With a third of the country’s population, government elections are 'won or lost in Auckland'.
Is that why Wellington keeps interfering in how we shape Auckland? We are not some wayward child that needs controlling!
Auckland’s boroughs were amalgamated into seven cities in 1989. In 2010, without consultation or a referendum, the biggest, most costly experiment was pushed on Auckland by Rodney Hyde, backed by John Key, joining these cities together to create a ‘Super City’, pooling their assets together. The intention was one cohesive city, rather than individual areas with piecemeal objectives, to streamline and save costs by stopping the duplication of services in each district, instead using the best throughout all regions. That didn’t happen.
The initial 2010 debt of $3.9b at the inception of the SuperCity has grown to nearly $12b in 2023 as this monster city churns through money with CCO Eke Panuku Development as a property agent and has been selling off public assets in a ‘fire sale’ to finance this sluggish beast.
Beach adjacent, Orewa Council offices in park-like settings sold by Panuku for $15.1m (CV $28.8m).Was then leased back to council for three years for millions of dollars. Within this complex one of the two main buildings cost over $15m to build. The 20-storey inner city Civic Administration Building on 5000+ sqm of prime inner city real estate sold by Panuku for $3m. (The price of a Ponsonby villa on a poky section.) This heritage building was sold with the city coat of arms and is about to massively uplift in value due to its close proximity to the new CRL line. Most of the Waitakere Council site in Henderson was also sold for substantially less than its registered value.
Councillors actually vote to approve these disposals at unbelievably poor return to the public purse, and plan at least $225m per year. There have been attempts at selling the mariners. Several councillors have had their eye on golf courses but the January floods proved how much they’re needed for stormwater absorption along with roads as overland flow paths.
“Repeating the debt, rating and asset sale cycle that has got us to where we are today. In 2023 we’re almost at end-game though with only the balance of the airport shares and the Ports of Auckland left. After that there’s nothing left. Job done in little over a decade and with still no meaningful attempt to address the root causes of a financial malaise that has been building up for years. Quite simply, the decision over the sale of shares in the 23/24 Budget was premature before the next Long Term Plan, without any meaningful attempt to address the much harder task of cutting costs while delivering the same or similar services.” Councillor John Watson
“The exorbitant cost to council’s ‘Operational Budget’ lies in council’s own policies and demands, and it is here that the cause of council’s deficits is to be found and fixed. But if this root cause is not rectified we will never get out of deficit. This is part of the Long Term Plan. My answer is ‘operational savings’: eg, a slip onto a road in West Auckland is going to be handled two or three times and trucked tens of kilometres away to a landfill, when it could have been handled once and disposed of locally, turning a $20k job into a $200k job (calculated guess).” Councillor Ken Turner
“Open the Books,” activist Penny Bright. “A third of costs can be saved by using a tendering system rather than ‘preferred contractors’.”
Auckland Council is the largest employer in the Southern Hemisphere so contractors need to compete for work.
This isn’t scaremongering, Auckland is being held over a financial barrel as Government keeps making decisions that keep costing us and getting us deeper in debt. Other counties have their whole transport system financed out of taxes. They could at least give us back the GST on rates.
Part 2 discusses other costly decisions imposed by Government upon Auckland and how to reduce operational costs. (GAEL BALDOCK)
Long Term Plan akhaveyoursay.nz/futureauckland
GaelB@xtra.co.nz
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Published 3 July 2023