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Transport levy will add 4% to average rates bill

30/4/2015

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Updated 10am
The Mayor’s proposed motorway toll would require a law change so instead Len Brown wants to add to the rates distress being felt by all Aucklanders by introducing a transport levy of ‘a few dollars a week’ according to a report on Stuff today.

The average residential ratepayer pays $2600 a year in rates. Every $1 a week added to the bill adds roughly 2% to residential rates. I hear from sources close to Council the Mayor wants to tax everyone with a targeted transport levy of $100 or roughly $2 a week i.e. a 4% rates rise. 


This extra tax would stay even if the Mayor persuades the government to introduce a motorway toll.

Aucklanders should pay a levy of a few dollars a week on top of their rates to kick-start transport developments in the city, Mayor Len Brown believes.

The suggestion will come in the mayor's report to Thursday's council meeting on Auckland's draft 10-year budget, it is understood.

Feedback on the draft budget in March and April showed that around half of Aucklanders want significantly more investment in transport, and support the council's $10.3 billion accelerated transport plan.

A similar proportion of people are prepared to pay a $2 per trip motorway charge to fund it.

However tolling Auckland's motorways would require a law change by central government plus the setting up of a complex tolling system on the city's network of state highways.

Brown is believed to be in favour of collecting an interim transport levy from ratepayers until that infrastructure is put in place.

Add this to the ‘few dollars a week’ Aucklanders are being asked to find for new charges for rubbish and recycling and other ‘user pays’ such as water rates, as well as rates rises up to five times the rate of inflation then you can see why Aucklanders need a Ratepayers Alliance to hold Auckland Council to account. You can join the Auckland ratepayers' Alliance  here www.ratepayers.nz Membership is free and open to all Aucklanders.

At the same time core services are being cut to the bone.  

Extravagant transport projects such as the Central Rail Link have the ability to bankrupt the city and that is exactly what they are doing.

If the latest reports are correct then we have an outrageous rates rise in the offing. This will only increase the calls for the Government to step in and put Auckland into statutory management before the Mayor sends us all bankrupt.

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Key support flagging? Well, no and yes

29/4/2015

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John Key has been a popular Prime Minister and to judge by the results of today’s Herald Digipoll his support is as solid as ever. The result shows even the ponytail hair tugging incident has hardly dented his reputation as a nice guy in touch with the people. This will irritate National's opposition and mainstream media who have used the incident as a beat-up.

The ponytail-pulling antics of Prime Minister John Key appear to have had no immediate impact on his party or personal popularity, the latest Herald-DigiPoll survey suggests.

Half of the poll was conducted before the news broke that he had repeatedly pulled the ponytail of a waitress at a Parnell cafe despite her annoyance, and half of the poll was conducted after it.

DigiPoll general manager Nandan Modak said National dropped 0.7 percentage points in the second half of the polling and Mr Key dropped 0.8 points.

Overall National polled 51 per cent, marginally up on party support in December from 50.4.

Its support among women, 45.4 per cent, is the same as it was in December.

Mr Key's popularity as preferred Prime Minister is down marginally to 64.6 from 65 per cent in December, which was the first full poll after the September general election.

This shows a mature attitude by the New Zealand public at large.  They recognise that the Government’s main function is to manage the economy. John Key, Bill English and National continue to outperform the rest of the OECD countries in this respect. While this remains the case the country will keep rewarding this government with its support.

The ponytail tugging incident is such an obvious political beat-up by the opposition and mainstream media over a trifling affair that it has got people’s backs up but not in the way intended.  

What has got people’s backs up, and is doing John Key no good at all, is his messing with the national psyche over the New Zealand flag.  There seems to be no reason for Key to have instigated this ‘cause’ except some vain desire to leave a ‘legacy’, as I have said since the idea was first mooted over a year ago.

It is this silly project that is calling his premiership into question. The flag debate is causing as much, if not more, angst among his natural voters as it does the public at large. The timing could not be worse, coming as it does in the midst of WWI commemorations and the ANZAC Gallipoli 100th anniversary.  There was and is no momentum for change at the grass roots level and that is where any debate about the flag should start.


The latest polls suggest he is in for a drubbing and rightly so.
John Key’s dreams of securing a legacy in a new national flag are fast melting away.

The poll conducted by Yahoo New Zealand of 7,321 people found that opposition to a new national flag is at an all-time, record-breaking high.

Of those surveyed, 77% said they were opposed to a flag change compared to just 21% who supported the Prime Minister in his ambitions. 2% were uncommitted or unsure.

It is the unsure voters Key is trying to woo as he has admitted to numerous media companies that, as it currently stands, New Zealanders are not in favour of a flag change.

The whole thing is a gift to the opposition and shows a misreading of the mood of the public. 

Pride and arrogance are the enemies of third term governments and as the flag debate goes on it will cause more and more damage to Key’s reputation.
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Is Skypath another Heart of the City debacle in the making?

28/4/2015

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The Heart of the City debacle highlights a growing problem faced by Auckland ratepayers, namely the lack of accountability when Council hands ratepayers' money over to Trusts.

Alex Swney created the Heart of the City (HoC) Trust, was its Chief Executive, and got Auckland Council to fund it through a targeted rate. He ripped off the ratepayer to the tune of $4 million. It took the intervention by the IRD and SFO to finally bring the crook to justice.

You’d think following the HoC experience that Auckland Council would have learned to be very wary indeed of backing Trusts, especially ones where large sums of ratepayers money are involved, and especially one involving Alex Swney.  Alas no.

Swney was a founding Trustee of the Auckland Harbour Bridge Pathway Trust (the Trust). The Trust has been established to promote a cycle/pedestrian bridge over Auckland’s Waitemata Harbour called Skypath. The Trust claimed that Skypath would be financially self-supporting and the Trust would be responsible for getting all the necessary funding. After 20 years the Trust would gift the facility to the City.

This must have sounded too good to be true to Council officers and some elected representatives because before long they were backing the project.

You know what they say, if it sounds too good to be true then it probably is.

Originally the scheme was backed by Infrasol (NZ) Ltd. a division of Hopper Developments Ltd. Hopper withdrew from the Trust early on, following difficulties with the Trust as to interpretations of data relating to patronage and cost.

Another finance backer was found, Morrison & Co (Morrison). Morrison proposes to draw upon public money - via the NZ Pension Fund.

However, a new scenario developed under Morrison. Morrison will not provide any funding to the project whatsoever, without Council’s underwrite.

So now we are in a whole new ball game, one that should be sounding warning bells throughout Council.

The Trust and its financier explained that they would meet the first 25% of the project’s risk (the most risky risk, as the Trust explained). However, the Trust claimed that Council’s risk was minimal, because SkyPath’s patronage assessments demonstrated that it was easily self-supporting. These additional sweeteners proved too much for Council to resist.

The fact is however, that SkyPath hasn’t the remotest prayer of meeting its patronage assessments. Here's why:


Two real life comparisons


London Eye
SkyPath’s peak patronage assessment for year 1 exceeds that of the long established London Eye. The London Eye is immediately accessible by foot, car, bus, ferry and tube, has two carparking buildings, cafes, lounges, is spectacular, World famous and supported by a tourism industry and resident population that dwarfs that of SkyPath. 

Sydney Harbour Bridge

Sydney Harbour Bridge - Saturday 22nd November 2014
Perfect weather, free, flat, safely separated cyclist and pedestrian pathways, easily accessible, immediately adjacent to intensively built-up areas and major tourism attractions.


54 pedestrians, 2 cyclists, 5 security personnel - between 12 noon and 1pm.

Obviously not the 9,000 - 23,000 ticket sales every Saturday, all summer - assessed and needed for SkyPath’s financial viability and 
Council’s corresponding underwrite, for its first 20 years.

You can see from yesterday’s blog how Cycle Action, the group lobbying for taxpayer and ratepayer funding for ever more cycleways including Skypath, via its veteran spokesperson Barbara Cuthbert, admitted in the Herald that the Grafton Gully cycleway “patronage has been modest so far”, which as I said is PR speak for virtually no-one uses this white elephant.

Additionally, SkyPath’s calculated overhead running cost is less than the Council underwrite the Trust has sought. This distortion in the Trust’s public relations onslaught means that if Council continues to underwrite SkyPath on the terms sought by the Trust and its financier, the Trust and its financier would face NO risk, and Council would face and pay for THE LOT . 

Meanwhile, The Trust and Morrison would be left with their guaranteed, unaudited management fees - which is where all the money is in this venture.

The Trust’s revenue base is identical to that which Alex Swney set up for Heart of the City.  That is to say, the Trust lobbies Government and Local Government agencies to fund its commercial enterprise and its all-pervasive self promotion.  

The SkyPath Trust has to date gained approximately $2 million in public monies and public financial support and for that, it has now finally produced a resource consent application that is riddled with unresolved problems. Some of these are pointed out in the NZTA submission to the resource consent citing structural, operational and other concerns through the licence to occupy process. Details are provided by Cllr George Wood. 

