KEY POINTS:
When three kings from the Orient ride into town on their camels, saddle bags stuffed with gold and eager to buy up some of our prime real estate, it's sensible to be wary.
After all, remember what happened to the Ngati Whatua chiefs who were bedazzled by Governor Hobson's 50 blankets, 10 iron pots, 91m of gown material and sundry other temptations.
But imagine what the ratepayers of Auckland and Manukau Cities could do with the $1.058 billion the exotic strangers from Dubai are offering for their combined 23 per cent shareholding in Auckland Airport.
Auckland City's $592 million alone would be enough to transform the Aotea arts precinct, providing the money to repair the underground carpark, buy and restore the historic St James Theatre, build a smaller drama theatre next door and build the much delayed Aotea Centre-linked convention centre.
The convention centre alone would fill the city's hotels and shopping streets with monied delegates if all the hoopla is to be believed.
Alternatively, the money could pay for exciting developments on Queens Wharf or Wynyard Point.
Or, if we wanted to be terribly sensible, it could be spent on concrete pipes and buried underground.
Manukau City needs $400 million over the next 30 years to replace its wastewater system, and in Auckland City, plans to raise water bills by 10 per cent a year for the next decade to pay to stop sewage overflows into the two harbours have already claimed the head of deputy mayor, Bruce Hucker.
The point is, we could have any combination of the above, and still have a functioning international airport.
Selling the 23 per cent of council owned shares doesn't alter that. Nor does it transfer sovereignty of the land into foreign hands.
When a Canadian pension fund offered $860 million for these shares a month ago, I argued that it made no sense to hoard the family silver when we were too poor to eat off it.
Better to sell up when the price was right and spend the money on something we couldn't otherwise afford. I say let the bidding continue and when we find the best offer, go for it.
My only proviso would be that the proceeds are locked up in such a way that they can be used only for a significant, landmark project.
It's not the new owners, whoever they might be, that worry me, it's the small-minded bureaucrats and politicians who will be tempted to fritter away the windfall on day-to-day activities to curry favour with voters by keeping rates down. Look what happened in 2002 when Auckland City sold half its original 25.7 per cent holding.
There are those who oppose any sale for "strategic" and nationalistic reasons in a clamour which has grown alarmingly louder after Dubai Aerospace Enterprise comprehensively outbid last month's Canadian retirement fund offer.
Islamophobia or veiled anti-Arab racism is, it seems, thriving, even in this unthreatened little Pacific backwater.
But if it's anti-New Zealand to sell airport shares to foreigners, we're a bit late in shutting the stable gate. About 36 per cent of Auckland Airport shares are already in overseas ownership. And for that we have a National Government to thank. In July 1998, Jenny Shipley's Government sold 51.6 per cent of Auckland Airport in a public float for $1.80 a share. The remainder were shared among the region's various councils.
That's the day the people of New Zealand or Auckland lost control of this "strategic" asset, and it became just another property to trade in. With xenophobia rife now the Arabs are sniffing around, it's fascinating how many politicians are starting to dust down their patriotic phrase books.
Let's hope Auckland's local politicians don't succumb to this jingoism, approaching the offer solely on its benefit to the ever-suffering ratepayers.
When governments of both hues went on the privatising spree in the 1980s and 1990s, nowhere in the enabling legislation was it specified that shares in airports could go only to blue-eyed blondes.
If national politicians now see votes in playing the xenophobia card, let them come up with an offer that matches the Dubai one.
Perhaps they could squirrel the remaining Auckland-owned shares away in Dr Cullen's superannuation fund.
