HEARINGS ON WARD ISSUE LIKELY

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33153, 17 February 1973, Page 1

HEARINGS ON WARD ISSUE LIKELY

(By a staff reporter)

The special order fixing the boundaries of wards in Christchurch City for voting at the local body elections next year will probably not be confirmed at the meeting of the City Council on Monday evening. The resolution confirming the boundaries of the five wards is on the agenda paper, but it is unlikely to be put. This is because it seems likely that the council will decide to hold public hearings of submissions lodged, objecting to the proposed boundaries and objecting to the introduction of the ward system.

The council sub-commit-tee appointed to draw up the boundaries — the Deputy Mayor (Cr R. M. Macfarlane) and Crs D. R. Dowell and W. Massey—will meet on Monday morning. They will decide whether to recommend to the council that evening that hearings of objections be held.

Eleven objections to the proposed wards have been lodged with the Town Clerk (Mr M. B. Hayes). They include a, petition, containing about 90 names, lodged by Cr H. L. Garrett, and a formal objection lodged by the chairman of the Citizens’ Association (Mr M. O, Holdsworth). The City Council, under the Municipal Corporations Act, 1954, is not obliged to hold formal or public hearings of submissions; but it seems likely that a majority of Labour councillors are in favour of holding the hearings so that justice is not only done but seen to be done. In that respect, it is

likely that Labour councillors would like publicly to answer the Citizens’ Association charge that the proposed wards contain disproportionate numbers of electors, and that the wards are based on population figures rather than numbers of electors. Labour councillors point out that the Citizens’ Association figures are based on the 1966 census, which takes no account of change in population trends towards the suburbs, and no account of new 20-year-old

voters who may total 14,000 by October-Novem-ber, 1974.

If hearings are held, the existing committee of three, all Labour councillors, is likely to hear them. The Citizens’ councillors declined, on principle, an invitation to appoint a councillor to the committee.

Whether they will want a councillor on the committee if formal hearings are held poses an interesting question.