M.P. wants two-city Christchurch

Press, 13 August 1986, Page 9

M.P. wants two-city Christchurch

Staff reporters The member of Parliament for Christchurch North, Mr Mike Moore, wants to see a two-city Christchurch, but his support of the Waimairi District Council proposal, rejected by the Local Government Commission, no doubt owes a lot to pressure from voters in his electorate, which coincides largely with the Waimairi district. The Waimairi council and residents have begun a campaign to make members of Parliament well aware of opposition to amalgamation and, in particular, the one-city proposal. Waimairi surveys have shown that the voters — if they must have a change — favour the two-city proposal over a single, enlarged city. The Waimairi District

Chairman, Mrs Margaret Murray, says the council has repeatedly talked to several of the Christchurch members of Parliament, including Mr Moore. It has made clear the strength of the opposition to the Government’s commitment to amalgamation, she says. His opting for the proposal rejected by the commission, and his assurance that he had discussed the issue with the Local Government Commission, departs from the previous Labour line that the commission is independent and cannot be influenced by Government members. Mr Moore has promised to talk further with the commission’s chairman, Mr Brian Elwood, to put the views of the local people. Mr Moore said amalgamation was a political

issue and public interest in Christchurch was high, but the best deal for the ratepayers, in his view, was a two-city proposal. Local government reform was long overdue, and Christchurch councils shbuld get together to put their own proposals via the conciliator appointed by the commission, he said. In fact, that conciliator can only deal specifically with the commission’s present one-city proposal. Mr Moore’s acknowledgement of the political implications of reform is at odds with most of his Labour colleagues in Christchurch. Most maintain they have had little or no correspondence on the subject, or that they cannot intervene in the work of the commission. The latter argument is put by the member for

Lyttelton, Mrs Ann Hercus, who says no politician has any power to interfere with the work of the commission. It is an independent body constituted by law, she says. In response to calls from constituents to conduct a poll on the proposed merger, she has said she had no power to do so. Holding polls was provided for by law. Mrs Hercus has said the requirement for a 50 per cent-plus opposition vote to a merger was not new, but introduced by the previous Government. The member of Parliament for Yaldhurst, Mrs Margaret Austin, whose electorate includes a big part of Waimairi, would not give views on amalgamation. Mrs Austin said amalgamation was an issue to the.

elected members of the authorities concerned. She emphasised that the one-city proposal was by no means certain. The proposal was being misrepresented as something which Waimairi and other bodies were obliged to accept but rather it was something they were being asked to respond to, because they had not come up with proposals of their own. The Local Government Commission was an independent body charged with working with the present Incumbents of local government to come up with a new structure, and for the central Government io meddle in that was inappropriate, she said. The member for St Albans, Mr David Caygill, and the member for Christchurch Central, Mr Geoffrey Palmer, said

they had had little correspondence on the issue. The member of Parliament for Sydenham, Mr Jim Anderton, said that he had no preference for either the one-city or twocity proposal but would support whatever reorganisation gave the most efficiency. Mr Larry Sutherland, Labour’s new candidate for the Avon electorate and virtually certain to be its next member of Parliament, said he was strongly in favour of the one-city proposal. '■ Rates in Avon were exorbitant, and the one-city proposal would even out the burden, he said. The only National member in Christchurch, Mr Philip Burdon (Fendalton), has promised that the National Party would abolish • the commission.