In a supercity, democracy is measured in minutes.
Whether they had presented 80 words or 80 pages, submitters on the Wellington Reorganisation proposal were given 8 minutes to verbalise their views to the Local Government Commission.
The Commissioners said those who spoke over 8 minutes were ‘selfish’.
What an irony!
It is selfish for some communities to want to spend the rates of other communities on themselves.
It is selfish to demand that other communities are forced to merge no matter how much they don’t want to.
It is selfish to force 450,000 people to adopt your amalgamation idea to fulfill your bureaucratic ego.
After two years working on this project, the Commission gave submitters 8 minutes to speak about it.
That’s what democracy comes down to under a supercity – 8 minutes in which you are derided as selfish.
