It is a pleasure to take a call in this debate. I have heard so much rubbish being spoken on this issue in the last 24 hours by members on the Opposition benches that I jokingly said to George Hawkins as we crossed the bridge across to the Chamber this evening that if he gave a speech then I would certainly find something in it to criticise. But I did not have to wait until George Hawkins got to his feet, because I got the comment I wanted to hear as I walked in the door. As I walked in the door I heard Lynne Pillay finishing her speech. And how did she finish it off? I will tell members. She said that had the bill gone to a referendum, then there would not be the debacle we see now. Labour suggests that the Government should have put up the Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill for a referendum.
I will tell members of the Opposition about referendums. We have just had one, and those members have chosen to ignore the result. But I say to the people of New Zealand that one party is not ignoring the result of the referendum on the anti-smacking legislation. My next public meeting on the subject will be held next Monday in Waimakariri, in the Labour-held electorate of Clayton Cosgrove. There were 26,000 No votes, and Clayton wants to ignore them.
Let us move on to Ross Robertson. He is a fine member of Parliament; he is the member for Manukau East. I grew up in his electorate, and I know that the electorate holds Otahuhu College. What did Ross Robertson have to say? He said that the people of Ōtāhuhu have not got a swimming pool. He talked about the people of Ōtāhuhu being denied the most basic right of having a swimming pool. I wonder what Ross Robertson actually knows about his electorate, because I can tell him that the people of Ōtāhuhu have a swimming pool.
H V Ross Robertson: That’s the college one.
JOHN BOSCAWEN: He is dismissing a 33-metre swimming pool at Otahuhu College that was dug by hand by the pupils of the college and their parents in the 1950s. That pool has been locked to the Ōtāhuhu community. Mr Robertson’s Government was in power for 9 years. If he had wanted to make the pool available for the people of Ōtāhuhu, he could have done so. What an absolute waste to have a 33-metre, high-quality pool that is locked away and denied to the people of Ōtāhuhu. The member’s Government, which was in power for 9 years, could have funded Otahuhu College to make its pool available to the public, and it did not.
It was a privilege to serve on the Auckland Governance Legislation Committee, and it gave me an opportunity to meet members of the committee whom I had not had an opportunity to get to know very well in the 7 or 8 months I have been in Parliament. I was privileged to get to know Mr William Sio. I had not had much to do with Mr Sio before. I apologise to Mr Sio for this, but I was not aware that he is a former Deputy Mayor of Manukau City. He was the second-highest elected official in Manukau City. How did Mr Sio get to become the Deputy Mayor of Manukau City? Was it because of the reserve seats for Pacific Islanders? No, he won his seat fair and square in a head-to-head competition in the ward of Ōtara. Mr Sio can have pride in being elected a councillor for the Ōtara ward and then going on to be elected the Deputy Mayor of Manukau City.
Mr Sio said this morning: “The Pacific communities throughout Auckland were prepared to put on hold their ambition to be included at the top table.” Nothing more than that comment could better illustrate to me the folly of having dedicated Māori seats. Mr Sio said to Parliament that the Pacific communities throughout Auckland—and I heard this morning that the Pacific community represents something like 12 or 13 percent of Aucklanders, and that Asians make up 13 percent of Auckland City—were prepared to put on hold their ambition to be at the top table while specific Māori seats were allocated to Auckland City. I say to Mr Sio and every member of the House—and members can call me glib if they like—that we have an electoral system in New Zealand that is one person, one vote. Mr Sio won his council seat in Ōtara and went on to be elected the Deputy Mayor of Manukau City.
I have heard Sam Lotu-Iiga being mentioned this afternoon, and he is in the Chamber. He is another Pacific Islander, and he was elected to the Auckland City Council for the ward of Maungakiekie. Mr Darren Hughes may not be aware of this, but the members of the select committee went out and heard evidence in Papatoetoe, in the heart of Manukau City, and we heard that there are three Māori councillors on Manukau City Council now. They were not reserve seats; they won their seats fair and square.
I tell Mr Hughes that we also heard that Manukau City councillors had the opportunity to provide for specific Māori seats under the existing legislation in New Zealand and that they chose not to—just like the councillors for Waitakere chose not to. Now that the Auckland Council bill is going through, councillors who have previously voted against having Māori seats based on racial grounds are now saying that the Government should provide for them, when the provision has been there all along and they have chosen not to take it.
I heard this afternoon about excluding Māori from the Auckland Council. That is utter rubbish. Māori are not excluded from the Auckland Council, in the same way that Pacific Islanders and Asians are not excluded from the Auckland Council. I also heard that the Government does not listen. That is the feedback we have had from the other side.
Hon Darren Hughes: That’s true.
JOHN BOSCAWEN: Well, Mr Hughes, I say to you that had you come to the select committee hearings, then I think it is fair to say—
H V Ross Robertson: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I know the member has not been here very long, but on two occasions—I ignored the first one—he brought you into the debate. That is not correct, and I ask you to ask the member to refer to members by their names or to speak through the Chair.
