Auckland Council asking for law changes on number of councillors

Opportunity to introduce ‘recall the mayor’ legislation.

Six years after the boundaries of Local Boards and Wards were set by the Local Commission the Auckland is now able to propose changes to those boundaries, but cannot change the number of councillors.

Increased population will mean that any boundary changes would also affect the number of Board members and Councillors needed to conform to the formula for fair effective representation.

The law establishing the Auckland Council specified that there should be 20 councillors, which means any changes to boundaries would need to be based on the population ratios to ensure each of the 20 councillors would represent approximately equal population numbers.

This would be contrary to the current Wards and Board which are based on ‘communities of interest’.

The council is applying to the Government for law changes to remove the statutory requirement for 20 councillors, and therefore allow a review of fair representation levels and boundaries in time for the 2019 election.

This presents an opportunity for the council to respond to calls by many ratepayers for legislation to introduce the power to recall the mayor.

There is time for a quick survey on this by the council’s extensive communications team to test such a proposal.

ENDS

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