After hearing from all 20 councillors over the last couple of hours, Wayne Brown says he’ll this afternoon present the “latest iteration of a moving feast”. That follows the council moving into “open workshop” mode after a brief squabble around standing orders. What did they all say? Please strap in and I’ll try to summarise as succinctly as possible. Opening the five-minute-apiece round, Councillor Andy Baker (Franklin) said he was “uncomfortable borrowing money to keep the doors open”, citing his personal divestment of bonus bonds as evidence that he is “not afraid to sell underperforming assets”. He said he was pro the airport share sale, to a smattering of boos and applause from the public.
Alf Filipaina (Manukau) said he would “listen to my colleagues around this table” before “finalising my position”. Angela Dalton (Manurewa-Papakura) said while there was a need for cuts, “this is not the time to sell the car to buy the petrol.” Lotu Fuli (Manukau) said she was of a similar mind. She questioned whether the airport holding could be called an “underperforming asset”, citing a television appearance by New Zealand’s most swashbuckling economic commentator. “I agree with Bernard Hickey,” she said, warning against a short-termism.
Chris Darby (North Shore) said he welcomed the “refinement” in the revised budget, to laughter from the mayor. He said he was “generally supportive” of the revised cuts, calling them a “big reversal” – this time to a shake of the head from Brown. Darby argued there was some room for manoeuvre on both rates and borrowing; on the airport he said he would back a partial sale, of around half a million, which would represent about a quarter of the holding.
Jo Bartley (Maungakiekie-Tāmaki) said councillors had been “held to ransom” in being asked to back the asset sale in order to retain local services. She opposed the sale of airport shares, but said there was room to look further at asset sales across the board. She backed the rates and cuts options, calling for more borrowing.
“I think we need to go higher on rates,” said Shane Henderson (Waitākere), suggesting a further percentage point. He was opposed to going much further on borrowing. On the airport share sale, he said that in keeping with the broad view in his ward, a partial sale was a good “compromise position”. Greg Sayers (Rodney) noted that 53% of Aucklanders, according to the council-commissioned survey, supported full or partial sale of airport shares. He backed the full sale of the airport shareholding as part of a “band-aid budget” for “financial haemorrhaging”.
Richard Hills (North Shore) said his chief concern had been the cuts, and even with the revised budget there were too many of those, including on council staff. He said the “hard decisions” on the alternative levers should be made with that in mind. Hills did not make a commitment on the share sale but he did invoke once again lofty talisman Bernard Hickey. John Watson (Albany) said selling the shares was the “easy option” and amounted to a “sugar hit”, where the council needed to first undertake its longterm financial review. He said the mayor’s decision to present airport share sales and council services as a direct trade-off was “distasteful and misleading – it hasn’t helped matters in trying to come up with a balanced, interim budget”. “I agree with everything he said,” said John Watson’s Albany ward-mate Wayne Walker.
Maurice Williamson (Howick, needs to deworm his cat) said his priority was keeping rate rises to within inflation. He added a bit of excitement to the room by projecting an animated “four circles” venn diagram, with an arrow pointing to the “solution space”. He made no reference to Bernard Hickey but did make a reference to the 1960s British beat group The Tremeloes and told an Irish joke.
“If the rates go up any more, it’s tipping people over the edge,” Sharon Stewart (Howick) said. She would not be deciding how to vote until the debate proper was complete. Mike Lee (Waitematā and Gulf) said the revised budget was “by and large acceptable to me”, but the airport share sale “is not”. He noted that Brown had not campaigned on an asset sale, and that local boards had not “buckled” but “stuck to their principles”. It had been a mistake, he added, for the government to sell the BNZ and electricity companies, to applause from the public.
Christine Fletcher (Albert-Eden-Puketāpapa) said she did not want to sell the airport shares; that should be saved for the longterm plan. “But,” she said, “I know we need to land a budget today.” In that spirit she backed Darby’s suggestion of selling a part of the airport holding, but added: “continuing to flog off assets just defers the day of judgment”.
Though he supported the full share sale, Daniel Newman (Manurewa-Papakura) said that listening to the contributions so far he suspected “we are going to be talking about a compromise”. He welcomed the reversal on many rates cuts. Ken Turner (Waitākere) said, “we aren’t in a strapped for cash situation, we’re in a productivity deficit”. He was unconvinced whether the share sale was the answer – “a $2 billion plug to fill a $350 million hole”.
Julie Fairey (Albert-Eden-Puketāpapa) said: “I have been interested in how we close the gap sustainably over time and the most responsible and honest way to do that is through a larger rate increase.” She said she was unlikely to move an amendment to that effect given an apparent lack of support around the table. She urged councillors not to underestimate the value of the shares to the council. She was disinclined to sell any shares but would reserve her decision until the end of the debate. Kerrin Leoni (Whau) had “huge concerns” about the original budget so welcomed the changes. “I agree with this budget except for the sale of the airport shares, either full or partial.” She also opposed cuts to ECE services. Leoni said further borrowing was the better option.
Finally, Desley Simpson (Ōrākei, not the mayor but you’d be forgiven for thinking that) loved it. The revised budget, she said, had “pretty much settled on as good as it gets”. The airport share sale needed to be part of the solution, she argued, but “I feel for you”, she said, passing the floor to the mayor. Brown said he’d go off for lunch to “consider the inputs I’ve heard and whether any changes are required to the budget I’ve put up.”
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