August 22, 2019
Showing up part of council job
Auckland mayor Phil Goff has defended the Auckland Māori Statutory Board from an attack by mayoral candidate John Tamihere.
Mr Tamihere says the board is ineffective, and if elected he would push for it to be elected by voters on the Māori electoral roll, rather than appointed by a panel representing iwi.
Mr Goff says the urban Māori champion may be reflecting on his own performance on the board.
"John keeps telling me 'you should be governing, you should be doing more to control these organisations.' The first thing I say to John is 'Hey, you've got to turn up first.' On the finance and performance committee he turned up and went through a whole meeting at maybe one in five meetings. You can't do that. You've got to be there. You've got to be representing your people. You've got to be talking and cross examining, questioning and advocating. If he felt it was ineffective, perhaps it was because he wasn't there a lot of the time," he says.
Mr Goff says Mr Tamihere's latest campaign promise of an 18-land, double decker harbour bridge is fantasy rather than vision, and the success of the northern busway had shown boosting public transport is a better solution to Auckland's transport woes than making space for more cars.
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