On Tuesday at question time there was a truly bizarre exchange, specifically number seven:
CAMERON BREWER (National – Upper Harbour) to the Minister of Transport: What recent announcements has he made on restoring democratic accountability to transport in Auckland?
Hon SIMEON BROWN (Minister of Transport): On Friday, I announced alongside Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown that our Government is restoring democratic accountability to transport decision-making in Auckland, ensuring voters can hold their elected representatives accountable for the city’s transport policies. The changes we’re making will ensure that transport policies have democratic legitimacy and democratic accountability, something that has been sorely lacking in Auckland.
I won’t publish the entire exchange, which waffles on about establishing some silly council regional transport committee, but you get the general idea – we can rest easy now, knowing Auckland Transport is now “democratic”, according to Simeon Brown and his mayoral namesake. Why I consider this bizarre is, well, none of it is actually true: the very suggestion of democratic accountability is preposterous. Auckland Transport is full of car-hating green lunatics that just do whatever they want and say tough luck to anybody who disagrees. After all who are you going to complain to?
Let me give you an example of what I mean. See if this rings any bells.
One of the big problems in Auckland in recent years has been a lack of car parks as a direct result of a car-hating green-lunatic campaign to remove vast numbers of car parks. Let’s imagine at the next local body elections there was a mayoral candidate and full ticket of candidates put forward advocating as their main policy to bring back, say, 2000 car parks, to solve a massive problem. They all get elected. What would happen next?
In the fantasy world of Simeon Brown, lots of car-hating green lunatics working for Auckland Transport would say, ‘Oh, a mayor and 15 new councillors got elected with 60 per cent of the votes and wanting 2000 new car parks, and now they dominate the regional transport committee. So gosh, let’s grab some paint, pop outside and get cracking on creating new car parks in the interests of democratic accountability.’
Does anybody seriously believe this – 2000 new car parks – would happen? Is anybody stupid enough to think there would be even one new car park? Or, would the campaign to remove as many as possible continue without delay?
So why do Simeon Brown and National/ACT Auckland MPs persist with this deceitful claim of democracy or accountability? Why, when they know it isn’t true and never has been? The greenies run the show, always have, and none of them have ever been fired. Unless you drain the swamp (where have I heard that before?) of all the people causing massive and real damage, nothing will ever change.
Even if such a mayor and ticket of council candidates got 90 per cent of the votes, the entrenched, left-wing green commies at Auckland Transport would simply say ‘No – we’re not doing it’ (2000 new car parks). Far from a new era of democratic accountability, there is literally nothing that could be done to prevent Auckland Transport simply refusing to do something they disagree with.