While Swney was under investigation, and held name suppression, he remained a Trustee of the SkyPath Trust and the Trust successfully elevated its status to that of a Charitable Trust. 

Also during that time, the Trust applied for and received significant sums of public monies and support, particularly from Auckland Council. 

Many other infrastructural projects of similar size cost less than $250K for their resource consent processing. The Trust secured an underwrite of $588K from Auckland Council, for its resource consent process alone.  

The Trust’s recent campaign to gain support for its project from people around the World clicking a 30-second support vote was great PR, but relied on ignorance of the project’s detrimental effects. 

Detremental effects include, amongst other things, having to make room in the Heritage area of Northcote Point, for parking, toilets, cars driving right under the proposed bridge, and another cycleway north.

The Trust recently started a fund-raising campaign branded “Give a Little”, based on the Trust’s claim that SkyPath’s structural issues were solved. They were not at the time, and are not now as shown by the NZTA submission. 

In the real world, most of us know the fate of many company directors who make unsubstantiated claims about the viability of their interests, for the purpose of gaining funding from the public. 

Unfortunately, if this project goes ahead, there might not be a fairy-tale ending with everyone living happily ever after.

Certainly, the four Trustees and the financier would live very happily indeed.

However if the project is approved, Council and its ratepayers will be woken from their deep slumber, by a wicked witch named Reality.  At that stage, the twinkle in Skypath’s sketchy promises, will be replaced by PAY NOW demands for this $50M - $100M folly.

* Much of the background information for this blog has been supplied by Kevin Clarke. He is an experienced architect and urban designer who has been engaged to advise Courts, Councils, barristers, architects and building contractors in litigated building disputes.
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Cycleway appeases Green hypocrites

27/4/2015

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PictureEmpty Grafton Gully cycleway
Taxpayers of New Zealand and ratepayers of Auckland will be wondering if Blue/Green National and Red/Green Auckland Council haven’t lost their collective minds spending $11 million of our money on a cycle-only bridge and cycleway high above Auckland’s spaghetti junction and down through some of Auckland’s busiest streets.

Add this to the $16.5 million wasted last year on a virtually unused cycleway through Grafton Gully and you can easily see why Auckland is so short of cash for essential infrastructure.

Yet another expensive cycle-only project is being planned as an add-on to the $30 million already wasted. So that will likely be $50 million for an activity in decline as a commuting option, and which favours a few inner city lycra clad greenies at the expense of much needed infrastructure projects in all the 21 local board areas around Auckland except Waitemata.

Eye-wateringly wasteful of taxpayers and ratepayers money though these cycle projects are they pale into insignificance compared to the money Auckland ratepayers will have to stump up if the Skypath, a cycle bridge over the Waitemata harbour, gets the go ahead. More on this tomorrow.

Mind you, not a single one of the environmentally sensitive sustainability bunnies of Cycle Action and their friends in the Greens, thought it mattered that native trees had been felled in the process.


Although the clearance of pittosporum shrubs and trees up to about 3m high has raised eyebrows among some passers-by, Cycle Action Auckland's Barbara Cuthbert says that is an acceptable sacrifice and the Transport Agency has a good track record of re-vegetating motorway corridors.

"It doesn't give me a single qualm - this bridge will be such an asset to Auckland and I am sure NZTA will be happy to plant more pittosporum," she said.

What hypocrites these people are. They ‘care’ when native trees are removed to make way for roads or houses but not for cycleways. 
She is also looking forward to the image of free-flowing cyclists whizzing over grid-locked traffic.
And why is traffic grid-locked? Because car space on the roads is being squeezed to make way for cycleways and bus lanes. The more congestion Auckland Transport can devise the more ‘justification’ they can claim for spending money on vanity transport projects that are bankrupting the city and useless for keeping the city moving.
"That is exactly the reality of Auckland - our roads are going to become more and more congested, but more and more people are going to use cycleways." 
There speaks the authentic voice of the totalitarian down the ages.
Although patronage has been modest so far, Mrs Cuthbert said the two cycleways would "feed each other" by creating more of a circuit through downtown Auckland for safer off-road riding.
‘Patronage is modest’ is PR speak for ‘nobody is using the white elephant we have created’.

But I tell you what. The people of Auckland aren’t so easily bullied.

Car registrations are at an all time high. People are moving to the suburbs to enjoy a more stress free life. Less than 17% of all Aucklanders commute to the city centre.

It’s all just a whopping waste of ratepayers and taxpayers money.

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White poppy wearers dishonour our ANZAC heroes

26/4/2015

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PictureThe eco-terrorist and white poppy wearer Tavares
Yesterday the nation paid tribute to all those who have sacrificed their lives in conflict, as it does on each ANZAC Day. This year the commemorations were particularly poignant as we reached the 100th Anniversary of Gallipoli and remembered those Australians and New Zealanders who fought side by side in brotherhood and comradeship. Those gallant heroes sacrificied their todays so we could enjoy our tomorrows.

Each year the RSA raises money through its Red Poppy Appeal, one of the oldest nationwide appeals, because veterans and their families still need support. The red poppy is a sacred symbol of hope and remembrance and is worn with pride by most people during ANZAC Week. It was worn by nearly all those who attended the 11am service at the Waiheke RSA yesterday.

How sad then that one highly politicised group has chosen to piggyback their own appeal at this time. Worse still, they have chosen a white poppy as their symbol. White the colour of surrender as much as the colour of peace. It has been deliberately designed to dishonour our ANZAC heroes.

I have no problem with peace groups fundraising or raising awareness of their campaign. It is their right. Peace groups have plenty of recognisable symbols of their own including the white dove with olive branch, so the choice of a white poppy and timing of their appeal to coincide with ANZAC Day is deliberate, provocative (some might say belligerent) and unnecessary.

Sadly Michael Tavares, Waiheke’s Green Party convenor and representative of the absent Waiheke resident and hard left Green Party list MP Denise Roche at yesterday’s 11am service, chose to wear a white poppy.

This is what the editor of the Daily Telegraph had to say about the white poppy wearers at the UK Remembrance Day services.


At the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, I am sure the thoughts of all Telegraph readers will be with those British and Commonwealth Service men and women who fell in the defence of our liberty.

But spare a thought, too, for the men and women of the White Poppy Appeal. And don't make it a kind thought. This wretched outfit "believes that there are better ways of solving conflicts than killing strangers". That is how they describe the sacrifice of British and Allied lives in the inescapable war against Nazi Germany and the Axis powers.

People who wear white poppies…. not only dishonour our war dead: they also assert their supposed moral superiority over the 40 million Britons who wear British Legion red poppies.

What should you do if you see a white poppy wearer today? At the very least – if I may borrow a phrase from my colleague Alan Cochrane – you should give them a cheery wave not involving the use of all your fingers.

Michael Tavares chose to dishonour our ANZAC heroes last year. He did so again yesterday. The Green Party and its local list MP, who chose him as their representative knowing full well his views, also dishonour our ANZACs. 

Lest we forget.
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'Poor Me' Board cries over spilt milk

24/4/2015

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PictureCouldn't find a cartoon of a guy who doesn't own a tie
The Gulf (Green Taliban) News, the Waiheke Local Board’s propaganda sheet, was in overdrive this week blaming Mayor Len Brown for all the Board's woes like a bunch of schoolchildren crying over spilt milk.

And what a lot of milk the Board members have spilt.

They wasted $1.4 million handed to them on a platter by the first Waiheke Local Board because they didn’t want to spend it on the projects for which it was allocated.

Then they lost all the precious money allocated for SLIPs (Small Local Improvement Projects), totalling nearly $1 million a year for the next 10 years, won by the first Waiheke Local Board, because they didn’t understand that small local improvement projects didn’t mean providing themselves with a slush fund or buying themselves a BBQ or taking themselves and their mates on a junket around the Gulf or handing money over for ‘Youth Voice’.

The Board has a reputation for nepotism, cronyism, and not fulfilling its promises. This is a bad look, no doubt about it, but how do you spin it so it looks like it’s all someone else’s fault? You blame the Mayor Len Brown and you muddy the waters.

Brown is an easy target. He’s been an appalling Mayor. Goodness only knows I’ve written about how bad he is many times. But he’s not to blame for the waste of money that has been the hallmark of this Board’s first 18 months.

That leaves muddying the waters and who better to do that than old Muddy Waters herself, editor of the Gulf (Green Taliban) News, Liz Waters.

Let’s take a look at the claims made yesterday.

The Board has lost funding of $660,000 a year.

True, that is the loss of SLIPs funding. Then this astounding claim, “Local Boards will no longer be able to use a Local Driven Initiatives Fund (LDIF) for major new facilities”.

Stop right there. It makes it sound as though the Local Driven Initiatives Fund is the same as SLIPs. It is not, nor can the LDIF be used for funding ‘major new facilities’. The LDIF is for things like local events and community grants which have now been put under one umbrella at an annual budget of around $100k for this Board to waste.

