Another question

Labour proposed amendments requiring the new Auckland Council to have a Pacific Advisory Board and an Asian Advisory Board.

Personally I think it is weird that Labour wants to dictate to the Auckland Council how it consults with ethnic communities, as if it doesn’t trust Aucklanders to be able to work this stuff out for themselves.

But my question is why they have only sought to legislate for a Pacific advisory board and an Asian advisory board? Why have they not championed a South African advisory board? New Zealand has 42,000 residents born in South Africa, and it is well known many of them live in Auckland. More New Zealanders were born in South Africa than in Tonga, Fiji, Korea, and the Cook Islands.

So why is Labour not fighting for South Africans in Auckland to have an advisory board? Is it just they have not reached a certain population threshold? Will they try and introduce a law to create such a board when their population does reach a certain threshold?

Or maybe they could just trust the new Auckland Council to work out how it liaises and consults with the many ethnic communities of Auckland. You see without Phil Twyford telling them how to do their job, they might decide to do things differently. They might realise Indians and Japanese don’t always like being lumped in together, and create separate boards for each. Or they might decide you don’t needs boards at all, and just need regular meetings between Councillors and ethnic community groups. Or they may organise a couple of forums a year open to all such groups.