Councillors 'should pay to upgrade to business class'

Doug Armstrong

Councillors should pay for business-class travel out of their own pocket and not have ratepayers pick up the tab, says former Auckland City finance boss Doug Armstrong.

The Citizens & Ratepayer Now councillor has joined Mayor Dick Hubbard in calling for an overhaul of the burgeoning cost of overseas travel at ratepayers' expense.

Mr Hubbard and councillors have run up more than $105,000 in overseas trips in the first 18 months of this council, passing the record of $92,000 held by the previous council in the first two-and-a-bit years.

Among Mr Armstrong's suggestions were for councillors to fly economy and upgrade to business class at their own cost and for the full council to approve travel over a certain figure.

The council changed the rules last December from the mayor, deputy mayor and chief executive having to approve business-class airfares to allowing councillors to approve their own travel.

Mr Armstrong yesterday said City Vision councillors Vern Walsh and Penny Sefuiva were "skating on thin ice" for their part in the now-infamous $85,000 global jaunt, which he said had no apparent purpose such as a conference or a specific brief. The City Vision pair drew up and approved the trip.

Mr Armstrong contrasted it with an economy-class trip he made with two other councillors to London in 2003 where they picked up the "bright idea" of never selling valuable public land freehold. That led to the council hanging on to the Britomart site and selling a 150-year lease to developer Peter Cooper, paying for the trip "many, many times over", he said.

Mr Hubbard welcomed Mr Armstrong's suggestions, which follow comments by Deputy Mayor Bruce Hucker and finance committee chairman Mr Walsh that they had no intention of giving up business-class travel.

Mr Hubbard said there should be greater transparency of overseas travel and suggested setting an overall budget that was open to public scrutiny instead of the current situation where the money came from budgets set by officers.

The council needed an overall travel framework with criteria for conferences and study tours rather than treating each trip on a case-by-case basis. The council might also need greater flexibility for business-class travel, taking into account things such as time of travel and age of councillors, he said.

The stoush between Mr Hubbard and Dr Hucker could be publicly tested after Mr Hubbard said he would review whether to fly business class next month on a sister city visit to Japan with Dr Hucker.

The two politicians are due to pay a return visit to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the sister city relationship with Fukuoka after the Mayor and Mayoress of Fukuoka and a delegation of 10 officials visited Auckland in May.

Dr Hucker could end up sitting in business class and Mr Hubbard in economy class.

Mr Hubbard said in order to respect Japanese protocol he would be accompanied by his wife, Diana, but he would be paying her airfare.

Figures released by the council yesterday show the budget for the international affairs division, which runs the sister city programme and looks after international visitors, has reduced from $311,314.00 to $273,179.00 in the past three years.