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Rick Barker): The member is correct; the member used the word “you”, but as I recall the sentence he started it by saying “Darren Hughes, such and such, you—”, so I took the “you” to be connected directly to Mr Hughes. He did not reflect it on me, so I think the matter is in order. But the point the member makes is a good one; we have to refer to members in the third person. I invite John Boscawen to continue.
JOHN BOSCAWEN: I will conclude by saying that the overwhelming number of submissions the select committee heard rejected the idea of having councillors at large. I personally was supportive of the concept of having councillors at large. If I have a chance to talk on the subject, perhaps later this evening, I can put up some of the advantages of having councillors at large. The overwhelming number of people who made submissions to the select committee were against having councillors at large. The Government has listened to those submissions, and that is what is reflected in this legislation. We do not have councillors at large; we have councils being elected from wards of one member or multi-member wards.
I also heard this afternoon that Auckland is rejecting the idea of the super-city. If members go out on to the streets of Auckland they will find that Aucklanders do not reject the idea of the super-city. They want one city, one mayor, and one rule book.
I will conclude as I started. I have heard so much rubbish this afternoon from the opposite side of the House. There is overwhelming support in Auckland for the Auckland Council, and I have no doubt that it will be an outstanding success
Thank you very much.
JOHN BOSCAWEN (ACT) : When I took a call earlier this evening I referred to the fact that as I was walking across the bridge to the Chamber I said to the Hon George Hawkins: “You stand up and give a speech, because if it is typical of what Labour members have said on this debate so far today, I will be able to take it apart sentence by sentence.” Well, George Hawkins did not let me down. Mr Hawkins talked about the cost of integration. I was very pleased that Mr John Carter took a call immediately after Mr Hawkins to point out the fact that we should not look just at the cost of integration but at the benefits. We should look at the overwhelming benefits of having one city.
What is the example that George Hawkins gave? He said that currently we have eight computer systems and we will move to one, so we have to go out and buy one new computer system. Mr Hawkins and Labour members should look not at the cost of the one new computer system but at the cost of the existing eight computer systems that are currently in place, at the cost of the eight different sets of programmes, at the cost of eight different sets of hardware, and at the cost of running them. They should also look at the massive inefficiency with that. I knew I could rely on George Hawkins to point out the folly of his own argument and why we need to have a super-city, and I was not let down.
When I was campaigning in Mt Albert I came across a plumber. He said that on his truck he had pipes that he could put in in Manukau City, pipes he could install in Waitakere City, and pipes he could install in Auckland City, and that none of them would go across the boundaries. He has to carry three different sets of pipes. What is the cost to Auckland and Auckland’s residents of that?
Talking about Mt Albert, David Shearer made a comment today that was in keeping with the misinformation that Labour wants to put out. He talked about the cost of a councillor running an at-large campaign. He said it would cost $200,000 to run an at-large campaign. We have all campaigned. To print 500,000 copies of a piece of A4-sized paper, folded three times over to fit into a DL envelope, costs about $25,000. If that cost is split between 10 councillors, that is $2,500 a councillor. If the 600 volunteers that Mr Banks has reputedly arranged are used—we have been told about them this afternoon—then there is a free delivery service. Labour has consistently argued, through misinformation, against having at-large councillors. It would cost nothing like $200,000 to run an at-large campaign. If members want an example, they need just to look at the election that is happening right now in Aucklanders’ backyards and in Mr Hawkins’ backyard for the Auckland Energy Consumer Trust.
I come now to Carmel Sepuloni. What did she say? She referred to the fact that in the Auckland City Council the Pacific librarian has been changed to the new migrant librarian, and she takes exception to that. She said that as a Pacific person she finds it difficult that the Pacific librarian has been replaced with a new migrant librarian. I think that illustrates the point.
We also heard from Mr Sio this evening. He said that Pacific peoples are prepared to put aside their aspirations for a seat at the top table so that we can have specialised Māori seats. Mr Sio was really saying that we should get Māori seats and that once we have Māori seats on the council we should get Pacific seats. It will not be good for Carmel Sepuloni and the Labour Party to have new migrant seats. We will have to have Pacific seats, Asian seats, and whatever else seats. The Labour members have dramatically illustrated why we need to have this bill.
I will come back to Ross Robertson’s comments. He stood up and waxed lyrical about the fact that Ōtāhuhu does not have a swimming pool. I know something about Ōtāhuhu because I grew up there and in Papatoetoe. I am a very proud former pupil of Otahuhu College. My father was a pupil there, a teacher there, and a principal there. The people of Ōtāhuhu built a swimming pool at the school in the 1950s. They dug it by hand, and they were very proud of that community asset.
I want to talk about asset utilisation. That is where the overwhelming savings will come in with the super-city. We are constantly told about the $28 billion worth of assets in Auckland. Well, let us utilise those assets.
When I indicated that there is a swimming pool in Ōtāhuhu in the Otahuhu College swimming pool, what did Mr Robertson
say? He said that it does not count.