Wednesday, May 30, 2012



A move towards transparency in Auckland

The Auckland Council is working on a register of councillor's financial interests, modelled on that used for MPs. Good. Such registers are a vital mechanism for ensuring clean government and ensuring that elected officials are not using their positions to enrich themselves. The question now is whether councillors support such transparency, or whether they support corruption. Fortunately council votes are public, so we'll be able to see exactly where they stand.

(Meanwhile, the Department of Internal Affairs' review of the Local Authorities (Members’ Interests) Act 1968 has been sitting around for six months, and action should be coming soon. I'm surprised though that the submissions haven't been published. It would be nice to see whether any of our councils were actually shameless enough to oppose greater transparency...)