Phil Twyford

Prime Minister John Key is being disingenuous in his defence of the so-called Council Controlled Organisations that will run most of the operations of the new Auckland super city, says Labour's Auckland Issues spokesperson Phil Twyford.

"Mr Key said the council actually sets the direction for how that CCO will operate, it appoints those directors and it has the right to remove the chairman and directors like we do with the Crown entities and that there were 40 CCOs in operation across the Auckland region."*

Phil Twyford said Mr Key was ignoring the fact that the Government's super city plan would hand over more than three-quarters of the operations of the city to commercial entities with hand picked directors who will not be directly accountable to the people of Auckland.

"The whole point of the commercial model is to keep the people and their elected representatives at arms-length. These corporate structures will inevitably be less accountable to the people.

"The powerful new transport agency will consume more than half of the rates Aucklanders pay and yet it will effectively be controlled from Wellington with Transport Minister Steven Joyce appointing most of its directors.

"Mr Key wants to pretend that this is entirely normal. Yet every other city in New Zealand runs its transport operation in-house. There is no evidence that running Auckland transport as an arms-length corporate would be any more efficient than running it in house like other councils do, and it will be a lot less accountable to Aucklanders.

"Mr Key's officials from Treasury, Ministry of Economic Development, Ministry for the Environment and the Department of Internal Affairs' local government unit all advised against corporatising Auckland transport. He needs to tell Aucklanders why he has ignored their advice."

Twyford said Aucklanders were alarmed that development of the city's prized waterfront was also being handed over to a commercial entity.

"It is not good enough that such important decisions about the future of our city will be made behind the veil of commercial secrecy.

"Mr Key and Mr Hide seem to want to run Auckland as if it was their private business."