By muddying the waters in this way Chair of the Board, Paul Walden is then allowed to blame the Mayor and Council for all the milk spilt by this Board. No new pool, no footpaths to the schools, no Matiatia masterplan. All the ‘Essentially Waiheke’ Team promises made before this Board was elected are now nothing but a milky mess on the floor.

The petulant schoolboy Walden then cries foul. “What they’re proposing does not accord with the law” (that his bush lawyer Dad speaking), “so they need to allocate a bucket of money to us.” Oh dear, hardly Chair of Local Board material is he?

What does not accord with the law Mr Walden is your board “considering borrowing money from the Council”. Haven’t you learned anything yet? Local boards cannot do that.

The trouble is Mr Walden has had a bucket of money to spend over the last year, nearly a million dollars worth. Easily enough to have built footpaths to the schools or to Matiatia or develop yet another Matiatia masterplan. But no, Mr Walden has chosen instead  to spend the money on a vanity project, the Bridle Bridge to Brigadoon, for himself and 15 horse riders from the Riding Club, an outboard motor to be used by the Sea Scouts, a survey on a northern beaches Marine Reserve and yet another to replicate Auckland Transport’s own surveys on the Esplanade, as well as countless other plans, surveys, and consultant’s reports.

Then he bleats “it’s difficult to get Auckland Transport to give any priority to anything other than building roads.” Presumably he has forgotten that a very generous Auckland Transport has given the Board $200,000 a year to spend at its discretion. This, too, could have been used to fund ‘footpaths to the schools’. Indeed such a project was already funded and awaiting completion when this board took office. Instead he has chosen to spend the money on a seawall to enhance the living for down and outs on the Causeway and a bridle path (another one) beside Onetangi Rd from O’Brien Rd to Erua Rd. This virtually completes a bridle path from his Dad’s place to his own.

Walden then says “The latest threat to funding fuels plans to seek an independent council for the island.”

I’m sure by now that you have all figured out where this article in the Green Taliban News was going. Lies, obfuscation and lots of ‘poor me’ designed to fool the ratepayers of Waiheke into thinking it might be a good idea if Waiheke 'goes it alone' with these children in charge.

Imagine for a moment the debt these people would rack up if they were to get anywhere near having their own Waiheke District Council, all paid for by Waiheke ratepayers…and just imagine how they would fritter it away on big salaries for themselves and their mates.

They have given us ample evidence to show we’d all be in drowning in spilt milk.


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A clear and settled intention

23/4/2015

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PicturePhoto: Daily Telegraph
Lecretia Seale, a 41 year old lawyer, is dying of brain cancer. On her website Lecretia’s Choice she states that she “believes ill people enduring intolerable suffering with no hope of recovery should have the choice to request assistance to end their lives”. She has been in the High Court of New Zealand this week asking the court to grant that choice.

Lecretia has demonstrated ‘a clear and settled intention’ to end her own life. That is the terminology used in a bill to legalise assisted dying that has been tabled by former Chancellor Lord Falconer in the House of Lords. The Falconer Bill would make it lawful for doctors to prescribe a fatal dose of drugs to patients thought to have no more than six months to live and who had demonstrated a “clear and settled intention” to end their lives. Such an intent was demonstrated by two elderly cousins who had to travel to Switzerland, a more humane society than New Zealand, to get the assistance they needed. The Falconer Bill is still progressing through the British legal system, albeit at a slow pace.

Individual choice is the bedrock of a free society. Without it we become prisoners of the state, a state that already interferes far too much in our lives. The euthanasia issue is one of individual rights, like the right to speak ones mind freely, the right to marry the person of ones choice, or the right to worship. By exercising such rights no-one else is harmed and frankly it is no-one else’s business what one does with one’s life.

It is astounding that a dying person should have to spend the last precious weeks of their life fighting for this right. Poll after poll tell the politicians that this is something they want, yet politicians of all parties constantly put the issue on the back burner. Lecretia’s husband makes the point on her website.


The judge will make a decision by Friday as to whether the applicants will be permitted to intervene. I really hope he will agree to keep the scope of the case to my wife’s plea, and leave the wider societal debate on assisted dying to be addressed by politicians, who should be the ones looking at the issue more broadly. Their silence is starting to appear cowardly. Their inaction is precisely why my wife has been forced to spend her precious remaining days pursuing this case through the courts. It’s time for politicians to do their job, so that people like Lecretia don’t have to take these sorts of actions.
…… or as one (angry) blogger puts it 
To Labour leader (albeit anything but) Andrew Little for quashing Maryan Street’s excellent bill: you cowardly callous bastard.

To Prime Minister John Key for promising in the heat of the moment last year a watered down version of Street’s bill, now totally forgotten: you cowardly callous bastard.

To David Seymour, leader of New Zealand’s supposedly only classical liberal party who’s only reply to me so far is he’s a bit offended at my approach: you cowardly callous egotistical bastard. You of everyone stand for an individual’s rights, David, pull your head out of your arse and do something other than toadying up to big government and sending me newsletters.

Each of you men is happy, yes, happy, that’s the only word I can think of, to leave this crucial issue to souls with no options left, such as Lecretia,  consigning them to waste the remaining journey of their lives to pleading for a right which should be theirs – ours - of right. You rotten brutes; seriously, why are any of you even in politics if not for this?!

Straight talking is what is needed on this issue. 


To politicians fearful of upsetting some of their core supporters I say listen to the people and you won’t go far wrong. And the people say over and over again that the right to die is a question of individual choice and its a choice they want. 

It is not your job as politicians to make that choice harder but to extend freedom of choice as far and wide as possible. 
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Former Heart of City boss admits new $2 million fraud

21/4/2015

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PicturePhoto: NZ Herald
BREAKING NEWS
Following on from today's blog highlighting the lack of transparency and accountability in Auckland Council news has just broken that former Heart of the City boss Alex Swney has pleaded guilty to not $2million but $4million dollar fraud. 


Heart of the City is substantially funded by Auckland ratepayers. 

Auckland businessman Alex Swney has admitted a new charge, taking his total amount obtained through fraud to more than $4 million.

The 57-year-old former Heart of the City boss appeared in Auckland District Court this afternoon on a new representative charge laid by the Serious Fraud Office today.

Court documents show he dishonestly used false invoices to obtain $2,527,005 from the company between February 2004 and October 2014.

The charge carries a maximum prison term of seven years.

Swney is set to be sentenced on IRD-laid charges next week and a judge previously told him jail was the inevitable outcome.

His lawyer Murray Gibson acknowledged that in court today and asked that his client be sentenced on both matters on the same date.

In January, the former mayoral candidate pleaded guilty to four representative charges covering 12 years of offending and $1,757,147 of unpaid taxes.

Heart of the City - a city-centre business association registered by Swney in 1994 - has income-tax exemption on the basis that it was created to develop or increase amenities for the Auckland public.


The SFO said Swney's actions had caused lasting problems for Heart of the City and reflected poorly on the country.

"Mr Swney dishonestly obtained funds to which he knew he was not entitled. The misappropriation of funding intended to benefit Auckland businesses increased the cost of the services provided by Heart of the City and reduced the benefits delivered by what has otherwise been a very successful venture," SFO director Julie Read said.

"Fraud of this size by employees who are entrusted with the management and expenditure of substantial sums of money is very costly for both the businesses concerned and more broadly for the community as it harms the integrity of these organisations.



Heart of the City - a city-centre business association registered by Swney in 1994 - has income-tax exemption on the basis that it was created to develop or increase amenities for the Auckland public.

But technically the defendant was a contractor of the organisation as the sole director of AGS Services Ltd and the services he provided were taxable.

The IRD charges come with a maximum penalty of five years imprisonment and/or a fine of up to $50,000, and almost from the outset, the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) said it was also investigating Swney.

A summary of facts filed by the IRD alleged Swney had issued "various fictitious invoices" to Heart of the City.

Investigators questioned several organisations - including The New Zealand Herald- over the authenticity of the invoices and determined they were created "without authorisation".

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$8.5 million of ratepayers' money for Auckland business groups

21/4/2015

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Funding business groups is not core Council business says the Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance in its latest exposure of lack of accountability and transparency in Auckland Council.  The Council claims these payments are for services, but even a cursory review suggests that this is backdoor funding of business groups. Among the grants is one for 'augmented reality way finding technology' - whatever that is.

$8.5 million of ratepayers' money for Auckland business groups Auckland Council has spent $8.5 million of ratepayers money on grants to business groups since November 2010 - and that doesn't include the $20 million given to the failed Heart of the City group.

Business groups should be funded by business with an idea to keep the Council on its toes. Instead the Super City has turned them into Council cheerleaders thanks to this generous slush fund. We uncovered that a grant was even made for augmented reality wayfinding technology - whatever that is!

