“The intention of the community board at the moment is to be proactive about where we go for Waiheke so we don’t want to wait too long to see what the select committee comes back to us with. We will actually be proactive and the purpose of this meeting is to start that ball rolling.

“We’re going to take the ideas from this meeting and get a big picture of what this community wants because we feel that it is an important time and it’s really essential that we have our community behind us and we articulate the desires of our community.”

Community board chairman Tony Sears.

Strong opinions about structuring Waiheke’s place alongside the super city came out of a public meeting held by the community board last Sunday.

More than 50 residents heard and spoke about ideas for designing the future of Waiheke’s governance within the Auckland re-structuring. Nearly all preferred more autonomy from the super council, if not complete autonomy, with only one person saying they wanted to congratulate Auckland City Council for the good job they’d done over the past 12 years.

Several politicians were originally invited but some could not make it and it was decided at the eleventh hour to make the meeting a community based event to canvas local opinions and aspirations.

“It is up to us to determine how we are best going to get what we want from this shakeup of the structure,” said Hauraki Gulf Islands councillor Denise Roche.

Community board chair Tony Sears agreed. “If we can push for greater power through the reorganisation of Auckland then that probably is a good thing for us.

“At the moment I think it’s true, the local community boards are toothless. They do not have the decision-making powers that a place like Waiheke wants or needs. There is an opportunity for us to state a very strong case. At the moment we are in the best possible (position) of any local community for getting what we want.”

“We haven’t been able to get the sorts of decisions we want for our community,” said Cr Roche. “And over the years there has been an erosion of the powers of the community boards and frankly I’m really pleased to see the demise of Auckland City Council.”

She conceded that after the government’s reorganisation it could be worse but remained optimistic that the situation would be better for Waiheke.

When asked what the outcome of the meeting would be Mr Sears responded; “The intention of the community board at the moment is to be proactive about where we go for Waiheke so we don’t want to wait too long to see what the select committee comes back to us with.

“We will actually be proactive and the purpose of this meeting is to start that ball rolling. We’re going to take the ideas from this meeting and get a big picture of what this community wants because we feel that it is an important time and it’s really essential that we have our community behind us and we articulate the desires of our community.”

Many people expressed their ideas of how they see the island being governed and were asked to write them up. They were also invited to add their details to a list to be involved with more in-depth participation. It was tabled that the community board have a group of residents who feed information to and support the board with its facilitation of the end result.

However, Tony Sears spoke to Gulf News the next day and said that this group “was not a steering committee” but it was important to “engage the community and get them working towards an outcome.” He said that the idea is to send an email to those on the list taken at the meeting and invite them to work on three or four different areas. These areas might include; publicity such as a website and law and finance.

At the meeting Waiheke Island Community Planning Group member Pita Rikys focussed on what Waiheke could become and suggested that Waiheke has a chance now “not to be just another local board” and to use this “truly unique opportunity” to not be “trapped in being engaged in a process where we have limited our thoughts, our ambitions, our visions and our dreams.

“The most critical thing we need to perceive today is the full nature and context of the opportunity that we as community have been presented with.” He said Waiheke has an opportunity to come up with whatever model it wants and he believes the community should not limit itself to a few perfunctory functions for the community board to administer.

He recommended “thinking outside the square” and looking at what other governance models there are and what people are doing in other parts of the world.

Mr Rikys met with MP John Carter after the politician’s community meeting last Wednesday and said there were opportunities to advocate for Waiheke.

Community Board chair Tony Sears said that MP John Carter said the local board functions might vary from board to board.

At least one person questioned whether the Auckland Transition Agency or MP John Carter would listen at all.

Surfdale resident Basil Holmes pointed out that the new Auckland mayor will have executive powers and that never in the history of New Zealand has a mayor had so much power over a population. His speech was loudly applauded.

“These people are getting away with the most undemocratic thing that has ever been introduced to this country. We cannot accept this situation. People fought for democracy – this is not a cliché, they actually did. So all these ideas should become our rally cry, so we don’t just ask for these things we demand these things when the time comes, which is now.” •

Minka Firth