Auckland Mayor Phil Goff has hit back at Opposition Leader Simon Bridges’ claims the country’s biggest council “lacks fiscal discipline.”
Transport Minister Phil Twyford has also rebuffed the claims, saying Bridges' comments were “hilarious from someone who left a $9.7 billion fiscal hole in his transport plan.”
Bridges has dismissed the accusation as “pure spin.”
In his first economic speech as National Leader on Monday, Bridges said if the Auckland Council better managed its books, there would be no need for any new fuel taxes.
“Over the last four years, the Council has spent an additional $800 million – $160 million of that is in wages. To me, that is a lack of discipline.”
But, in a detailed response, Goff takes issue with Bridges' comments on the Council’s wage bill.
“While our population has grown by 15% since amalgamation, staffing numbers have risen by less than 0.5% compared to that of the legacy councils. Per capita staffing ratios have fallen.”
He says the Council’s core operating costs over the last few years has risen by around 1.3% – less than the rate of inflation.
“What has risen is the level of infrastructure investment as Auckland has grown faster than most other global cities. That has meant borrowing to build transport and housing assets and to meet the costs of interest and depreciation on that borrowing.”
Auckland Council's acting chief financial officer Matthew Walker says roughly half of the $800 million, cited by Bridges, stems from increases in depreciation and financial costs, due in part to investment in new assets and the cost of servicing debt.
The rest is borne across the rest of the Council, including funding for Auckland Transport, the Port and Watercare operations.
Following Bridges speech on Monday morning, Twyford was forced onto the defensive, issuing a press release just hours after his comments calling him “hopelessly confused.”
Bridges has promised to repeal Auckland’s fuel tax, saying the cost of meeting Auckland’s infrastructure needs can be covered by Government surpluses, existing fuel exercise taxes and a crackdown in “wrong [council] spending.”
21 Comments
So you have the experienced ex Labour Leader of the Opposition versus the incumbent National counterpart. Round and round they go like neighing horses on a merry go round. Spin this, spin that. Blame anybody but yourself. What better acronym could MMP spell out other than “ Mealy Mouthed Politicians,” because that’s certainly what we have got.
Hey Phil, fixed it for ya:
“What has risen is the level of infrastructure investment as Auckland has grown [slower] than most other global cities. That has meant borrowing to build transport and [high cost] housing assets and to meet the costs of interest and depreciation on that borrowing.”
Auckland leads the world in not building homes.
Even Wikipedia understands sprawl better than you. How you reconcile that with current AKL city policy is beyond me.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_sprawl#Definition_&_characteristics
Seriously?
Definitions and Characteristics:
Reid Ewing has shown that sprawl has typically been characterized as urban developments exhibiting at least one of the following characteristics: low-density or single-use development, strip development, scattered development, and/or leapfrog development (areas of development interspersed with vacant land)
Low density, scattered development, interspersed with large areas of vacant land - 3 out of 4. Sprawl is the Auckland Unitary Plan.
there are a number of new developments south of Melbourne 35 mins by train. These are being marketed here as house and land packages around the $450k mark.
(Not sure what planet you’re on, but on a good day it takes me 35 minutes to get to work, and I reckon we would be around 20km from AKL the CBd.)
Not all of us can afford multimillion dollar pads a stones throw from work like you ex pat.
I live 9km from the CBD and it takes 22 minutes by car to park next to work. The bus takes roughly the same mark. I cosnder thst very good. If you can get 11km further in only another 12 minutes then we need to tell the country that the Auckland congestion is a myth and save us all a fortune.
Can you please mention the Melbourne development so I can go back to my acquaintances with actual info.
Indeed ... there are few L&H packages around west Melbourne too starting from $435K about 20-30 min from CBD - But this is Well connected both roads and rail Melbourne. - check it out
https://melbourneproperty.co.nz/?id=03&tpe=combo&gclid=CjwKCAjww6XXBRBy…
So less people being paid lots more is what I am hearing, more managers and less workers. That's really going to help infrastructure and lower costs, can we capture the hot air?.
If you employ more managers and they will create work (being creative an productive persons) this requires more managers as the workload increases and then more support staff, you then distance yourself from where the rubber hits the road and pontificate and navel gaze and provide guidance and strategy and then start the cycle again, employ more managers...... All the while Rome burns. Don't worry we have arenas, we need more events.
Count your blessings. $34 mill spent to date on Christchurch Convention Centre consultancy. Yes god damn consultancy. Not a piece of damn turf has been lifted. Oh boy, we have some very long snouts and deep troughs in this fine bureaucratic little principality of ours with regard to spending the public purse. Please sir, could we not just simply have some decent roads instead.
Simon Bridges has very little to worry about ....
.. .. being savaged by Goofy Phil must be a lot like having someone spill a half litre of warm low-fat vanilla custard on your shoes ...
The pertinent point is who're the silly sausages that voted him into the mayoralty in the first instance ...
There is currently a real problem with local council rates setting. The general rate should be regulated by government at the CPI and any other work needing to be done subject to consultation with ratepayers. If you look at councils across the country at present the general rate increase is widely different. There is no justification for this.
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