MANA Wellington Local Body Policy

The purpose of local government in Wellington will be to provide for social, economic, environmental and cultural wellbeing.

All people should be able to democratically participate in all decisionmaking.
Local and Regional Councils should work for the people, not for business and as
such should be run for people rather than as a business and should ensure Treaty obligations are understood and actioned.

We support Wellington City being a Living Wage City where all staff and contractor employees are paid a living wage as a minimum.

When policies are developed their impact on children should be assessed.

Local bodies should assist improved access to healthy, affordable food (eg., food banks, urban gardens and orchards).

Housing

1. No rent should put a tenant into hardship. Rents for Council housing should be income-related, the percentage of household income paid in rent should not exceed 25%.
2. The Council must build more housing and be involved in providing housing and other related support in line with the need to meet a diverse range of adversity.
3. There should be services such as clinics and community gardens close to living spaces.
4. The Council should regulate to ensure that all housing has good heating and insulation, and is of a good liveable standard.

Water

1. Maintain the mauri of all water bodies by resourcing local communities to monitor their own waterways.
2. Ensure all New Zealanders have access to potable water.
3. Water for domestic use should be paid for from Council funds. Water supplies will be retained as a public good, managed locally and not onsold as assets to corporations. There should be no charge to domestic users of water for the amount they use and no water meters for this purpose. There should be no uniform annual charge for water or sewerage.
4. Water and water assets should be owned and managed directly by publicly-elected bodies, not by arms-length organisations and companies.
5. MANA supports water collection on every property and the reuse of grey water, and subsidies to assist this.
6. All wastewater is to be treated to food gathering standard and then discharged through land (unless the soil is unsuitable), rather than directly into streams rivers or the sea. Stormwater outlets adjacent to sealed roads will have silt traps to filter runoff.
7. Encourage riparian planting along all waterways.
8. City and Regional Councils should put more resources into alternative sources of supply and fixing leaks.
9. To support this Councils should have green plumbers, who will replace tap washers, fix leaks etc.

People’s Democracy & Local Body Reorganisation

1. Local government in Wellington should work through a system of participatory
democracy whereby all people can participate in decision making through neighbourhood councils which would then feed decisions to community, area and regional bodies.

2.The provision of regional and local public services should be managed directly by
publicly-elected bodies and not handed over to council-controlled organisations.

3. There should be designated Maori seats on all local authorities.

Managing Public Assets and Services

Regional and local public services should be managed and provided directly by publicly-elected bodies, not by council-controlled organisations or contractors.

Parking meters should come under direct control of the City Council.

Finance

1. Rates on commercial properties should be higher than rates on residential property.

2. When a Council needs to borrow money it should borrow from Government or
co-operatively-owned banks.

Transport

MANA supports improved public transport. In particular:

1.The Regional Council should campaign for more funding from central government for public transport.
3. Bus fares should be frozen.
4. Off-peak fares should be free for gold and community services cardholders and gold
card should apply all day.
5. Public transport should be free to all children (definition of child 17 years and under).
6. Frequency of services should be increased and there should be more use
of trolleybuses.
7. Public transport operations should be under direct control of Regional Council.

MANA opposes the proposed flyover next to the Basin Reserve.

Manners Mall should be reinstated

For better safety and to encourage walking and cycling, there should be better separation between pedestrians, cycling and motorised transport.

Community Facilities

More resources need to go into making suburbs pleasant places to live, including community centres in smaller suburbs.

More basic health facilities such as drinking fountains, public toilets and rubbish bins.

We oppose increases in library charges without loss of service.

More support and proper funding for community centres.

Liquor and Gambling

We support the reduction in the number of gambling venues and liqour outlets, and we support measures for greater regulation of these two industries by providing for a community veto on pokie venues, liquor outlets and fast food companies in local neighbourhoods.

The local Council should support organisations which are helping with addiction issues.

Environment

MANA believes that Councils should give hapū and iwi decision-making status equal to Councils in developing environmental policies relating to biodiversity, prospecting, the management of coastal areas and RMA plans so they can exercise kaitiakitanga over lands, coastal areas and waterways.

Action Section 33 of the RMA which allows local authorities to hand over functions, powers and duties to iwi.
MANA opposes fracking and deep-sea oil drilling. We believe that Wellington should declare itself to be a frack-free and oil-drilling free zone.

Councils should plan to move away from the use of fossil fuels and support the
use of clean, renewable energy resources.

Food Sovereignty

Ban the growing and experimentation of GE and GM crops.

Support the development of alternative food production, ownership and distribution methods to enable New Zealanders independence from international food companies and local supermarket chains.

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