KEY POINTS:
National leader John Key will today call for Auckland's councils to be reformed - but he is keeping his options open on what form that should take.
In a speech to the Local Government annual conference today, Mr Key is expected to announce that a National government would reform Auckland's councils, claiming the current structure is inefficient and the city is falling behind major Australian cities.
Here is the latest selection of Your Views:
Russell Comber
Major reform of Auckland's local body structure is long overdue. There needs, in principle, to be one overall council. Local body politicians should not be running commercial entities (eg Ports of Auckland). Because of the commercial importance of Auckland to New Zealand there needs to be much greater involvement of the NZ government to develop modern infrastructure. For example, it is scandalous that it takes longer (on most occasions) to reach the city centre from the airport, than is does to reach the airport from Wellington.
Beefyboy
John 'the gambler' Key is playing at politics again. It is easy to say he/we will make changes without saying first what he thinks/feels is wrong. Sure there are problems in Auckwardland but we want answers not politics. Free market policies which (my) National Party support should encourage business to leave for lower rents overheads etc in other centres. For instance, it is cheaper to do business in Hamilton and some what less congested. Importantly it is cheaper for workers to live outside Auckland. Instead of wasting time money and effort on overpopulating Auckland we need to encourage industry and their employees to leave for greener climates elsewhere and I do not mean the big island (Oz).
Jo
I am so sick of reading how NZ compares to Australia - that we are lagging behind Oz - I live in Aussie at the moment and ordinary Australians have the same complaints about their government as NZers do. The sheer amount of stories relating to Oz in the NZ Herald is embarrassing. I can assure you, Aussie couldn't give a toss about what NZ is up to so, stop worrying about how we compare to Aussie as we are two totally different countries.
P.S Why doesn't Brian Rudman consider running for Hubbard's job? He has great views on Aklds current problems and real foresight for its future.
pCb (Auckland)
People have short memories. I can't remember Labour and the Greens talking about policies prior to the last election (surely sanity would have prevailed if they had). How about one mayor, one council one water company...
Ian Morine
Again Key fails to tell us what he is going to do. He comes up with these comments that are hard to disagree with, no matter which political direction you are coming from, yet when it comes down to the nitty gritty, there is absolutely no substance to his comments at all. If he thinks making these sort of speeches is going to win him the election next year, then he really has underestimated the intelligence of the general electorate. "If" the Nats win next year, then we are in for turbulent times in the finance portfolio alone, because of the differences of opinion between Key and English (e,g, National Superannuation), let alone any other portfolio, despite the fact Key is reluctant to give any firm indication of what he would do on any issue!
Luke Mason
The little drummer boy - John Key - needs to stop bellowing buzz words and vague references to win popularity contests. Where are your policies National? Maybe leave the local politics to the councils eh Johnny boy?
Richard
No matter what happens, keep an eye on this. This technique has been used the world-wide to benefit one party over another, to quiet the voice of minorities and to reduce their political power. That the call for this is coming from National makes that doubly certain. This exact same thing happened under the Republican Congress in the USA. Read here what happened and how it was done and what the ramifications were:
www.newyorker.com/archive/2003/12/08/031208fa_fact
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB116312053645719332-AOImZMSyjInp1DY5vC7Mgi7caig_20071109.html
pCb (Auckland)
So long as whatever amalgamation we get provides real benefit and not a new empire for an ex mayors new power base. As for how, isn't it a good chance to look at best practice overseas? Our current crop are great at heading out into the big wide world to study the relatively unimportant how about a world tour to see how best to run our utilities and keep rates at a manageable level.
Albert
There should only be one council/mayor for the whole of Auckland. Any one bidding to be the mayor should present a 25-yr and 50-yr plan for Auckland to the voters. these plans to be reviewed come election, and the mayor may be re-elected if plans are well managed and kept on track, otherwise, bow out gracefully and should not be too thick-skin to stand for the next election.
Public servant
If amalgamation or a supercity approach is out of the question in Auckland I would like to see that all local body candidates declare their central political affiliations on each and every bit of advertising they are involved in. This should be compulsory. Time and time again we see Labour aligned pressure groups, hijack our councils and fit them with Labour's government policies. Whilst they do that a full CV of their qualifications and work history may also go a long way to assist voters.
