Media Release
6 September 2009

A concrete curtain descends with Auckland’s proposed boundaries

With the radical shakeup of Auckland being proposed by the Auckland Governance Legislation Committee, Federated Farmers is looking to Parliament to set much of the super city’s boundary on that proposed in the Report of the Royal Commission on Auckland Governance.

“From the Puhoi and Makarau rivers in the north to the Waikato river in the south, a concrete curtain is descending on Auckland,” says Wendy Clark, Federated Farmers Auckland provincial vice-president.

“It’s hard to fathom how the Committee could have come up with such a radically different conclusion for Auckland’s boundaries to that of the Royal Commission.

“The Committee has made a super-sized error in its reasoning. Why is the northern boundary ‘generally based on a line between the mouths of the Puhoi and Makarau rivers’, when the southern boundary is based solely on the catchment of the Waikato river?

“I just fail to see how the Committee can endorse split catchments to the north of Auckland, but not to the south.

“And it’s not just rivers but whole towns being split too. With a boundary line nominally going through the middle of Pukekohe and Waiuku, Franklin will end up with split farming and urban communities.

“As these communities grow, we will see one half of the towns in the Waikato with the other half in Auckland. It doesn’t make one jot of sense economically or socially.

“The Committee has also muddled what is urban and what is rural by describing southern Rodney as being ‘undoubtedly urban or at least partly urban’. That’ll be news to the many farmers south of the Makarau river.

“Yet northern Rodney, particularly around Warkworth, is more urban than most of ‘urban’ southern Rodney. Despite this, Warkworth is being booted out of the new Auckland.

“Local authorities have to be based on distinct communities of interest and much of Rodney and much of Franklin look to Auckland and not to Whangarei or Hamilton.

“That’s why Federated Farmers will be urging Parliament to reconsider Auckland’s boundaries and reinstate those recommended by the Royal Commission, with the addition of southern Franklin too,” Wendy Clark concluded.

ENDS

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