GUEST BLOG: Anjum Rahman – what are they afraid of: the erosion of democracy

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Today the Hamilton City Council has put on a big party to celebrate the 150th anniversary of European colonisation of the area.  There have been a series of events during the year to mark this event, including a civic ceremony.  That event had the presence of representatives from Tainui and an acknowledgement of the issues around colonisation and settlement.  I wasn’t at the whole event today, so I don’t know if there was that kind of acknowledgement but there was no overt presence of tangata whenua that I could see.

But this is not the biggest problem with the Council at present.  I’ve already written about the issues around the sale of pensioner housing.  Even though the vast majority of submitters were against the proposal to sell (275 against, 15 in support), it is almost certain that a sale will go ahead.  The best possible scenario at this point, if the housing is remaining part of the social housing stock, is the sale to a provider of social housing services such as Habitat for Humanity.  Should that kind of sale go ahead, it is likely to be at a 30% discount.  In other words, the ratepayers will be gifting 30% of the value of their asset, against their wishes, to an NGO.  For no other reason than an ideological bent on the part of the Council.

There has also been a change of a crucial policy on consultation, the Significance & Engagement policy.  There was a survey done on this policy in late September, ending on 15th October.  There was little publicity about the survey and the change of policy happened without going through the full consultation process.

I was a candidate at the last campaign, and one of the issues I and other progressive candidates talked about during the campaign was the lack of accessibility of the existing consultation process.  The submission process assumes a degree of literacy that, particularly of documents that can contain complex ideas or legal issues, that are beyond the scope of those who, for example, have English as a second language or who have had other issues with literacy.  The process requires that people have time to read the documents, compose a response, have access to relevant research to strengthen their case.  In a world where some people are working 2 or 3 jobs just to survive, that time is luxury.

Then choosing to follow the written submission with an oral presentation can be another hurdle.  The presentations have to be given in what are working hours for most people, so getting time off can be an issue.  They are a publicly recorded process, and speaking in public and on record in such a formal setting can be pretty daunting for a lot of people.

As part of the campaign, some candidates talked about ways of making the submission process easier, more accessible.  I distinctly recall the Mayor, at that time, acknowledging this as an issue and saying that she would certainly be looking at ways to make it easier for people to give their views to Council.  To then have Councillors shooting hostile questions to submitters to both the sale of pensioner housing and the changes to public safety bylaws (designed to remove homeless from the central city) is the opposite of that.  It is surely designed to reduce the likelihood of people presenting to Council.

On top of that, to have a change to the consultation policy which is designed to reduce the ability of people in the city to have their say on Council decisions is completely unacceptable.  It hard to conclude anything other than the fact that Council wants to reduce the opportunity for the community to give opinions opposing what they wish to do.  Yet a good decision, policy or bylaw should be able to withstand scrutiny and any proposals should be amended when evidence is presented to show there are better options.

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I recall a consultation that was done with ethnic minority communities last year.  One of the main issues that came up at that meeting, called the Ethnic Communities Listening Forum, was the lack of free parking at the CBD.  At the time, the Mayor expressed her disappointment at this being an outcome of the meeting (though it certainly wasn’t the only one or the main one).  But that’s the thing with consultations – they give out answers that might not be what elected officials or staff want.  Yet some present may have been small business owners who felt their business was suffering because of the lack of parking options. Other may have been shoppers who were expressing their frustrations.  That this was an issue for ethnic communities, just as it was for everyone else, is hardly surprising.  But because it didn’t fit in the scope of what is generally considered by some to be “ethnic issues”, the provision of free parking was considered an inappropriate recommendation.

And so we found at this year’s forum that we were limited to discussing migration and settlement issues.  Even though many ethnic minority communities are no longer migrants.  Even though there were strong social and cultural issues needing attention that had little to do with migration.  Some had more to do with the discrimination, others to do with financial issues.  But we weren’t allowed to talk about that stuff, and to complain about it saw a staff member chastising a participant for not being grateful that we were being consulted at all.

There is a reduction of democratic process both from central and local government.  Central government has vastly increased the use of urgency & constantly reduced the amount of time available to make submissions.  And the result has been poor policy due to the lack of information from experts in the field, from people who are directly affected by that policy area and from any interested members of the public who have relevant experiences to share.  The removal of democratic process only happens when a governing body knows that it is about to implement policies that are highly unpopular and cannot be supported by evidence.

The fight to have a say is not one of those popular issues that the public tend to get behind.  And yet it is one of the most important issues we are currently facing.  It’s something that needs a lot more activism and attention.

 

Anjum Rahman. – I fit into a lot of boxes – I’m an ethnic minority (born in india), a religious minority (muslim), and a woman. I’m a mother, an accountant, a political activist and a feminist. All of these form part of my identity to a greater or lesser degree. most of all though, I’m a rebel who refuses to fit neatly into boxes or to conform to the patterns that people expect of me. 

 

2 COMMENTS

  1. Yes ‘they’ are afraid of the erosion of democracy. It is becoming more transparent with everyday, what a sham so called democracy is. It is certainly NOT HELPING the ones it SHOULD BE HELPING.

  2. Great write up Anjum. What you’ve written describes almost perfectly what is happening with my local council in the Wellington region. When you make a submission in person, it’s in a very formal environment where ordinary people are called “his worship” and you’re in a court room setting. Yeah easy for the public to be heard and not to be intimidated…

    It seems as if any important Council change is rushed through with virtually no publicity given. Just recently here there was a change for only 3 elected Councillors instead of the full Council to vote on all Planning Changes. It was just luck that the change didn’t happen. Its things like this that makes me feel the system is defunct and it’s day will come I hope.

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