but it lends weight to suspicions that lots of little things add up to a 13.6 per cent rate rise.