Ratepayers deserve answers from the Council as to why this is the best use of $8.5 million, rather than frontline services and core infrastructure. It's little wonder that rates have increased when the Council takes over a function that has always been the role of the local Chamber of Commerce.

We're concerned that once ratepayers' money has left the Council, there is very little accountability for how it is spent as the Heart of the City debacle shows. These business groups receive ratepayers' money, but are still immune from oversight through official information laws.

Business groups once played an opposition role to the excess of local government. With the Council handing out ratepayers’ money to nearly fifty business groups, it’s easy to see how once strong voices of opposition have been placated.

ARA obtained this information through LGOIMA (official information) requests . With a couple of exceptions most of the groups are not Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) paid for by targeted rates for improvements to enhance the local environment such as Mangere Town Centre BID.

The Heart of the City debacle resulted in a fraud conviction for its CEO with a loss of over $2 million of ratepayers' money because of a lack of accountability and financial oversight by Council.

But don't think this lack of transparency only applies to business groups. Too many groups are being handed ratepayers money with no accountability. This eventually brings Council and local government in general into disrepute with the public. 
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Too Many Wild Cards in the Climate Game

21/4/2015

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The world is cooling. It has been cooling since it began. It is the nature of things that hot things become cooler. As the world cools it experiences more Ice Ages. Some scientists predict the world is long overdue for another one.   

Mankind has thrived since the retreat of the last Ice Age. Warmer weather suits us. Crops grow better, we feel more comfortable, we don’t need to expend all our energy keeping warm. A warmer world is good for Mankind.   

This being so one has to wonder why so much hot air is being used to generate an atmosphere of alarm in a world fortunate enough to be experiencing a warm period. Given that, in the long term, Mankind cannot escape its cooling fate shouldn’t we be making hay while the sun shines?  

And of course we are. It is only the doomsters who are unhappy with the situation.   The truth is there are too many wild cards in the climate game to make predictions of any validity, ten, twenty or a hundred years out. As this essay by Viv Forbes points out.

Climate alarmists claim incessantly that all bad weather is caused by man’s use of hydro-carbon fuels – oil, gas and coal.

They insist that man-made carbon dioxide is the trump card in the climate game. Their computerised models of doom assume ever-rising levels of carbon dioxide which will trump all natural climate controllers.


Unfortunately for their credibility, since at least the year 2000 global temperatures have trended level despite significant increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide.
The sun is the primary source of almost all of Earth’s heat. It is becoming increasingly clear that this gigantic heat generator, with its varying cycles and emissions, is an Ace in the climate game.


Then there are the massive oceans, whose vast heat capacity and ever-changing currents and oscillations also regularly trump the steady but tiny influence from man’s industry.


In order to explain the failure of their carbon-centric forecasts, the alarmists have thrown several other wild cards into the climate game. These include heat losses into the deep oceans and unexpected variations in earth’s cover of ice, snow, soot, particulates and volcanic dust.


Finally, they have created their own friendly climate Joker – data manipulation. They deal this card from the bottom of the pack onto the climate table to create artificial warming trends and heat wave “records” on demand. 

Obviously there are too many Jokers and Wild Cards in the climate game for one simple carbon-centric theory to win a forecasting game, except by cheating or chance.


This is why warmists have not won a “Forecast-the-Warming” game for at least 15 years.

This essay puts in layman’s terms the views of one of the world’s most pre-eminent climate scientists Dr Fred Singer.  Singer received the 2014 Lifetime Achievement in Climate Science Award at the Ninth International Conference on Climate Change in 2014.

The doomsters have had their day. Their models don’t work. Their vast money making climate change machine is built on a sham. We need to call time on the rort and close down the environmental disaster that is ‘renewable’ wind and solar energy.

Even supposing the alarmists are right, a warmer world is a better world for Mankind. Let's enjoy it while we can.

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Council folly symbol of Council’s folly

20/4/2015

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PicturePhoto: NZ Herald
Over a tenth of Auckland rates income for a year has been spent on shifting Council from its home in the heart of Auckland to the backwater of Albert St. The new offices are described as ‘palatial’ where, as we know, the Mayor has got himself a city centre pad at the ratepayers’ expense to suit his increasingly batchelor lifestyle. 

Cllr Christine Fletcher describes the new offices as “very corporate and a bit like a fancy cruise ship except we don't go anywhere. Good for management but not Councillors.” 

Yes, good for management but not for democracy and that sums up the folly that is Auckland Council.  Big noting on projects in the city centre that suit the staff while the smaller town centres are starved of cash.

This is set to get worse as the Herald reveals today. 


Private and public projects on Auckland's drawing board have cracked the $10 billion mark. Auckland Council's City Centre Integration team has just released a map showing the huge public and private investment planned for the next decade.
Some, but too few, Councillors speak out against this folly.
But Auckland councillor Cameron Brewer said the CBD obsession was to the detriment of Auckland's 100 villages and town centres, now falling into disrepair.

Only about 12 per cent of Aucklanders worked in the CBD yet the small area was where most of the money was being sunk, particularly with the $2.5 billion City Rail Link.

"Instead of cutting funding to community projects, town centres, library hours and parks maintenance, I'd rather see the knife wielded at the CCOs and the CBD, that's where there's still plenty of fat to be found," he said.

"The public were promised that any money raised by an interim transport targeted rate, tolling or a fuel tax would be going towards providing essential intergenerational infrastructure projects that would help drive Auckland's economic growth.

"Now we learn that tolls will fund things like beautifying and pedestrianising Quay St and even the Quay St seawall upgrade. That will not impress Auckland drivers when the mayor has promised that extra and alternative revenue raised will go towards more roads and better public transport," Brewer said.

So in the end the mayor and planners vision for Auckland is to turn it into a look-alike of every other boring city centre in the world, except in the next ten years other cities will have created places for the future not the past.

Retrofitting the city centre to suit the highly paid, but frankly dumb, city planners who can afford to live there will bankrupt us all. The figures to pay for the expansion of this folly are staggering and way in excess of the income stream from ratepayers. Folly indeed.
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AT salaries over $200k rise by 69%

18/4/2015

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AT is obviously the place to be. Between 2012 and 2014 the number of Auckland Transport (AT) staff on salaries over $100,000 a year rose by 47% and over $200,000 rose by 69%.

Not only that, the bureaucracy ballooned from 988 in 2012 to 1265 in 2014. That’s a jump of nearly 30%.

I have this information courtesy of the Waiheke based Ferry Users Group (FUG) who have painstakingly searched Auckland Transport annual reports to get to the truth about this Council Out-of-Control Organisation.

Here is their report.


CCOs or COCOs?

CCO is an acronym for Council Controlled Organisation, a new feature of the ‘super’ Auckland Council. We think that some of them could best be described as Council Out-of-Control Organisations, or COCOs for short.

For example, Auckland Transport (AT) employed 998 people in 2012. Two years later, the head count had ballooned to 1,265 – an increase of 28%. The number of employees earning more than $100,000 went from 221 to 325, an increase of 47.1% and the number of those earning more than $200,000 increased by 68.8%. The overall expenditure on salaries and wages went up by 29.7%, in those two years.

Another possible marker of profligacy is the increase in AT’s fleet of brand new, late model white SUVs, which appears to be growing along with the head count. Auckland is beginning to look a bit like Mogadishu or Port-au-Prince in the aftermath of a disaster, where the NGO-owned white SUVs are ubiquitous. These are simple markers of possible corporate excess that a competent professional company director could not fail to notice.

The theory of budget maximisation is well understood in the field of public policy. Powerful agencies aim to maximise their budgets through bargaining with weak, poorly informed governments. Over time, some checks and balances are developed. In central government, the plum jobs at the apex of the public service are the subject of fierce competition by well qualified aspirants. The State Services Commission in Wellington keeps that gateway. Embedded activists are not allowed in, just because they buy a new Armani suit. There is a degree of political oversight by professional politicians. These checks and balances appear to be absent from the burgeoning bureaucratic empires being created in Auckland.

It is well and truly party time in the head offices and boardrooms of some of the COCOs and other Auckland Council offices.

The culture of waste and profligacy endemic throughout Auckland Council is plain to see in the excellent graphs accompanying the report, but this is only the tip of the iceberg. These figures apply to staff only and do not take into account the big money paid in consultancy fees.

These COCOs are loco if they think ratepayers aren’t watching with ever more disgust as they see their hard earned money disappear into bloated, over-paid bureaucracies.

If you've had enough, join the resistance at the Auckland Ratepayers' Alliance.  

Membership is free and open to all Aucklanders. Sign up at www.ratepayers.nz. 
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Waiheke rates pay for party for Board member's kids 

17/4/2015

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The Waiheke Local Board handed over $5000 of ratepayers’ money to ‘Waiheke Youth Voice’ with no strings attached. What did ‘Waiheke Youth’ do with the money? Throw a party for themselves and their mates. Who is ‘Waiheke Youth Voice’? Well it seems to consist of Youth Representative Matariki Roche, daughter of hard left Green Party List MP Denise Roche, and David Walden, son of Local Board Chair Paul Walden, and their mates.

