Public to be locked out of transport information

A pretty scary article in today’s NZ Herald about the secrecy that will surround the operation of “Auckland Transport”, should it be established by the Local Government (Auckland Law Reform) Bill:

Secrecy to shroud transport plans
By Bernard Orsman
4:00 AM Friday Feb 12, 2010

The directors of the Super City transport authority will make decisions on everything from major new roads to local footpaths – behind closed doors.

The Government’s third and final piece of Super City legislation excludes Auckland Transport from having to hold public meetings and issue agendas and minutes. The only time it will have to open its doors to the public is for making bylaws.

Auckland Regional Council chairman Mike Lee yesterday criticised plans for the “mega transport authority”, responsible for spending more than half the region’s rate take, to perform its duties in strict privacy.

“The disgraceful case of the Auckland Regional Transport Authority in demolishing the popular Kingdom St railway station in Newmarket during the Christmas holidays is, I suspect, a foretaste of what we can expect from the much larger and stronger Transport Auckland,” he said.

Waitakere Deputy Mayor Penny Hulse was also critical of the public being shut out.

“What are the issues councillors are most contacted about? It is roads, public transport, cycleways, speed limits,” she said.

“It is possible that decisions on major projects, such as the Waterview tunnel or proposed motorway through Onehunga, will be made by shadowy Government lackeys without any consultation with local people.”

Another worry was that the Auckland Council was forbidden to deal with any transport matters unless they were delegated by the transport body.

That, in turn, would reduce the chances of local boards having any real input into transport issues in their communities, she said.

Auckland Transport will be responsible for spending about $1.5 billion a year on roads and public transport.

The Auckland Council will set the strategic direction of the “council-controlled organisation”, but Auckland Transport will be responsible for transport matters right down to the location of bus stops and footpaths.

It will be run by between six and eight directors, two of whom can be members of the Auckland Council. The New Zealand Transport Agency can also appointed one non-voting director.

Local Government Minister Rodney Hide and Transport Minister Steven Joyce will appoint the initial directors.

Although Auckland Transport will conduct its business behind closed doors, it will still be subject to the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act – albeit giving answers weeks or months after any decision.

Mr Hide said council-controlled organisations did not have to hold public meetings under the Local Government Act 2002 and the provision for Auckland Transport to open its doors when making bylaws provided more public access than was the case now.

Mr Joyce said the approach taken was to ensure there was transparency of decision making around Auckland Transports’ regulatory role.

This had to be balanced against the administrative burden of publishing agendas and minutes. It was a decision made by officials and further thought would be given to this issue based on submissions to the bill, he said.

“Councillors won’t have time to micromanage every aspect of transport … this is a whole new league in terms of … size,” he said last September.

Submissions on the final piece of Super City legislation, the Local Government (Auckland Law Reform) Bill, close today.

On a personal note, it would be a huge blow for my blog if this is to go ahead, and I certainly hope that “further thought” is put into whether it really makes sense to operate the board meetings of Auckland Transport behind closed doors. Whilst I don’t exactly attend meetings of the Auckland City Council Transport Committee, the ARC Transport and Urban Development Committee, the Regional Transport Committee or ARTA’s board meetings, as the links in this sentence indicate – the agenda and minutes are publicly available for all these meetings. In fact I scan them regularly to find information to write blog posts about.

Without public access to this information, we would have never known about the recently released information on the CBD Rail Tunnel project, we wouldn’t know the patronage trends for public transport (except for the once every year update ARTA provides publicly), we wouldn’t know what hard work Auckland City Council is putting in to mitigate the adverse effects of the Waterview Connection. While a lot of this information – in the form of agenda items or meeting notes, is rather difficult to wade through and make sense out of, that is the purpose of this blog. I don’t have a hot-line to every council in Auckland, I rely on information that is already out there in the public domain, but I sift through it to find what I think is going to be most interesting, post it up and comment on it. Without the raw material, there’s nothing to post on. Potentially, it could make keeping this blog informative and relevant very difficult if I did not have access to what Auckland Transport are up to.

So that’s how I think my blog could be affected. But really, that’s just me and the few hundred visitors a day I get to this site. What about everyone else? Well I also think they will be affected too. On many occasions the NZ Herald seems to have its reporters scouring the same meeting agendas as I do, while I also think that mainstream media quite rightly piggy-backs off some of the stuff that my blog and Aucklandtrains puts together as posts. Once again, without the raw information being easily accessible, I think everyone does lose – as we will have far less of an idea about what’s going on in improving our city’s transport. And when over half the city’s rates get spent on transport of one kind or another, that does seem pretty unacceptable.

Speaking of Aucklandtrains, I think Jon C has summed up this situation best of all:

The government decision to let the forthcoming all-powerful supercity Auckland transport authority operate in total secrecy is a disgrace.

We must fight it.

Transport Auckland, which takes over every minor and major decision involving transport in our lives (even where bus stops are located) by the new legislation, is not required to tell anyone what’s doing and deciding, at least not until after the event when it’s too late.

That means we literally will wake up one day and find changes in our transport lives about which we had no say and no prior knowledge.

This is an age of open democracy, thanks in part to the internet and local bodies are making far more of their decision – making transparent. The official reason why not even the new transport authority’s agendas will be available so we can read in advance or later what the council decides is given as being the bureaucratic administrative work involved in making them available. And the public – that’s you – can’t attend any meetings to find out what’s happening.

That’s plainly absurd. Even little councils around the country are putting such information online. It’s easy to do. This super – city mega-body will be a bureaucracy and after all, you and I will be paying both the salaries of the business people running it and paying for the millions being spent on the projects. That all comes from our pockets.

But the truth as we know is that it’s because the all-powerful council wants to hide what it’s working on.

ARC’s Mike Lee is spot on when he suggests the secrecy behind the hasty removal of the Newmarket West train station at Christmas without any public debate is a sign of what’s ahead.

Presently, there are far too many cooks in the kitchen when it comes to Auckland transport policy. Creating a separate entity makes sense. But not one that can operate in total secrecy.

A private company can make boardroom decisions to which only shareholders need to be informed. This is a public body that will be in charge of half the Auckland super-city rating revenue.

You will no longer be able to call your councillor about transport issues be it a cycle lane or bus stop location.

The council will tell you it’s a transport authority matter now.
This cone of secrecy must not be allowed to happen.

Well said Jon, well said.

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