ARC votes to reduce its own voice on transport committee

By MATHEW DEARNALEY

Minority members of the Auckland Regional Council went down fighting yesterday as the council voted to reduce its voice on one of its own committees.

They caused a sensation last month by seizing on the absence of three political opponents to vote all 13 councillors on to the Regional Land Transport Committee, which also includes representatives of city and district councils and various interest groups prescribed by law.

This boosted its membership to 31, prompting councillor Ian Bradley to quip that it was "the biggest committee in the Western world" and to sign a notice of motion with six others to cut the council's representation back to five.

This compares with three council representatives previously.

All seven signatories turned up to a council meeting yesterday to ram through the motion, but not without fierce criticism by minority members Paul Walbran, Sandra Coney and Mike Lee of the high number of non-elected appointees left without apparent accountability to voters.

Committee chairwoman Catherine Harland, leading the motion, said the new Land Transport Management Act required members to be appointed from such interests as economic development, access and mobility, public health and environmental sustainability.

She said the committee was not responsible for spending public money and its role was to establish a regional land transport strategy, for recommendation to the Government agencies Transit NZ and Transfund.

Craig Little said the council had to demonstrate its capability of managing new transport governance responsibilities, yet "some extraordinary development which had all of us springing on to the land transport committee has shown us up to be absolute plonkers".

But Ms Coney said the committee needed representatives with a regional focus to keep a check on "back-scratching" by local interests, and it was scandalous that most appointed representatives voted to accord high priority to the $4 billion eastern highway proposal.

"I don't believe a committee of 22 is any more or less workable than a committee of 31," she said, of the scaled-back membership.

She tried to move that non-elected representatives not be allowed to vote, but was told by council transport director Peter Winder that the new legislation gave them equal membership rights.

Ms Coney said this was not the understanding of Government MPs she had consulted.

She called for a legal opinion under a successful proposal by Mr Walbran that council chief executive Jo Brosnahan report back on ways of improving political accountability on the transport committee.

Mr Walbran, who pushed through last month's resolution for the mass sign-on, said he was not suggesting appointed representatives were unworthy - just that they were not accountable to the electorate.

It meant that if the committee headed in a direction which the public did not like, elected representatives could be voted out of office, leaving appointees with undue influence to press on regardless.

Mr Lee said almost all the council's surviving committee members were elected with expensive advertising support from roading lobbyists, and were determined to push ahead with the eastern highway "whether the people of Auckland like it or not".

He acknowledged to the Herald that he did not count two of those members, Brian Smith or Mr Bradley in that camp, but said his claim remained true of Ms Harland, council chairwoman Gwen Bull and Auckland Chamber of Commerce chief Michael Barnett.