Nearly $2 million has been spent by Auckland Council for two big accountancy firms to consult on the city’s stadium strategy, which has gone nowhere after 11 fraught years.
Former mayor Phil Goff paid PwC $932,000 in 2018 for a feasibility study for a national stadium in downtown Auckland that failed to get off the ground.
It has now emerged that the council’s events arm, Tātaki Auckland Unlimited, has paid EY about $1.1m on a report for the council and Eden Park Trust to develop a single stadium operator.
The EY expenditure was contained in documents released to the Herald under the Official Information Act showing the council has spent $63m with the ‘Big Four′ global accountancy firms of PwC, EY, Deloitte and KPMG over the past five years. Law firms pocketed $127m over the same period, the documents showed.
Writing in the Herald last week, Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown said the “eye-watering” revelations for accountants and lawyers are symptomatic of uncontrolled spending by the council, and made it clear any stadium options will be at “no cost to ratepayers”.
Brown also revealed some of the latest thinking for the stadium strategy with an off-the-cuff comment last week that North Harbour stadium could be bulldozed next year, backed up by North Harbour Rugby bosses saying they have been “heavily engaged” in talks for a new 6,000-8,000-seat stadium.
The union’s president, Gerard Van Tilborg, said North Harbour stadium is “too big” for home rugby matches and publicly revealed Tātaki Auckland Unlimited is looking to upgrade Go Media stadium (formerly Mt Smart), which is packing in the crowds for the resurgent Warriors.
The Herald understands Go Media, downgraded to a training base, high-performance centre and speedway in earlier stadium plans, is being master-planned as a permanent home for the Warriors, a new football franchise, and a possible home for the Blues, and that includes an option to expand the west stand. Talks are also under way to improve public transport to the stadium.
Meanwhile, the Eden Park Trust has released its “Eden Park 2.0″ uncosted plan to transform the stadium into a 60,000-capacity sport and entertainment precinct.
The proposal, unveiled in May, includes three new grandstands, a retractable roof and a pedestrian promenade that will cost hundreds of millions of dollars, if not more than $1 billion.
Eden Park’s latest plan has drawn a mixed response from Herald commentators, with Simon Wilson saying “bring it on, but make it great” and rugby correspondent Gregor Paul claiming “Auckland needs something much less grandiose and smaller-scale” for multiple tenants.
Neither the council nor the Government has declared any interest in funding the upgrade of the city’s biggest stadium. Following the current Fifa Football Women’s World Cup, the next global sporting event in Auckland is not until 2029, when the Lions are due to tour New Zealand.
With attention moving to a new 10-year budget, Brown has set up a ‘stadium venues political working group’ chaired by councillor Shane Henderson with three other councillors and a member of the Independent Māori Statutory Board.
Tātaki chief executive Nick Hill is also on the working group and Sports Minister Grant Robertson has appointed Sport New Zealand chief executive Raelene Castle as the Government nominee. The independent Eden Park Trust is not represented.
The working group is the sixth attempt to rationalise the city’s four stadiums - Go Media, North Harbour, Western Springs and Eden Park - since the first stadium strategy was launched in 2012 to put them on a “more sustainable financial footing”, operating as a “cohesive network”.
After five plans and no change to speak of, Brown is frustrated at the lack of progress, saying the council faces substantial refurbishment, maintenance and renewal costs for its existing stadium venues, and he expects the working group to come up with options for the 10-year budget.
He has also pointed to the 2021 review of the council-controlled organisations (CCOs) which found the “harsh economic reality is Auckland neither needs nor can afford four stadiums”.
Henderson said the city was lucky to have Castle on the working group, saying she is a governance superstar with a glittering CV, and is coming from the outside as an independent.
“I hope we can dilute any of the political stuff around it as much as possible and make a really clear and rational choice, Raelene’s input will be huge into that.”
Henderson has an open mind on what a solution looks like and wants to hear from stakeholders, but by and large, he said, Auckland needs stadiums that work together in terms of big, medium and small to meet different needs.
“It has become a really urgent situation and has been kicked down the road for a long time, and with that kicking, it has become more and more urgent. We have really got to succeed,” he said.
While Henderson and the working group beaver away on the make-up of Auckland stadiums, Tātaki and Eden Park Trust are continuing work on a single operator for the city’s stadiums by July next year.
Both parties have gone into the process in good faith, but outgoing Eden Park Trust chairman Doug McKay admitted a few months ago “it’s proving to be quite a challenging, complex conversation”.
Nick Hill said EY were brought in as an intermediary to collate data from both sides to build a business case with five components - strategic, financial, economic, management and commercial.
Once that is done, he said, the parties will need to make an application to the Commerce Commission to rule on whether the ‘public benefits’ of a single operator outweigh any impacts from the loss of competition between Tātaki’s stadiums and Eden Park.
If the parties get the green light from the Commerce Commission, Hill said the single-operator model will not be about having fewer people employed at stadiums for events, but making better decisions on where capital is spent and events are staged.
“Will you spend your capital on replacing seats at Go Media or Eden Park? At the moment, you’re kind of spreading it everywhere,” he said.
With Eden Park competing with Tātaki’s stadiums for sports events and concerts - Eden Park got consent in 2021 to hold six concerts a year - Hill envisages a much more sustainable model with an independent operator.
“I’m optimistic… we’ve just got to solve the problem of how we fund major events, because if we’ve got the stream of really exciting contents and events coming up, the stadium thing starts to solve the problems itself.
“One of the areas we do need to focus on is 10,000-15,000-seat stadiums that look good on television and [which make it] a good experience for people to go along,” said Hill.
Alan Gourdie, a long-serving trust member who recently replaced Doug McKay as chairman, said the trust is committed to setting up a single operator, albeit a somewhat difficult process with matters like the Commerce Commission.
He said: “We’re nowhere near that stage… because we haven’t got to the point where we know it’s going to be legal or not.”
Gouride said Eden Park’s development plans do not muddy the waters for a single operator plan because it will mean a partnership with the council and the Government, who will be involved in the investment.
If the parties do achieve an integrated model, said Gourdie, there will be no agreements to share sporting events or concerts, adding that would be against the law.
What’s more, he said, as beneficiaries of the trust, Auckland Cricket and Auckland Rugby enjoy certain rights at Eden Park.
“Outside of that, any other hirers are free to consider any stadia in Auckland to host their product, and do so, as you saw recently when we weren’t able to offer the All Blacks the stadium for the South African game [due to the Fifa Women’s World Cup] and Mt Smart made a bid successfully,” he said.
Gourdie said the benefits of a single operator would be a reliable pool of experienced casual staff on game days and back office cost efficiencies, and agreed with Hill it would lead to better investment in capital across a defined number of stadiums.
Plan A - 2012
Plan B - 2014
Plan C - 2016
Plan D - 2018
Plan E - 2019
Bernard Orsman is an Auckland-based reporter who has been covering local government and transport since 1998. He joined the Herald in 1990 and worked in the Parliamentary press gallery for six years.
'I feel confident knowing ... he’ll never be able to work for emergency services again.'