I have searched the agenda and minutes of the Waiheke Local Board concerning this event and found some disturbing gaps in due process.


  1. The $5000 came from the Small Local Improvement Projects (SLIPs) budget. The fund is meant to provide for improvements that benefit the whole community such as footpaths, or wetland restoration. A party for a select few does not meet SLIPs criteria.
  2. When SLIPs budgets are approved they should be accompanied by full costings so the community has transparency and accountability over how their hard earned money is being spent. No such report appeared on the Board agenda where this expenditure was approved.
  3. What did appear on the Board agenda to justify the $5000 dollars was the following:                                                                                                            “This funding would cover such operational costs (catering, transport, resource costs) for regular youth board meetings; training and development opportunities for members and the wider youth community." ....."this funding would allow for this planning to be completed more fully with budgets for projects allocated by the members."
  4. Just to demonstrate how slipshod Council Officers have become in preparing local board agendas I note that this money was supposed to be coming out of Albert-Eden Local Board’s budget. “9. Funding for the proposed projects within this report will come from the Albert Eden Local Board’s SLIPs budget”. Duh! What dimwit allowed this through? What dimwits on the Waiheke Local Board didn’t even pick it up. Do the Board members read their agendas? (Rhetorical question).
  5. It seems most of the equipment for the event (BBQs etc) was donated by local businesses so one has to wonder how the rest of the money has been spent. We’ll never know of course because no accountability has been attached to the expenditure. Becs Ballard has oversight of the project but I doubt poor Becs knows anything either - although her children can probably tell her.

So Waiheke Youth Voice decided, in their wisdom, to use the money to throw a party for themselves and their mates. How that falls into the category of ‘regular youth board meetings; training and development opportunites for members and the wider youth community I do not know. Nor do I suspect do the ratepayers of Waiheke who are having their money squandered in this outrageous way. 

Given the composition of Waiheke Youth Voice, it is not surprising that this is the outcome of their collective wisdom. They will no doubt be being mentored by their politician parents on how to waste taxpayers and ratepayers money. There could be no better teachers on that subject than Denise Roche and Paul Walden.  

What they have taught their children seems to be that taxpayers and ratepayers are a bottomless source of money that can be tapped for every penny to pay for politicians entertainment and enjoyment. Just like the $15,000 junket for the Waiheke Local Board and their mates when they first took office.

And these same politicians want control of our rates to run a Waiheke District Council? Only in our wildest nightmares.


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Join the resistance

16/4/2015

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The Taxpayers’ Union points out the main concerns about the Taniwha Tax. Read the full report to understand how Auckland Council foisted this additional burden on ratepayers and why it is undemocratic. David Farrar reports.

The latest report or paper from the Taxpayers’ Union is on Auckland’s Taniwha Tax. And before people cry our racism, I’d remind people the first and most prominent critic of it was Shane Jones. Some key points:

The provisions may affect the value of perhaps 18,000 properties, costing them up to $4.000 each

The Archaeological Association says what Auckland Council is doing is not even necessary to protect heritage because it is already covered under specific legislation

The Auckland Council has declared 3,600 sites as being of value to Mana Whenua without even establishing whether all the sites are genuine, still exist, or are ‘of value’ to iwi.

The Mana Whenua provisions make cultural impact assessments (CIAs) compulsory for certain resource consents

Where there is doubt, the Council will rely on the Mana Whenua groups to determine whether a CIA is required. That alone creates a vested interest, with CIAs likely to create a significant income stream to iwi, who are also able to determine to what extent they are required.

The extents of the Sites and Places of Value to Mana Whenua have been defined by drawing an arbitrary 200m diameter circle around the centre point of all sites, and then requiring an additional 50m buffer around those circles, with which the rules are applies (i.e. a diameter of 300m, affecting an area of 7ha)

The number of mana whenua sites of value could grow from 3,600 to 183,000

A Cultural Assessment Impact report for a submarine cable in Waitemata Harbour took over four months and delayed the cable project significantly

Sir Bob Jones has written of a building owner that had to consult 13 different Iwi to get permission to put a shop window in his building

The provisions should be scrapped.  There are existing laws to protect sites of heritage, without this regime.
It is interesting that Farrar finds it necessary to get in first before accusations of racism are hurled at him. He knows that the tactic of race based groups and their apologists is to hurl the abusive bully boy word 'racist' at critics as a way of silencing justified concern. 

Thank goodness there are those prepared to speak out. 

I am proud to have been at yesterday's media release of the Taniwha Tax Report presenting the Auckland Ratepayers' Alliance alongside the Taxpayers' Union, Democracy Action and the Auckland Property Investors Association. 

Many concerned ratepayers were there, obviously thrilled that an Auckland Ratepayers' Alliance has been formed as a voice for the ratepayer. 

Join the resistance.  Membership is free and open to all Aucklanders who sign up at www.ratepayers.nz. 
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Rates gobbled by debt and wages

16/4/2015

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Think of Auckland Council as a business. The purpose of the business (defined by act of parliament) is to ensure that good quality local infrastructure (roads, waste and wastewater, parks and libraries) meets the current and future needs of the local population. Auckland’s population is growing so most income (rates) needs to be spent on increasing local infrastructure while maintaining current assets.

Auckland’s problem is there is no money left to pay for local infrastructure, apart from the Mayor’s vanity project the City Rail Link, because it all goes on servicing debt and ballooning salaries. As Whaleoil comments.


The problem is two fold.

Len Brown is holding back monies in the Long Term Plan to build the rail tunnel up Albert Street. Never mind that it is benefiting very few people who use it (less than 30,000 per annum).


But the bigger problem is that Auckland is already over spending and is hard up against it’s debt ceiling.

With liquid assets of $6 billion (it doesn’t have assets of $40b – you can’t sell parks and roads) and debt that exceeds that, the Auckland Council is maxed out on its overdraft.   

But remarkably it is also growing its head count at a phenomenal rate.Combined – debt and wages – use up almost all of the rates income. It is only through dividends and other income that Council has any money to spend on capital items- like libraries and pools.

Auckland’s infrastructure is rooted. 

Personally I’d suggest it needs to sort that out as first priority – particularly if it wants to have a compact city.

Bad business management has led to all available monies going on one single Think Big project (CRL) that will benefit a few people in central Auckland but has dubious benefit for the region as a whole. The Think Big project has led to bloated salaries, especially in Auckland Transport, and ballooning debt. No wonder there is nothing left for Local Boards but whingeing about it is pointless and fruitless as Whaleoil points out. 
But these Local Board’s need to pull their heads in and realise why the Council has a lack of funds.

In understanding that the smart Local Board peeps could be pushing for staff and debt reduction to free up capital for libraries and community services.

It’s no wonder our city is going broke.

Excessive spending by all, with a lack of basic financial understanding is the root of the problem.

If Local Board’s don’t get that – they are as dumb as a bag of hammers.

Some Local Boards do get it but others don’t: the ones that don’t include Waiheke.


This Board was so supportive of the Mayor for its first six months that it handed him $1.4 million of Waiheke ratepayers’ money as a bribe for a school swimming pool. They lost the money and didn't get a school pool. Nothing better demonstrates the lack of financial understanding or the lack of understanding about how local government operates.
Clearly Local Board’s are populated by people who think money arrives at the end of a rate-payer rainbow, delivered by unicorns from a magical never ending money tree located in the far off nirvana that is Utopia.
That’s Waiheke Local Board to a tee. Utopia is now a District Council of their own.

Yep, the Gang of Five is as dumb as a bag of hammers all right.
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Taniwha tax under fire

15/4/2015

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PictureRed dots represent affected properties
Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance, Auckland Property Investors Association and Democracy Action will be supporting the Taxpayers’ Union today as they present their excellent briefing paper on the ‘Taniwha Tax’ to the media today. 

What is still not understood is that this tax is in place now. Around Auckland property owners who want to add a deck or do simple renovations that require a resource consent are being affected already by this rort, which has no 'public good' benefit and is simply lining the pockets of up to 19 iwi.

I will be at the briefing to speak on behalf of hard pressed Auckland ratepayers who are heartily sick of having Auckland Council waste their money and diminish their property rights.

Auckland’s so-called “taniwha tax’ is the topic of a discussion forum being held in Auckland this Wednesday.

It is being held by the Auckland Property Investors’ Association, Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance, Democracy Action and New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union.

It features a briefing paper about Auckland Council’s new Mana Whenua rules – requiring anyone seeking resource or building consents to seek reports from iwi about what Auckland Council staff call “metaphysical” heritage.

“The report will reveal to the public what some of New Zealand’s best known corporations have been saying behind closed doors, and what their PR departments may not want you to know,” is the teaser for the forum.

