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Northern Action Group (NAG) chair Bill Townson says he’s “absolutely disappointed” with New Zealand First’s failure to honour an election promise to a hold a binding referendum on the future of North Rodney.
The NZ First position was outlined by Rodney-based NZ First MP Tracey Martin during the NAG annual meeting held on June 17. NAG has long fought for North Rodney to exit the Auckland Supercity and become an independent authority.
Ms Martin told the meeting that given NZ First secured only 7 per cent of the party vote at the last election, and its coalition party the Labour Party secured more than 40 per cent, it did not want to be seen to be “holding the country to ransom” over the issue.
But Mr Townson said that argument did not stand up to scrutiny, since NZ First did “rock the boat” by successfully opposing Labour’s attempt to repeal the “three strikes” law as part of wider justice reforms.
“The referendum promise was made on several occasions by Tracey at Meet the Candidates meetings prior to the election and Winston Peters made the same promise. The only condition was that they had to be in government – well, they are,” he said.
Mr Townson said on the strength of the NZ First promise many NAG members who were ardent National supporters switched their allegiance to NZ First and some made substantial donations to NZ First.
At the meeting, Ms Martin reiterated that the Labour Party had no appetite to see Rodney break away from the Supercity. Responding to Mr Townson’s criticisms, Ms Martin said NZ First did not “bang its fist on the table” to get its way on the “three strikes” law, rather NZ First had been able to reach an accommodation with Labour on “three strikes”, but had found no such common ground on a binding referendum.
“We are a coalition government. We are governing for the whole of the country. No partner can spit the dummy on a single issue. We have to remain constructive for the country,” she said.
