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Newly-elected Councillor Mike Lee says councillors need to take a new approach in order to fix Auckland Council.
At the Governing Body meeting on November 1, all newly-elected councillors had the chance to give a maiden speech including Waitematā and Gulf ward’s Mike Lee, who said he was not a “maiden in any form”.
Lee sat on the Auckland Regional Council more than 30 years ago and was elected to Auckland Council after the amalgamation. He said he felt his return to Council was because the organisation was in a crisis.
He said the crisis was financial but also cultural, in the way “Council is perceived by the people”.
“It is not one particular CCO or company or section of the super city that is failing.
“It is failing across the board and … the failing starts at the top and only can be fixed at the top.”
Lee said there were some who misguidedly believed Council was doing well and any challenges were because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
He said Council needed to “own the problem” before being able to fix it.
The meeting followed the announcement that nearly 1000 bus services were being suspended by Auckland Transport.
“The people of Auckland have been paying well over the odds in an endeavour to get a world-class public transport system but yesterday, we learned that rather than going ahead, we are going backwards.”
Lee also looked to issues of confidentiality and said Council needed to make sure there was good legal grounds for meetings to exclude the public.
“Up on the 26th floor of 135 Albert Street there (is) a sign that says a lot. It is on its own wooden stand and it seemed it must be used so routinely that it stands there as a permanent fixture. The sign says, ‘Confidential, public excluded’.”
He said the prevalence of confidentiality happened at the local board level as well, with public-excluded workshops.
The most common complaint he heard during his campaign was around consultation rather than rate increases.
“Council and the CCOs almost inevitably have their way and there is a surprising amount of resentment.”
Lee ended on an optimistic note with hope for reform under Mayor Wayne Brown’s leadership and the promise of a “brand new start”.