Taxpayers’ Union spokesman Murray Jordan says the problem is not about consultation but about the assessments that may be required. He says they cost householders about $4000 each and more for corporations.

“Auckland Council says few are being required. The trouble is, they tell applicants they must go and ask iwi if they are required.

“They not only cost money but can also take weeks and months for the reports to be completed.

“We’ve gone through many of the submissions to the council’s long-term plan which highlight the issues.

“Even the Archaeological Association says they are not necessary to protect heritage.

“It’s all based around make-believe. You could substitute the word taniwha with Easter bunny.”

The forum will be held on level 9 of the Crombie Lockwood tower at 191 Queen St at 10.30am tomorrow (Wednesday).

Murray Jordan is of course Jordan Williams of the Taxpayers' Union. Get it right you journos.
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Race based corporate welfare and greed put National at risk

14/4/2015

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Assets worth over $40billion have been transferred to race based corporates since the Treaty of Waitangi gravy train was introduced, mainly during the tenure of National governments. The Key government is the worst culprit. It handed over control of New Zealand’s foreshore and seabed to tribal barons during National’s second term. It is now proposing to hand over control of freshwater to benefit race based corporate elites.

Former National leader Don Brash sounds a warning to his old party.


Brash warns National could face provincial revolt over water

Former National Party leader Don Brash says the party could hand NZ First a powerful election campaign if it gives Maori preferential access in fresh-water reform.

New details of the Crown's negotiations with the Iwi Leaders Group over fresh-water reform, emerged on Sunday, with signs the Government is moving towards  "catchment by catchment" negotiated at a regional -government level, that could grant iwi preferential access.

Brash said the Crown appeared to be trying to stop the issue becoming a national one by passing responsibility to regional government, but he believed there was growing anger among the public at preferential deals for Maori.....

See full article HERE

National knows its corporate welfare programme to enrich some iwi is unpopular, I suspect with all voters not just their own, so they want to shunt the blame onto local government, which is busy progressing race based tribal power throughout New Zealand through their control of resource consents.

Not all tribal leaders are happy with the process. Ngapuhi leader Ian Rankin calls it like it is "nothing but corporate greed".

Iwi leaders’ water claim “nothing but corporate greed” says Ngapuhi academic David Rankin

As iwi leaders from around the country meet to discuss claiming commercial rights to all the country’s lakes, rivers, reservoirs, dams and any other fresh water, Ngapuhi academic David Rankin has questioned their motives.

Mr Rankin, who is currently undertaking a PhD on traditional property rights, points out that prior to the arrival of Europeans in New Zealand, Maori never owned water. And even after Europeans arrived, Maori never owned water. He says that there is no cultural basis or historical precedent for the claim. Neither is water Treaty right according to him “Water is not mentioned in the Treaty once. ‘Taonga’ are mentioned, but these are not property rights. A ‘taonga’ traditionally was something that could be acquired at the point of a spear. Try doing that with water”, he says.

Mr Rankin believes that the attempts by iwi leaders to grab hold of water rights is just a case of opportunism. He sees a pattern emerging where if Maori leaders thump their fists long enough about a resource, they will acquire it. He points to the foreshore and seabed, Auckland’s mountains, some national parks, mining rights, forestry rights, and radio frequencies as examples.

“Tribal trusts boards are not about Maori, they use the iwi names as a front for their commercial ventures. The average Maori receives as much benefit from them as the average European: none,” says Mr Rankin. “As proof of this, even though iwi now measure their wealth in the billions of dollars, Maori are poorer now than at any other time in living memory”.

Just so Mr Rankin. The whole Treaty of Waitangi gravy train is nothing but corporate welfare and corporate greed to enrich the few at the expense of the many.

Tomorrow the Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance and Democracy Action are standing alongside the Taxpayers’ Union which is presenting a briefing paper on the issue of so-called ‘Taniwha Tax’ provisions in the Proposed Auckland Unitary Plan. This tax is a prime example of how the power of local government is being used to undermine private property rights, the bedrock of democracy. It is morally wrong and had been introduced by Auckland Council without consultation or transparency. Here is an extract from the foreward of the briefing paper.

“Our work is to shine some democratic light onto what has happened. Most of the organisations quoted or supporting this report, would agree Auckland iwi have a special place in the region’s planning process, but are concerned the Auckland Council has imposed an uncertain and clumsy regime. The organisations have all expressed concerns that the Council has failed to include elementary safeguards to protect owners, the integrity of the planning process, or the public interest in secular equality before the law.”
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Auckland Ratepayers' Alliance Launched

13/4/2015

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The Auckland Ratepayers' Alliance is launched today. I am very pleased to be their spokesperson. After writing blogs for over a year, many of them critical of the waste of ratepayers' money and lack of transparency and accountability in Auckland Council, it feels right to be at the forefront of an organisation dedicated to lowering rates and getting back to the purpose of local government, cost efficient and effective provision of local infrastructure and services. 

I invite you to show your support by joining the Alliance, sharing this article with your friends and 'liking' the ARA Facebook page. Here is the ARA's press release.

AUCKLAND RATEPAYERS' ALLIANCE LAUNCHED

Rate hikes, proposed new taxes and a culture of wasteful spending has led a group of concerned citizens to form the Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance which begins operations from today.

Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance spokesperson, Jo Holmes, says, “Our purpose is to hold Auckland Council to account. With 130 spin-doctors the Council is very good at sidelining the concerns of neighbourhood ratepayer groups. By combining forces, this new group will shine the light on those wasting ratepayers’ money."

“Aucklanders who are sick and tired of the Council wasting ratepayer money are invited to join us.”

Auckland Board Member of the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union, Gabrielle O’Brien, says, “Traditionally it’s been the business and property groups that have stuck up for fiscal responsibility within Auckland’s local government. Unfortunately most Auckland business groups are now heavily reliant on ratepayer money and find it difficult to bite the Council hand that feeds them.”

“With rates digging deeper and deeper into the pockets of Aucklanders, residents need an organisation that gives a collective strength to their voice. The Taxpayers’ Union has assisted in establishing the Ratepayers’ Alliance to ensure that Auckland has a dedicated organisation holding Len Brown, his Council, and officials to account.”

Jo Holmes (Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance)               Jordan Williams (New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union)

021 286 5544                                                              021 762 542

EDITORS NOTES:

The Auckland Ratepayers' Alliance is a not-for-profit community group dedicated to championing prudent fiscal management of our Super City.

Membership is free and open to all Aucklanders who sign up at www.ratepayers.nz.

Q&A

Who is behind the Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance?

The Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance is an initiative of the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union and its Auckland members. They believe that Auckland needs a dedicated organisation standing up for ratepayers and holding the Council to account for its wasteful spending and high rates. 

Who can join the Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance?

Membership is free and open to all Auckland ratepayers at www.ratepayers.nz.

Who is Jo Holmes?

Jo was the former Deputy Chair of the first Waiheke Local Board under the Auckland Super City and recently Chaired the Waiheke Businesswomens’ Group. Jo has no political party affiliations. More information is available at Jo’s blog site, www.joholmes.com/about-me.html

What are the aims of the Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance?

The aims of the Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance are to:
•                reduce wasteful Council spending;
•                increase transparency and accountability of those funded by ratepayers;
•                increase institutional checks on the Council;
•                enable Aucklanders to easily scrutinise Council spending; 
•                lower the rates burden; and

•                promote evidence-based public policy.

Are any of those involved previous office-holders or organisers for Auckland Citizens and Ratepayers?

No.

Will the Ratepayers’ Alliance develop into a ticket, or campaign for a candidate(s) for Mayor or Council?

No. 

2 Comments

Council culture of waste unacceptable

12/4/2015

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A fish rots from the head down so the saying goes. The rotting carcass that is Auckland Council started its descent into corruption over four years ago when Len Brown was elected Mayor. The head of Auckland Council quickly established a culture of waste, unaccountability and lack of transparency that was taken up by Council bureaucrats with their hidden agendas and bloated salaries.

The bureaucrats colluded in concealing the worst excesses of Len Brown’s mayoralty until he had been elected for a second term. Then Whaleoil’s revelations of the Mayor’s affair opened up the rotting carcass for all to see. From private gyms to secret rooms, from ratepayer funded junkets abroad to gas guzzling limos, from a 21 member private staff of sycophants and spin doctors to favours for friends, the Mayor’s culture of waste spread throughout the organisation.

New ways of wasting ratepayers money were being introduced daily while core services were being cut to ribbons. Useless ‘advisory panels’ appeared like maggots; bureaucrats on fat salaries started clogging up the arteries of good governance. Debt spiralled out of control. 

While all that was going on democracy was being undermined through the establishment of race-based, non-elected members with voting rights on Council. Property rights, the fundamental building block of western democracy, were being dismantled with the introduction of the ‘Taniwha Tax’ into Auckland’s Unitary Plan. A cult of racketeering and extortion was introduced into Council. Some u
nelected bureaucrats have allowed power go to their heads and publicly mock Council’s own consultation process and brag about being ‘protected’ by the Mayor. 

