Rodney Hide has announced his appointments to the oligarchical board which will run Auckland's transitional dictatorship - and as expected, its dominated by businessmen:
Mark Ford, chief executive of the region's water wholesaler, Watercare Services, and chairman of the Auckland Regional Transport Authority is to chair the Auckland Transition Agency, as widely expected.The message couldn't be clearer: Hide thinks goverment is "like a business", to be run "efficiently". Democracy apparently is a waste of time.[...]
Accountant John Waller, who chairs the Bank of New Zealand and the Eden Park Redevelopment Board, and Wayne Walden, a former boss of Farmers Deka and former Maori Television chairman also join the agency, along with former Rodney mayor John Law and lawyer Miriam Dean, QC.
As for accountability, these people aren't elected by the people of Auckland, and they're certainly not responsible to them. They don't have to fear being held accountable by the people in democratic elections. instead, the only person they have to keep happy is the Minister. And when they screw up, the people won't get a chance to summarily de-elect them pour encourager les autres - instead they'll just glide on to their next fat business appointment, with a new bunch of "shareholders" to screw over.
Thanks to Hide, Aucklanders are now subjects rather than citizens in their local government. And while they can't hold the oligarch's democratically accountable, they can certainly do that to Hide and his enablers in the National Party. Something to remember for 2011...