Nanaia Mahuta has pulled on her plus-sized jackboots and her big girl’s panties and decided to appoint a Commission to override democracy at Tauranga City Council.
Nanaia Mahuta, the Minister of Local Government, has revealed she plans to appoint a Commission in response to governance problems at Tauranga City Council.
The deeply divided council has recently been slammed as being made up of “petty politicians” in “desperate need of progressive thinking”, by Tauranga’s outgoing mayor Tenby Powell.
During a fiery resignation speech in November, Powell called on Mahuta to appoint commissioners to replace the councillors.
“I hope history will show that November 2020, the DNA of incompetence among TCC elected members was recognised and cauterized, and after a period of crown management that the governor’s team can be rebuilt with real members,” he said.
On Friday, Mahuta announced she had informed the council of her intention to appoint a Commission in response to the problems and the findings of an independent review.
“I have been closely watching the conduct of the Council for a number of months. I have grown increasingly concerned at the governance issues, and the impact this has on Tauranga ratepayers and significant investment in the region,” she said.
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The current council may indeed be made of petty politicians, but at least they were democratically elected. Now Tauranga will be run by commissioners who are selected by and beholden to idiotic, ideological, dictatorial, segregationist, socialist politicians.
Tenby Powell can shut the hell up too. He’s yet another doctrinaire business bully-boy who has found out that councils are not like his former Territorial Army soldiers who will do what they are ordered to, when they are ordered to.
It is a rare business person who can make the transition from being a toy boy playing with the missus’ millions to successful politician.
But Labour are rank hypocrites, because in 2010 they were calling the appointment of commissioners at Environment Canterbury an affront to democracy.
“All along Labour has rightly taken a very strong line against sacking a democratically-elected body,” Brendon Burns said.
“As a Canterbury MP I have been challenged to say if Labour’s opposition to the ECan Act will be followed by reinstatement of the council, or a similar democratically-elected body when Labour wins next year’s election.
“The answer is yes, and caucus supported that strongly today,” Brendon Burns said.
“The issue is becoming more urgent for Cantabrians because there are already signals that the Government has no plans to reinstate ECan even in 2013.
“Cantabrians are worried that National prefers the recommendation in the Wyatt Creech report it commissioned around a Regional Water Authority, perhaps an appointed body,” Brendon Burns said.
“Labour has too much faith in the intelligence of Canterbury voters to go down that route.
“We can reassure Canterbury that we will restore democracy as soon as we are in a position to do so. Canterbury deserves better than a solution where the few think they know what’s best for the many.”
Scoop
Obviously Labour doesn’t trust the voters of Tauranga as much as it trusts the voters of Canterbury.
It seems that when National appoints commissioners it is an assault against democracy, but it’s just fine when they do it.
Nanaia Mahuta will look splendid in her newly found jackboots. It’s a shame they forget their howls of outrage over Environment Canterbury.
Just because a decision was made by a diversity quota minister it doesn’t make it democratic.
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