It’s Groundhog Day at Council and ratepayers have been footing the bill each year at more than five times the rate of annual inflation.

It’s time to get back to the fundamental purpose of local government, spelled out in the Local Government Act, which is to ‘meet the current and future needs of communities for good quality local infrastructure, local public services and performance of the regulatory functions in a way that is most cost efficient and effective for households and businesses’.

That means good quality roads, water and wastewater, rubbish collections, parks, libraries and sports fields.

From tomorrow the new Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance will be calling time on Auckland Council’s culture of waste. You can support them by joining through their website at www.ratepayers.nz


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Whaleoil says Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance announcement imminent

11/4/2015

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PictureCameron Slater socks it to Auckland Council
NZ’s most popular blogger, Cameron Slater, is ramping up the rhetoric in favour of an Auckland Ratepayers Alliance. His blog on Whaleoil today follows on from the Taxpayers’ Union article in last week’s National Business Review calling for an end to the culture of waste in Auckland Council. He says there will an announcement soon. I can confirm it will be on Monday

In typical ‘slogger blogger’ style Slater metes out punishment of his own to Auckland Council. Slater's comments are in bold.


Some of you might have seen the recent opinion piece in the NBR by Jordan Williams from the Taxpayers Union. Williams spells out the shambles that is Auckland Council and drops a few hints.

Broken promises, eye watering rate hikes, 8500 staff, 130 spin doctors, diplomats in London, $200,000 penis art, $100,000 silk curtains, fashion consultants for finance staff, cut library hours and no berm mowing. Is this is SuperCity we hoped for?

What went wrong with Rodney Hide’s creature of efficient governance and local democracy? Auckland Council is case in point supporting the economic literature that suggests that local government suffers from diseconomies of scale once a council gets larger than around 250,000 residents. It is little wonder that Auckland Council is greater than the sum of its former parts.

In 2013, David Farrar and I established the Taxpayers’ Union to fight against government waste and argue for lower taxes. We could not have envisioned how much time and effort Auckland Council would consume.

Well even I didn’t expect Len Brown to build personal bathrooms and gyms.

Our staff and volunteers battle with the council’s corporatised spin machine every day. Its 130 communications staff habitually ignore information requests, leak requested material to handpicked media (in order to control a story) and bend over backward to protect the Mayor and his deputy.

Combine that with a weak Ombudsman to oversee the applicable freedom of information laws, it is little wonder that so many Aucklanders become frustrated trying to hold the council to account.

It’s a well-known fact that Auckland Council is a den of incompetent ratbags and troughers wasting our money.

But then the op-ed gets interesting…

Auckland needs a dedicated group to hold the council’s feet to the fire. That role should rest with the business groups but the council has captured the EMA, Property Council and even the troubled Heart of the City. All three rely on substantial ratepayer or CCO (council-controlled organisation) funding.

While the leaders of the various groups do their best, anyone with experience in a peak body knows that there’s a limit to how much you can bite the hand that feeds your organisation.

So who is left? Affordable Auckland is well meaning but lacks the broad support to push into the mainstream. Cr Cameron Brewer could have done it but has apparently chosen a return to the private sector over a tilt at the Mayoralty. In any case, a politician can only go so far without having an organisation to help take on the vested interests.

In November, Mike Hosking asked in a New Zealand Herald column: “Am I the only one who thinks things around Auckland Council are getting hopelessly out of control?”

No you’re not Mike but Auckland needs a political group to coordinate opposition, lay out an alternative and set the wheels in motion for a departure from the status quo come the 2016 elections.

The time has come for an Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance. All it will need is your support.

Several sources have confirmed that moves are underway to create a Taxpayer Union like organisation just to hold Auckland Council to account.

Brown will be crapping his dacks and will probably be after even more spin doctors to save his skin.

Watch this space.

8am Monday.
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Democracy trashed by Auckland Council bureaucrat

10/4/2015

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It has long been recognised that Auckland Council is not run by elected representatives but a cabal of highly paid bureaucrats with their own agendas.

But don’t take my word for it. Yesterday a video was released by Chair of the Manurewa Local Board, Angela Dalton, of one of Len Brown’s biggest sycophants, Ludo Campbell-Reid, a reject planner from London, explaining to an audience in South Africa just how he subverts democracy in Auckland.

The video is long but well worth a look from 23 minutes on. This is the point highlighted by Angela on her Facebook page. 


This particular highlight from Auckland Council's Design Champion is at 23 mins....
"I’ve been given the mandate to get on and do it so I just do it and the Mayor protects me I’m very lucky and I pray for the day he continues but we changed the city and we don’t always follow what the public always want or the retailers want because actually they don’t know what they’re talking about in some cases it’s quite complex this whole process it’s about balancing the professionalism and the public involvement because the two have to come together but at some point you have to make a decision make a plan and say “thank you for the consultation we’ve heard you but we’re going to do this and stick to it”"

Campbell-Reid was one of the most obnoxious and dangerous people I met at Council His unctuous sucking up to Len Brown was sickening. It is Campbell-Reid who is behind the campaign against Auckland motorists and promoted by the watermelon alliance of Labour/Green activist Council officers running influential pressure groups such as transportblog, Skypath, and GenZ.

Aucklanders should be outraged that democracy in the city has been trashed by the likes of Campbell-Reid. 
Len Brown is this guy’s biggest supporter. This guy is Len Brown’s biggest sycophant. Your guess is as good as mine as to which of them is actually running Auckland. Or is Auckland, as I’ve said before, just an out-of-control train wreck. 


Campbell-Reid is described as the first ever Auckland 'Design Champion'. Let's hope he's the last.
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Passport Victory for Taxpayers’ Union

9/4/2015

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The Taxpayers’ Union (TU) has won a major victory in their battle for a 10 year passport to be re-introduced with the government bowing to pressure this week.

In just a short time the TU has been able to influence government in many ways. This victory is just one example of how effective they have become as the only voice championing value for money for every taxpayer dollar. They have done this through a mixture extensive research, briefing papers and media pressure.

What I like about these guys is that they don’t give up. Now the TU is taking on the government again over the passport issue accusing them of overcharging. 


Recently the TU has been turning its attention to waste in local government. Here’s what it had to say on Len Brown’s Advisory Panels.

The message Auckland Council is effectively giving members of its Ethnic Advisory Panel is "Shut up until you're told to speak."

The Council appears to be in damage control after a member of the panel joined the Chairman and resigned labeling the Panel 'tokenism' and a 'waste of money'.

These advisory panels are supposed to be about communities having their say, but now the Council is trying to gag them from speaking to the media. It seems as though Len Brown and Auckland Council want the pretense of inclusiveness, but officials are telling panel members to zip-it when they don’t sing to the right tune.

It is becoming clear to us that the only person wanting this expensive tokenism is Len Brown.

Currently the Council has advisory panels for Youth, Ethnic Affairs, Pacific, Senior, Disability and Rural interests.

We have called on the Council to abolish the expensive advisory panels, with the exception of the disability panel, which provides important advice on the plight of assess-impaired members of Auckland’s community.

There are currently plans to introduce a ‘Rainbow Panel’ of GLBTI representatives.

Rather than ramming identity politics down ratepayers’ throats, Auckland Council should focus on keeping costs down. This expensive faux-democracy via expensive token ‘representatives’ delivers next to no value for money to ratepayers.

It’s time for these panels to go.

I have been talking to members of the TU who tell me they are receiving an increasing number of complaints about Len Brown’s Auckland Council. This has led them a call for support for an Auckland Ratepayers Alliance. The response has been good and I hear there will be news on this front very soon.

Call an end to government and local government waste. Join the Taxpayers' Union NOW

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Tolerance of intolerance is cowardice

9/4/2015

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The title is a quote from Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Hirsi Ali is a female writer, activist and politician who is known for her stand against female genital mutilation, Islam and for womens’ rights. She should be an idol of the liberal left yet she is anything but. Why? Because she is brave enough to speak out against intolerance wherever it is to be found and in this day age it can be found as much in left wing feminism as in the Koran.

Her family fled Somalia, residing in Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, and Kenya before being granted political asylum in Holland. She now lives in the USA. She renounced her Islamic faith and is now an atheist. Wikipedia describes her as having ‘”classically liberal" views on the economy, foreign policy, crime and immigration with a liberal social stance on drugs, abortion and homosexuality’ which just about sums up my own take on the world. She describes herself as an Atheist, although I prefer to describe myself as a Humanist but it essentially amounts to the same thing, a total rejection of religion and religious beliefs.

It is only since she emigrated to the United States that her views have blossomed into full maturity. Here’s what she has to say about America.


