Commission ‘should pay’ for city poll

Press, 19 June 1986, Page 9

Commission ‘should pay’ for city poll

The cost of any poll to challenge the one city proposal for Christchurch should be met by the Local Government Commission, says the chairman of the Waimairi District Council, Mrs Margaret Murray. She was confident that when the opportunity came there would be no problem in getting the required 15 per cent of Waimairi electors to call for a poll. The council had allowed $30,000 in its estimates to meet its share of a poll of electors in Christchurch, Heathcote, Riccarton and Waimairi.

"If you apply the user pays principle then that cost should be passed on to the Department of Internal Affairs through the Local Government Commission,” said Mrs Murray yesterday. If enough people requested a poll the Local Government Commission would have to organise it. People would be given the opportunity to vote for or against the planned single city concept for Christchurch, she said. Under legislation more than 50 per cent would have to vote against the plan for there to be any chance of it being over-

turned. People who did not vote would be considered to be in support of the plan. “Even then the commission only has to consider the poll results. A result against the one city proposal would not automatically mean it would not go ahead,” said Mrs Murray. “The commission will be telling us what we can vote on and that may not even be in Waimairi’s interests so why shouldn’t the commission pay? “People won’t even get the chance to vote on the status quo or the two-city concept,” she said.