Editorial: Give the kids a bus to our big free pool

View across the Hauraki Gulf. Photo / Brett Phibbs

It is a very good thing that the first mayor of all of Auckland comes from Manukau. That under-privileged part of the region could easily have felt that its particular stresses and needs would be submerged by the interests of the more fortunate. There is no risk of that now. Len Brown, previously Manukau's mayor, will keep its welfare close to his heart.

The risk now is that Manukau's welfare will be applied Auckland-wide regardless of need because, politically, this makes it easier to preserve. That is the reason the mayor wants to make Auckland's municipal swimming pools free.

He first made this proposal during the election campaign when it was suggested that voters in the rest of Auckland might resent paying for the former Manukau City Council's free pools. Mr Brown's answer was that he would extend the policy to the whole of Auckland. This week he repeated that intention as one of his "100 projects in 100 days".

Free swimming pools would be a complete waste of money for most of Auckland. This blessed city has a vast free swimming pool all around it. Two harbours and the Hauraki Gulf provide warm, calm, sheltered bays in abundance. Nobody in Auckland lives much more than a 15-minutes drive from a beach, and most live within easy reach of many.

Children rely on like-minded parents to enjoy Auckland's aquatic riches and it is said that too many young people in parts of South Auckland never get to a beach. For them free public baths are an answer. The pools are well patronised and provide the young people with fun and healthy activity under supervision.

Few ratepayers of Auckland would begrudge the $6.76 million it cost Manukau last year to maintain six free pools. Few would mind extending that policy to any other parts of the city where children may be similarly deprived. Since some parts of the former Manukau City plainly do not need a free pool it is possible the policy could be extended to all areas of need within a $7 million budget.

But to provide the same benefit everywhere would be needless and senseless. The only argument for doing so is that it is difficult to draw the boundaries of need and police them. Yet social policy can define areas of need when it wants to - school decile ratings, for example. The socio-economic catchment of a municipal pool should not be hard to assess.

Better still, the issue could be left to local boards. Those new elected bodies are waiting for the Auckland Council to define their role. This time last year Mr Brown's website offered them responsibilities that included liquor licensing, local street management, libraries, swimming pools, public toilets, camping grounds and beach control.

If they are bulk-funded from council revenue for services such as those, the boards would asses the importance of a free pool to their communities against the need for other amenities. No public body is better placed to make that assessment. Voters can punish boards that misread their priorities.

But Mr Brown is not talking of delegating the decision. He says his next step towards free pools for all is to commission a report on the cost, equity and fairness of the proposal. He says he picked up an "overwhelming sentiment" in the election that free pools would be welcome across Auckland.

Doubtless he did. Nobody rejects a free offer in election campaigns. He could as easily have offered free gymnasiums, free golf courses or free dance classes in the name of health and opportunity. The social case for some of them might be stronger than that for a free swim in a city surrounded by sea.

Public baths are for places with cold climates and windswept coasts. Mr Brown would do better to give deprived children in Auckland a free bus to the beach.