22 May 2009
Media release

National MP flip flops on Super City

National MP Paul Hutchison’s call for the Franklin District Council to be excluded from the Super City is remarkable given he voted for legislation last week which will abolish the council, says Labour’s Local Government spokesperson George Hawkins.

“Mr Hutchison today co-authored an article in the Herald calling for the Franklin and apparently the Rodney district councils to be excluded from the Super City.

“Yet the legislation rammed through Parliament under urgency last week explicitly amends the Local Government Act to remove all references to these two local authorities in Auckland,” Mr Hawkins said.

“During several days of debate Mr Hutchison did not once seek to move any amendment to that legislation to remove the clauses which will dissolve those councils.

“He really needs to explain what’s going on.

“It doesn’t wash to say one thing in the newspaper and to your local communities and to then act in a completely contradictory fashion and keep silent in Parliament, where you have the ability to make the changes you claim to support,” Mr Hawkins said.

“How can Mr Hutchison now defend the transition agency, whose membership was announced today, when it is charged with signing the death warrant for the Franklin and Rodney councils?

“This type of behaviour just underscores what Labour has been saying all along, that this is a rushed and poorly thought-out process for a very important reform which deserves much more consideration and public consultation than it has got.”

ENDS

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