The Local Government Commission’s draft proposal for local government reoroganisation in our region is very much modelled on the Auckland supercity model. But we are not Auckland. We are already a super duper City, and the only one in the country with a metropolitan heart.
There’s no surprise that three of the Wellington City Council’s four options for reforming local government in the region involve abolishing the Greater Wellington Regional Council.
The Dominion Post was this week doing its best to talk up Wellington local body amalgamation again, with a thinly-disguised opinion piece from Colin James masquerading as news. The theory is that the “threat” of the Auckland super-city needs a counterweight in Wellington, and that the only solution is some kind of regional amalgamation.
However the usual lack of enthusiasm from the locals is noted – with apparently no-one other than Fran Wilde and Colin James in favour of the idea.
A conference of residents’ associations at Parliament on Saturday decided to set up a citizens’ forum – as a direct response to the “closed shop” approach of the Wellington Mayoral Forum’s review of governance in the region.
At the same time as Wellington’s mayors and their advisors are meeting to discuss the need for a super-city in this region, the concerns from Aucklanders about Auckland’s super-city arrangements are getting louder and louder.
Some of our local civic leaders have, not surprisingly, jumped on the ‘Supercity Auckland’ bandwagon. If Auckland, they say, why not Wellington? Anyone with a concern for democracy in local government should be afraid, very afraid.
This year’s AGM features a keynote from Michael Upchurch, Publisher at Te Papa Press, the award winning publishing arm of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.
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