Bob Edlin: Mayor Brown misses the matter of ministerial accountability....

Mayor Brown misses the matter of ministerial accountability when he upbraids critics of Auckland’s Maori board

It’s a familiar line of argument – you denounce something as “Maori bashing”.

But Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown has gone further and compared an Auckland City apple (or is it puha?) with a central government pear (or kumera).

He has done this in an article headed…

Bashing Māori representation is a cheap distraction from the real unelected bureaucrats ruling our lives

This week’s storm in a teacup that is bothering the tiny minds of the Auckland Ratepayers Alliance and the smaller minds of ACT and got them rattling their donation buckets is presented as the need to prevent unelected officials from making any decisions.

It is really just another opportunity to bash Māori in the hope of a few votes from the leafy suburbs.

In reality heaps of very important decisions are made by unelected officials often appointed by the ruling parties as rewards for service provided.

Brown’s examples are:

• The Reserve Bank decides how much your mortgage will cost you;
• The NZ Transport Agency spends huge sums on motorways and other projects often chosen for their vote-getting appeal rather than transport effectiveness;
• The NZ Health Agency – “or whatever woke name it currently has” – spends vast fortunes on health “including ridiculously expensive hospitals serving small populations like Dunedin”.

Brown laments that “none of this has raised the hackles of this week’s worriers”.

Those worriers have drawn attention to Auckland Council’s group of Māori who constitute the Independent Māori Statutory Board and who have two members on council committees.

Brown explains that these IMSB members are “chosen” from Māori ranks “by a system that reflects their culture rather than democracy, which has a quite a few faults even if it is the European way”.

Chosen is the critical word. They are not elected by the city’s voters and cannot be held to account by them.

Brown further argues that the IMSB saves council money because it constitutes a form of consultation “way more efficient than having to visit every marae”.

That raises a fascinating question: why would the council have to visit every marae, without the IMSB?

The response can only pertain to Treaty obligations.

PoO is uncertain about the number of marae that – according to Brown – would have to be visited in circumstances which he failed to specify.

We do know that in the 2023 Census, 203,544 usual residents in the Auckland region identified as Māori. This represents 12.3% of Auckland’s total population

It so happens the Asian population of Auckland is 518,178, according to the 2023 Census. This group represents 31.3% of the city’s total population.

They don’t have marae.

There are no Asians on the council, either, although there’s precious little public fuss about this from the hand-wringers who perpetually bleat about the under-representation of Maori.

But Asian have no equivalent of a Waitangi Tribunal to which they might take their grievances about a raw political deal.

The special arrangement for the 12 per cent of the population was delivered under the Local Government (Auckland Council) Act 2009.

Each mana whenua group chooses one representative to sit on a Selection Body.

Its sole function is to appoint the Independent Māori Statutory Board:

• 7 mana whenua representatives, and
• 2 mataawaka representatives (Māori living in Auckland but not mana whenua).

The elected Auckland Council – accountable to the city’s voters – has no role in choosing board members.

Mayor Brown wants us to believe this can be likened to the accountability of the state agencies which he identified.

Let’s see.

Members of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Board are appointed by the Governor-General on the recommendation of the Minister of Finance.

Board members are accountable directly to the Minister of Finance for their collective and individual responsibilities.

Voters can give the Minister of Finance the heave-ho at a general election.

Members of the Health New Zealand (Te Whatu Ora) Board are appointed by the Minister of Health.

Voters can give the Minister of Health the heave-ho at a general election.

The NZ Transport Agency board is appointed by the Minister of Transport.

Voters can give the Minister the heave-ho at a general election.

Mayor Brown said the questions raised about the Independent Māori Statutory Board made him think about the huge influence on our lives by those agencies and by the vast army of bureaucrats in Wellington.

It was a specious line of thinking.

Public servants must account to their Ministers who are accountable to the public.

Race does not (or should not) come into considerations.

It most certainly does come into considerations with the Maori board which Brown has championed.

Bob Edlin is a veteran journalist and editor for the Point of Order blog HERE. - where this article was sourced.