Sir Roger’s influence on Government’s local body agenda clear
"At the super city select committee today Sir Roger modestly denied his thinking had influenced ACT leader Rodney Hide who as Local Government Minister is leading both the super city project and the review of local government.
"However the local government review has Sir Roger’s fingerprints all over it. The review is considering some of his ideas including scaling back council operations to very limited core services and the requirement of referenda when the councils propose spending increases.
"Sir Roger made it clear in his submission that he considers local government reform part of the unfinished deregulation of New Zealand," said Phil Twyford.
He also advocated:
- immediate privatisation of the ports
- making councils compete with each other by giving ratepayers the choice to opt out of one council and join another
- full user-payers for council services
- giving ratepayers the right to opt out of services like rubbish collection
- reducing the super council to eight councillors elected at large to act as a ‘board of directors’
"It is disturbing that ACT’s extremist ideology which attracted 3.1 per cent of the vote at the last election, was exercising such an influence through Rodney Hide on the Government’s remodelling of local government."
It is now clear the Government’s local government agenda owes much to the philosophy of ACT founder Sir Roger Douglas, said Labour’s Auckland Issues spokesperson Phil Twyford.