Heated debate leads to ejection

Press, 19 December 1989, Page 1

Heated debate leads to ejection

By

SUZANNE KEEN

and KAY FORRESTER

A CHRISTCHURCH City Councillor was suspended from a council meeting last evening when he repeatedly refused to withdraw remarks made about another councillor during a heated debate on Maori advisory committees. Cr Denis O'Rourke opposed a motion that the council ask the Government to drop draft legislation proposing the committees for all councils in local government. He continually interjected when Cr Pat Harrow spoke in favour of axeing the draft bill. When another councillor said he did not doubt Cr Harrow’s “honest and honourable motives” in moving the motion, Cr O’Rourke said: “That will be the day.” Cr O’Rourke was then asked three times to withdraw his remark by the Mayor, Ms Vicki Buck, because it impugned the motives of another councillor. He declined, claiming his own motives had been impugned. Ms Buck then suspended him from the meeting for five minutes, which expired in time to allow him to return to vote on the motion. The motion was lost on the casting vote of the Mayor, after the vote was tied at 12 votes for and 12 against. The motion was one of three put by Cr Harrow and endorsed by the Fendalton-Waimairi community board of the council last week. The wording of Cr Harrow’s defeated motion was: That the council advise the Minister of Local Government and the Officials Co-ordinating Committee on Local Government that the Local Government Amendment Bill No. 8 should be dropped as such legislation was not only a duplication of effort and a waste of time, but was invidious in that it gave one ethnic group a privileged position in what was supposed to be an equal opportunity and multicultural society. Councillors who voted in favour of the motion were: Crs Derek Anderson, David Buist, Philip Carter, Newton Dodge, Morgan Fahey, Gordon Freeman, John Hanafin, Pat Harrow, Des King, Dennis Rich, Mike Stevens and Ron Wright.

Those against it were: Crs Oscar Alpers, Rex Arbuckle, Alex

Clark, David Close, Mary Corbett, David Cox, Carole Evans, Ishwar Ganda, Noala Massey, Denis O’Rourke and the Mayor, Ms Vicki Buck. The other recommendations from the community board were that all community groups be made aware that they were entitled to convey their thoughts and concerns to the council through the community boards, and that the council make clear its intention to treat all citizens equally and fairly. These were both passed by the council. The council also passed a motion for continued discussion with the Otautahi (local) runanga on appropriate means of consultation with the Maori community. A motion to support the intent of the draft legislation which would create Maori advisory committees was lost by 15 votes to nine. Cr Harrow said: If the bill was passed there was a “very bright future for apartheid in New Zealand.”

Cr Harrow was continually interrupted by Cr O’Rourke, who told him to “read the Treaty.” Cr O’Rourke said that if the council passed Cr Harrow’s motion it would become known as the “redneck capital of the worjd, a title Kaikoura has already made its own.” The Kaikoura District Council is opposed to the committees. The Selwyn District Council opposes them at district council level and the Marlborough District Council does not believe they should be funded by local government. Cr O’Rourke argued that New Zealand was a bicultural society and advisory committees would find ways to give effect to that.

The committees could not promote inequality or privilege. Cr Des King supported Cr Harrow, saying that all New Zealanders were immigrants to the country. “Some came by canoes, some by sailing ships and some by jet plane.” To this Cr O’Rourke replied: “You wouldn’t know a Maori if you saw one.”

Further reports, page 7