25 May 2009

It’s not about race, it’s about rights – North Shore Mayor

The slogan for today’s Hikoi “It’s not about race, it’s about rights” sums up much of what the super city debate is all about says North Shore City Mayor Andrew Williams. Mayor Williams and five of his North Shore councillors attended the huge turnout in Queen Street, alongside three other mayors and many councillors from across the region.

“The Hikoi and this march for democracy sends a clear message to Minister Rodney Hide and the rest of the government that people are willing to stand up to them to secure fair representation on the super city”, says Mayor Williams.

“Thousands of Aucklanders have today shown Rodney Hide that they will stand up to his bulldozer tactics to silence their voices and hand their city over to the Queen Street power brokers. There is widespread concern over the disrespect being shown to Ngati Whatua, to Tainui and to all the people of Auckland,” he says.

“The Royal Commission’s recommendations were tossed into the bin without any consultation and I can fully appreciate how betrayed the mana whenua are feeling. But as people showed today in their thousands, by standing together we can start the journey to win back the right of our many communities to be represented and have a voice around the Auckland Council table.”

Mayor Williams says that the Hikoi message that "it's not about race, it's about rights" clearly resonates with the people of wider Auckland, because the Hikoi highlights the denial of rights to Maori and to all Aucklanders. Maori are quite rightly annoyed that a Royal Commission recommendation has been so quickly dismissed without consultation with Maori. The same dismissal of democratic rights has also been singled out to the rest of Auckland when many of the sound recommendations of the Royal Commission were rejected by the Government.

“There is no doubt that the speed of change and the lack of meaningful consultation has left individuals and communities out in the cold. For example I have seen no indication from the government that they are making any real effort to engage with communities on the North Shore, including various ethnic communities, or to make meaningful contact with the less articulate and less powerful members of our communities.” he says. “This seems to be all driven by the power brokers in Queen Street, Remuera, Parnell and Epsom and North Shore is receiving token lip service.”

Mayor Williams says that his council is working with community organisations on the North Shore to get as much information as possible out into the public arena, but with the very tight timeframe set by government this is a huge task.

“Associate Local Government Minister John Carter and his cabinet colleagues from greater Auckland are attending a small number of selected community meetings, but they have been very slow to respond to meeting requests from my office to show up to meet with residents of the North Shore. This tells me that they are not demonstrating any real desire to listen to our people and act on their concerns,” he says.

Mayor Williams says that he has repeatedly said that he and his council would welcome the opportunity to work more closely with Ministers to improve the super city plan, and that he and his council will work constructively with the new Auckland Transition Agency.

“Now the members of the Auckland Transition Agency have been announced, I’m looking forward to sitting down with them to make sure North Shore residents and ratepayers voices are heard loud and clear as they chart the course for transition to the new Auckland Council arrangements over the next 18 months.

“They will be working within the very tight timeframes set by the Minister but they are very able and knowledgeable people and I’m confident we will be able to develop a positive and productive working relationship.”

ENDS

© Scoop Media