Viewpoint – ‘Bermageddon’ opposed

At last week’s Local Government NZ conference a resolution promoted by Auckland Council and Auckland Transport that sought the power to fine people who park on grass roadside berms that don’t have ‘no parking’ signs, was roundly defeated by smaller councils from across the country.

However the defeat of this move – labelled ‘Bermageddon’ – was probably hardly surprising at a conference where the key issue being discussed was the need for more localism.

Localism is a worldwide movement. It is the idea that people should have control over what happens in their local area, that local businesses and community groups should be supported and that the differences between places should be respected and allowed for. It’s about shifting government decision making closer to the people affected by those decisions – to make the decisions locally at a council level. But why stop there? Why not in Auckland, where over 25 percent of New Zealanders live, devolve what local decision making can be made to local boards who represent smaller local areas?

Examples where decisions should be made locally but are currently not, abound across Auckland Council.

Banning parking on berms might make sense in inner city streets that have few grassed berms anyway but it does not make the same sense in suburban streets like mine, where the grass berm is required to be maintained by adjacent owners like us and, in my situation, is used effectively as a safe school drop off and pick up point for the local primary school or for overflow visitor parking by us or our neighbours. No one size fits all!

A better example for needing to respect local differences is the current review of the Dog Management Bylaw.

Arguing the need for regional consistency, the draft review  proposed, amongst other things, removing our local board time and season rules that had been developed after an extensive hearing process and replacing them with an extended summertime ban on dogs on beaches, shifting it from our current 5pm till 7pm and extending the ban from March 1 to March 31. As a result, local residents in their droves made submissions. Over a quarter of the 8000 submissions came from our local board area alone, with more than 75 percent of them wanting Council to retain our existing time and season rules. Hardly surprising, given that we have the highest level of dog ownership and the greatest number of people living within 500m of a beach. Hopefully in this instance Council will listen and give weighting to local views and allow for local variation.

In less than 100 days, less than half of all eligible voters will choose to vote in our Auckland local body elections.

One of the key reasons cited once again will be that people see their vote as being largely irrelevant and that their voice will be overlooked. No wonder then that the three local government areas with the highest voter turnouts at the last election Chatham Island, 71 percent, McKenzie District, 64.3 percent and Central Hawkes Bay, 62.7 percent, are areas where people do determine local issues at a local level.

Similarly we also need to put people back in charge and reinvigorate our local democracy.

It’s clearly time for a change.