$84k pay rise for Andrew Newman

Andrew Newman

The chief executive of Hawke's Bay Regional Council's investment company has been given a back-dated pay rise from $295,500 to $380,000 a year, in a move that was strongly opposed by four out of nine councillors.

The council says Andrew Newman's $84,500 pay hike, partially back-dated to the middle of last year, is recognition for the "higher duties" he has taken on as he leads the development of the $265 million Ruataniwha dam and water storage project.

But councillors opposed to Mr Newman's increased remuneration package say it is excessive and unjustified.

Mr Newman runs Hawke's Bay Regional Investment Company Ltd (HBRIC), a company set up by the regional council to oversee its assets, including Napier Port, and new investment initiatives such as the Ruataniwha dam and irrigation project proposed for Central Hawke's Bay.

Mr Newman's main focus at the moment is getting the $265 million Ruataniwha scheme off the ground. The complex project includes securing investment funding from the government and private sector, finalising resource consent issues and a construction contract with an international consortium and selling irrigation to potential water users.

The scheme has been described as the largest irrigation project ever undertaken in New Zealand.

Mr Newman was previously chief executive of the regional council before being seconded to HBRIC.

A recommendation that his pay be increased - through a "temporary higher duties allowance"- was made by the three-member HBRIC board of directors who are independent of the council.

Their proposal was discussed in secret during public-excluded sessions of council meetings last month and again yesterday when councillors voted 5-4 to increase Mr Newman's pay.

Hawke's Bay Regional Council chairman Fenton Wilson said the HBRIC directors who recommend-ed the pay rise included David Faulkner, a former managing Dam boss gets $84k pay rise

director of Fulton Hogan "who is well versed in the challenges and complexities of these roles".

"He [Mr Newman] has moved from a local government chief executive's role - which is a complex role in its own right, dealing with public expectations and public money and other issues - but the range of work he's had to do in this role far surpasses that."

HBRIC chairman Andy Pearce said Mr Newman's role warranted a higher level of remuneration than that of a council chief executive.

"It [Ruataniwha] is a very complex project with multiple streams of work. They're all interrelated. It's a very large project with a $300 million kind of number. We were very much of the view that the additional higher allowances we proposed are entirely consistent with the degree and impact of the project."

But councillor Rick Barker criticised the way the decision had been made, saying an independent report should have been commissioned to confirm what was a suitable pay level for the role.

Councillor Rex Graham, who works with disadvantaged groups as chairman of Flaxmere's U-Turn Charitable Trust, described the pay increase as 'a disgrace'.

He said the increase alone was several times the wages earned by many hard-working people who were on wages of $25,000 to $35,000 a year.