Local Government (Protection of Auckland Assets) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Local Government (Protection of Auckland Assets) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. At the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be considered by the Local Government and Environment Committee. I also intend to move that the Local Government and Environment Committee, in its consideration of the bill, have the power to consider and, if it thinks fit, adopt amendments that have the effect of requiring a referendum conducted under the Local Electoral Act 2001 before the sale or privatisation of any council assets anywhere in New Zealand.

This member’s bill could also be known as the “Not Yours to Sell Bill”. It is a response to the overwhelming majority of Aucklanders who fear that the super-city is a Trojan Horse for the privatisation of our community-owned assets. Even those Aucklanders who accept the need for reform of our city’s governance have an uneasy feeling about the super-city. They are uneasy about the indecent haste and lack of consultation. They are uneasy about the centralisation of power into the hands of a few, and the potential for an oligarchy to run our city. They are deeply uneasy about the fact that local democracy is being constrained at the community level while powerful forces at the top are conspiring to sell off Auckland’s assets, whether for private gain or for ideology. Whether we are talking about our ports, the new water company, our public transport system, or our parks, pools, and libraries, Aucklanders say to this National-ACT Government: “They are not yours to sell.”

This bill would require majority support in a referendum before the new super-city could proceed to sell any significant assets. It puts the fate of those assets fairly and squarely in the hands of Aucklanders. This idea clearly makes Government MPs uncomfortable. It wedges them between a rock, their love of privatisation, and a hard place, their polling that tells them that people hate it. So we got the fake promise that there will be no sale of public assets or State assets in this term of Government—in this term of Government. Well, that hardly inspires the confidence of Aucklanders or the rest of New Zealand.

Government MPs are desperately trying to persuade Aucklanders that National has changed its spots, but along comes Rodney Hide, who is driving at full speed the Government’s agenda on local government and the super-city. Rodney Hide is the man who says that he loves privatisation, who told the country last night on television that he would like to privatise Ports of Auckland. His party wants to force councils to privatise their assets. He wants roads and piped water run on a commercial basis. Rodney Hide makes Aucklanders deeply uneasy. People are frightened of him. Can we blame them?

The Prime Minister likes to smile and laugh it off, but it was Cabinet, not just Rodney Hide, that signed off the review of the Local Government Act. That review is not just the loony ravings of a party that cannot break the margin of error; it is the National Government talking. It wants to reduce the amount of consultation that councils do. It even makes special mention of the consultation required before privatisation of assets like the ports or the airport. So while the Government’s own policy, signed off by Cabinet, will make councils hold referenda on anything that is significant or irreversible, somehow selling Auckland’s assets off to the highest bidder does not fit the bill—selling the ports is somehow not significant or irreversible, selling the airport is not somehow significant or irreversible.

Aucklanders remember when the last National Government sold off its 51 percent stake in Auckland International Airport. They watched that monopoly infrastructure performing successfully, as airports do all over the world, and paying out dividend after dividend that, in the case of Manukau City, had been used to keep rates down and swimming pools free. Aucklanders watched with horror in the 1990s as politicians prepared the ports of Auckland for privatisation. Grassroots anger, and leadership from people like the late Bruce Jesson, succeeded in keeping the ports in public hands. Under the leadership of the Auckland Regional Council chairman, Mike Lee, the ports have remained in public ownership and have delivered huge investments in Auckland’s public transport system—investments that benefit all Aucklanders. We know that, in the past, when key infrastructure assets have been sold they have mostly ended up in the hands of foreign owners, with profits heading offshore. Infrastructure like the ports, the airport, and the water company are natural monopolies. Kept in public hands they can be managed to protect the public interest, to benefit the community and not just a handful of fat cats.

The new super-city wraps up $28 billion worth of Aucklanders’ assets. That is more than the assets of Fonterra and Telecom combined. Let us take the new water company as an example. Until now its assets were scattered across eight councils. The new monopoly will cover bulk water, water to the home, and waste water for 1.4 million people. This new company will have the multinational water corporations drooling like a Labrador.

Keeping the big assets in public hands is also about ensuring they are managed in the public interest. There are some in the Auckland business community who want to sell the ports right now. The Minister of Local Government said on Campbell Live last night that he wants to privatise the ports. But Aucklanders know that the ports are one of our single greatest natural assets. We have to make some big decisions about how those ports can be managed in the interests of New Zealand. All Aucklanders want to see the waterfront opened up and made into a fantastic place that we can all work, live, and play in. If it is sold off to the highest bidder we could lose that opportunity for ever.

But it is not just the big-ticket items—the water and the ports—that are at stake here. The Government wants local government stripped back to a Rodney Hide - inspired notion of so-called core services. It wants to get rid of the politically correct nonsense about cultural well-being, social well-being, and environmental well-being. Put alongside Rodney Hide’s party policy to force councils to privatise, is it any wonder that Aucklanders fear that their parks, libraries, and pools are also at risk, along with theatres, cultural festivals, and pensioner housing.

The Minister wants to believe, as he said on Campbell Live last night, that this is a pretend debate, that this is not a real issue. The old line we hear from National MPs in Auckland is that this is scaremongering, but make no mistake: Aucklanders understand—New Zealanders understand—what this is about. On one side is National, ACT, and their big-business mates, and on the other side is the bulk of New Zealanders, who believe that public ownership of assets paid for through our rates and our taxes, and built up over the years, can deliver services that everybody can enjoy. That is where Labour stands—libraries where kids can learn to read, and parks where they can play. It is the opposite of the mean-spirited, user-pays, low-tax, market rules, dog-eat-dog world that exists in Rodney Hide’s tortured imagination, which is where it should stay.

The Local Government Act provides limited protection against the sale of water, ports, and parks, but my bill would provide more comprehensive protection across the board. The Minister said last night that what is wrong with the bill is that it applies only to Auckland, and that we should apply it to all councils. Well I thank the Minister for his advice, and I say that if he and his colleagues vote to refer this bill to a select committee, I will move that the select committee have the power to adopt an amendment to enlarge its scope to include all council assets across New Zealand. These assets—our ports, our water company, the remaining airport shares, pensioner housing, parks, libraries, and pools—are ours. They belong to us, they belong to the people, and we paid for them, our parents and our grandparents paid for them, with our rates. If they are sold off, they are gone for ever. If we lose ownership we lose control; if we lose control of them, it is not our city any more.

Aucklanders deserve the right to have a say on this issue. This bill gives them that right, and I commend it to the House.

Debate interrupted.