Listen, this is what I have to say on women’s issues in the United States. We are so blessed as women to live in the United States. The best place to be a woman in the world is in the U.S. The best place to be black in the world is in the U.S. Is it perfect? No. Are we confronted with threats? Yes. But it’s the perfect place to fight [them] off. Because in the U.S., we have—besides the law—the majority of the population who accept that we, as women, have absolutely equal rights to men. The best place to be black in the world is here. I cannot imagine what it is like to be a black man living in Saudi Arabia, in Iran—even where the majority of people are black, like Africa. I cannot imagine a better place to be gay than in the U.S. I know that all European countries have accepted gay marriage and here in the U.S. we’re still struggling to accept that. On the other hand, when the jihadists in Europe attack gays in the streets, the governments don’t protect them. The best place to be Jewish in the world, besides the state of Israel, is in the U.S. The best place to be Christian is in the U.S. I don’t know anything else to say in the U.S. I know we’re in an election cycle and I’m supposed to take sides, but I’m not going to.
No wonder she is a hate figure to the liberal left who hate everything American.

She has also upset the liberal left in a strangely paradoxical incident at the Jewish University Brandeis, which first offered her an honourary degree and then withdrew it because of her scathing remarks about Islam. This is what she had to say on the incident.

What seemed to be a small controversy in a place called Brandeis, a Jewish university—it has these enormous geopolitical consequences. And this is a message to the people, the faculty and the students of Brandeis, but also to the other liberals who think that the best way to protect Muslims is to protect them from critical thinking. The answer is: No, actually, the best way to protect Muslims is to give them room to think critically about Islam, to reform it. 
If people want to believe in what I regards as superstitious nonsense that is their affair and should be tolerated. But when religions do not respect individual freedom, for example my choice to be an Atheist, then we are in a whole different ball game. 

As Hirst Ali says tolerance of Intolerance is nothing but cowardice. Radical Islamists are bullies and there’s only ever been one way to deal with bullies and that is to confront them and not be cowed by them, otherwise you end up with the insane nonsense you have in the UK with the terrible consequences that ensue.

I’ll leave the last word to Hirsi Ali about the overwhelming importance of individual freedom.
I just want to remind the free world that there was a time when they were not free—Europeans and Americans were not free. There was a time when Christian theology and Jewish theology was used to commit atrocious acts. Remember the witch hunts, remember the Protestants. I think Americans associate religion with something positive. In Europe, Protestants were killing other Protestants, Catholics were killing Protestants, Protestants were killing Catholics, just as the Sunni and the Shia are doing now. That is now in the history books. I look forward to a time when atrocities committed in the name of Islam will be in history books and museums and movies, but not happening to real people in real time.
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Another $30k disappears into old library space black hole

7/4/2015

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PictureOld library space still a black hole
The Waiheke Local Board isn’t listening. The Board ignored pleas from the Artworks Tenants Group – art gallery, cinema, theatre and Whittaker’s Musical Museum for the money earmarked for renovating the old library space to be spent on that space and not siphoned off to other projects. Instead the Board siphoned off $50,000 of the $210,000 they had for the project to spend on the Onetangi Sports Park (OSP) pavilion and of the remaining $160,000 have allocated $30,000 to 'manage' the space.

When this Board took office in 2013 they had $410,000 for upgrading community facilities and $742,000 for upgrading OSP pavilion already in the bank waiting to be spent. $250,000 of the $410,000 for community facilities upgrade was earmarked for upgrading the old library space. The Board chose not to spend the money but instead handed back $1.4 million to Council as a bribe for a school swimming pool. Of course, the bribe didn’t work, the money was lost and the old library space didn’t get refurbished. Later in 2014 $210,000 was returned to the Board by the Governing Body to finish the facility upgrade.

As if this wasting $1.4 million of ratepayers’ money wasn’t enough of a failure, this Board hasn’t even spent the remaining $160,000 of the $200,000 on upgrading the old library. No, they voted to use $30,000 to appoint a group to manage the facility. The contract was decided in secret at the last Board meeting with the public excluded.

“Requests for bookings over the Summer period are going into a black hole, ” said one of the Artworks tenants a few months ago at a contentious meeting following which Deputy Chair, Shirin Brown, was ousted from her position for supporting the Artworks tenants. 

The space has been denied to the community for over a year. It should have been ready within months of the new Board taking office. The money was there, all that was required was for them to get on with the job. But here we are a year later and still no access for the community groups who desperately need the space.

Those who need the space have had their wishes trashed by the Board. Worse still they will now have to go through the Board’s ‘gatekeeper’ to be allowed access, at a cost of $30,000 that should have gone towards infrastructure to make the space flexible enough for the widest possible community use.

$30,000??? For what??? To make a few bookings a week? Nice work if you can get it. You can bet your bottom dollar the 'group' will be comprised of their loyal supporters who will act as gatekeeper.

Council manages all the other ratepayer buildings on the island through a central booking system. There is absolutely no justification for paying someone to do the job. This is just another example of the waste of ratepayers money this Waiheke Local Board is infamous for.

This is exactly the sort of waste of ratepayers’ money rampant throughout Auckland Council. Waiheke Local Board is the worst example of financial mismanagement amongst all the local boards. It’s a case of the pot calling the kettle black when Board Member Meeuwsen calls Auckland Council profligate given this Board’s appalling financial mismanagement. Meeuwsen wants Waiheke to 'go it alone'. Imagine the waste.


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Are transport planners causing traffic congestion?

6/4/2015

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PictureSlowing the city down
Have you ever wondered why your commute to work by car is suddenly taking longer, a lot longer, when there the number of cars on Auckland roads is static? Or why there has been no attempt to solve the traffic congestion problems at the Matiatia transport hub on Waiheke? Whaleoil offers a possible answer in this interesting blog a few days ago. 

So Auckland is more congested?

I think that would already feel most obvious to commuters in Auckland but the question is why? And is this survey to be followed by the usual calls for public transport?

I have friends who have commented in the last few months that their work commutes have suddenly changed in terms of trip time.

Last year they were taking around 25-30 minutes on average but this year are finding that those trip movements have jumped significantly to 45 minutes and upto an hour for a cross town trip from East Auckland towards the airport.

What caught my attention is that they followed their observations with a cynical comment that their increased trip times have coincided with Auckland Council’s Long Term Plan survey on transport.    

And that is an interesting observation. Why such a dramatic change in trip time in such a relatively short period of time?

Quite apart from the fact that fuel prices are a lot lower these days than they were two years ago which makes driving your own car more affordable it seems that the traffic issues are not all equal. The motorway still flows at about the same trip times as it did a few years ago.

So that’s off motorway times that are affected. Weird isn’t it? The motorway should be equally as affected. And it is not. But then Council doesn’t control how those roads work because it’s NZTA’s jurisdiction.

Whilst a conspiracy at this time what their observations do is raise is a question of whether Auckland Transport – under instruction from its pay master – has been fiddling with the traffic signals across the city to make traffic worse at the most opportune time…. when Council is conducting a survey on transport for future expenditure reasons.

Is such an idea far fetched? Not really.

A few years ago Auckland Council ran about trumpeting growth figures for rail patronage. “Look” they said “rail use is increasing massively – we can start work on the CRL”. But it hadn’t increased much at all. What AT had done was redirected bus routes so that they terminated at rail stations forcing a two stage trip – transferring passengers to trains. The boost was engineered. The actual growth rates when bus redirections were removed – was virtually nil.

Auckland Council wants rail to succeed. It has a legacy of sneaky furtive and underhanded tactics. Aucklanders certainly don’t trust them.

So are my friend is right in posing that the increase in traffic congestion might be the result of meddling by Auckland Transport? Who knows. But it’s possible.

Council bureaucrats run their own agendas. They have the best of both worlds; security of tenure, unlike politicians who are subject to re-election, and control of ratepayers’ money. That is why ‘activists’ no longer worry about becoming politicians. Instead they infest the halls of real power in local government, Council bureaucracies.

I have no doubt whatsoever that Whaleoil’s friend is on the right track. Auckland Transport planners have one singular objective, to move as many people as they can away from cars and onto public transport or cycles. Many, if not most, Auckland Transport planners are UN Agenda 21 activists which means they are philosophically driven by a hatred of cars because they use fossil fuels. In other words they are Greens with either a capital or small ‘g’. That is why uneconomic schemes like Skypath, a cycle and pedestrian bridge over Auckland harbour, ostensibly a private enterprise but underwritten by the ratepayer, and the City Rail Link are promoted.

Their, often malign, influence was one of the biggest eye-openers for me when I was an elected representative on the first Waiheke Local Board. I could cite many examples but I’ll give just one relating to transport planning on Waiheke.

There has been an urgent need to increase the amount of car parking at Matiatia, the island’s transport hub. It took three years to get Auckland Transport to focus on a solution. When they did focus this was their solution, do nothing and force people to take public transport or cycle. That is why nothing is getting done or will get done at Matiatia. Meanwhile traffic chaos increases at ‘peak’ times, tempers get frayed, and public safety is put at risk.

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