Letter to Manukau
25 June 2007

They are in our street!

I attended a meeting of the community in Manurewa recently. Like most of the southern towns Manurewa is over supplied with liquor outlets on street corners. Since 1992 I have been working to limit the establishment of these outlets. Starting on the Otara Community Board in 1992, we resolved to the council that the community be given the right to object to the issuing of licences. Ours was the first board to try this move and the council has been grappling with this issue ever since. Unfortunately despite great efforts, it has not made a lot of headway. The results look more like tinkering with the problem rather than solving it.

Effective action on this issue needs one of two things to happen. Either George Hawkins’ bill goes through Parliament which will be a battle given the power of the liquor lobby, or our council amends the District Scheme to enable meaningful input from those most effected by these outlets. As the Mayor of this city, I will not be waiting long for Parliament to grab this issue and act. We need to act locally as this is an open wound in our community and I will lead our council to start the healing process.

Let’s talk water

At the recent Manurewa meeting, I asked residents about their views on the water CCO. I asked them if they knew what it was and how their new waste water charge would work. There is a very poor understanding of this matter and the response of many is “Oh well, there’s not much you can do about it, we will just get on and pay”. Now for some in the political world, that type of response is acceptable. To me it is not. Our democracy is failing if our people are uninformed or unconnected to the extent that they don’t know about critical issues like this. I want our community to know about our present system and be a part of shaping how we manage our water going into the future.

I am going to organise meetings around our city to talk water. Watch this space!

Rates rebate – ratepayers’ mate

Low income earners can get a $500 rate rebate. This rebate doesn’t apply to water and waste water charges from the Manukau Water CCO because it is a standalone company. This is a silly rule and Government should amend it because the CCO is 100 per cent council owned and one third of the council’s business.

Manukau is moving to apply the rebate through a council subsidy in the same way Auckland City does. It needs to apply the subsidy in this year to give the elderly on fixed incomes a break for all their services as the rebate was originally intended. Well done to Councillor Sio for leading this debate.

Look out Manukau, here comes Len Brown!

From 1 July I will be full time on the campaign trail. During this time I will be fighting for every vote in every ward of this city. I will mix a daily dose of doorknocking with meetings and town centre visits. A campaign headquarters will be established in East Tamaki and for 3-4 months this will be the working hub for our campaign.

The campaign has a team of hundreds across the city and the feedback has been superb. Our team is confident and focussed and we are working towards a large turnout of voting support. It’s now time to make the change! Let’s do it.

Len Brown
Mayoral Candidate - Manukau 2007

ENDS

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