Super City roles 'should be interim'

The appointment of directors to run Super City services is a blow to local democracy and the unelected roles should be interim until they can go before the new Auckland Council, says a local government specialist.

Dr Andy Asquith, a senior lecturer in the School of Management at the University's Albany campus, has criticised the process in which 29 people have been selected as directors and chairs for the six new council controlled organisations.

He says these positions come at a considerable cost to the local taxpayer without any input from locally elected representatives.
“It is hard to see where the words ‘local democracy’ fit into these appointments,” Dr Asquith says. “The appointees will be accountable to as yet unknown elected representatives who will be elected to the new Auckland council later this year. Surely these appointments should at best be interim, pending their confirmation by the new council.”

Dr Asquith says the appointments are “without a doubt" political patronage. “There seems to be a distinct preference towards appointing those from the private commercial sector, rather than those from the public sector, let alone those with recent local body experience,” he says.

Former deputy prime minister Sir Don McKinnon, Waitakere Mayor Bob Harvey and chief executive of Auckland Transition Agency Mark Ford are among those selected.

Dr Asquith says the selection of Bob Harvey is one positive that can be drawn from the situation. “At least one appointee can claim to have an understanding of how local government works, and how local democracy ought to operate,” he says.

Dr Asquith’s School of Management colleague, Dr Andrew Cardow, says the appointments have been made with little reference to the electorate, which he says is “much in the same vein as the construction of the amalgamation to date”.

“It is no wonder that voting turnout for local elections is low,” Dr Cardow says. "Central government have once again only paid lip service to the concept of local government. The citizens now have first-hand experience that their voices really do not count.”