Toa Greening (Manukau)
For the last ten months the ARC, central and local government have been developing plans to strengthen regional governance in Auckland. There were two key issues throughout the process. The first was that the SuperCity concept was excluded from the scope of work and second the public were denied input into the early stages of the plan. Public input was slid into each councils annual LTCCP. Manuaku LTCCP had half a page out 130 pages dedicated to strengthening regional governance. Unfortunately the Manukau City Council unanimously supported the report at its May meeting. The report outlines massive changes such as the creation of a Greater Auckland Council (GAC) with new elected representation, a new committee for sustainable development, creation of "One Plan", inter-funding agreements, changes to transport and water legislation and finally shared services agreements. A massive amount of work went into creating these plans but no work was done on performing a GAP analysis of what was wrong with the current setup, there was no cost/benefits analysis of the new models and of course public submissions were effectively denied. Well, here is the website, enjoy: www.strongerauckland.org.nz
Sheila (Christchurch)
Christchurch City amalgamated with four local bodies in 1989 which has been a great success. In 2005 Banks Peninsula District Council, which comprised Lyttelton Borough, Mt Herbert County, Akaroa County and Wairewa County, voted to amalgamate with the City. This also has been a great improvement. Auckland should follow the same route and it is a pity this didn't happen in 1989.
Le Fox
Does anyone remember the Labour Gov magic act where they asked for peoples' ideas on what issues should be fixed to make Councils more accountable & more efficient? I did write a letter, of course I didn't hear a word about what the outcome of that expensive exercise was. I did see my private letter on the internet, which I thought was extremely strange. Please people put someone into power that actually will make a difference, & knows how many cents make a dollar, so far John Key looks like the only man to do the job.I for one am just fed up with the ineptitude of the Labour no care no responsibility, loose purse string & cohort supporters stealing my money.
Bruce
City council reforms are a decade overdue. Auckland have fluffed many opportunities through council squabbles. I hope that National extend their position on this to Wellington as well.
PD
Dear Mr Key Please force the disbanding of all the different city councils and replace them with one overall government for the entire Auckland city area. Please force the disbanding of all the different water supply utilities and replace them with one structure that looks after all of Auckland. Please force the disbanding of all of the different electricity utilities and group them into one that supplies all of Auckland city.All the different empires and the empire builders that are in charge of them currently need to go. Not next week, not next month, not next year. Now!
C K
The performance of especially the Auckland councils are dismal in my opinion. Any change can only be an improvement. It has become almost impossible to get anything done. The economic cost to the NZ community of these inefficient councils must be staggering. One can see the devastating effect of their underperformance on house prices. We want efficiency and accountability. If not, the council employees involved should all be fired, starting with the CEOs. How about a performance rating of the councils by the ratepayers every six months? If the rating is below say 70 per cent, the employees involved should be identified and fired. The CEO should also be fired forthwith. Maybe this is what we need. Please John Keys, fix this problem for us. You have my vote for sure! This will make you a contender to be the greatest Prime Minister of all time! Once done, you may want to look at a number of other services Labour has all but destroyed during their time in office, like the Health system,for example.
MDC
Just sounds like the old National Party trick to get control of the Councils to me, with big business "sticking their oar in" where they should have no place.
Matthew Pilott
Great, National's "tools" come out of the closet. Allowing councils to get into debt the council and government has no right to burden future generations with debt. Cullen has just spend almost a decade paying of NZ's foreign debt, and National wants to start building it up again. User-pays building infrastructure that only the rich can access I wouldn't expect anything less than this from the Tories. And to add insult to injury, it will be part-funded by a debt that everyone will incur, not just the rich. National is proposing to subsidise facilities for the rich at everyone's expense.And to top it all off, Key's mates in business can get rich off us. Private partnerships mean that National is prepared to let business make a profit of the countries' essential infractructure, at our expense. Private enterprises will only get involved when there is money to be made, and the people of New Zealand will suffer. Don't let these people take power next year, or we'll all pay the price, as will our children. Labour will keep the countries assets where they should be in everyone's hands.
