Brian Rudman: Infrastructure Auckland insists on missing the boat

If ever an organisation had a death wish it's Infrastructure Auckland (IA). Look at last week's fiasco over the ferry terminal grant. Here was a chance for the unpopular funding body to score a few easy points, and it blew it.

IA was set up in 1998 by the National Government to manage the $849 million in assets of the disbanded Auckland Regional Services Trust - the main asset being Ports of Auckland Ltd.

IA was to fund regional transport and drainage projects. Now in the normal course of events, a Santa Claus organisation such as this should be everyone's best friend.

But not IA. All it has attracted is a growing chorus of critics saying it has spent too little on funding, paid out too much on administration and enriched a vast gaggle of consultants.

In Auckland local government circles, IA is fast overtaking Tranz Rail's place as the devil incarnate.

In July last year, Auckland Issues Minister Judith Tizard even threatened to abolish IA if it didn't come to the party and fund the Britomart train station project.

In Auckland City's recent submission to IA's draft plan, strong criticism is made of IA's annual running costs of $4.2 million, and that in its short existence it has cost $20 million to distribute just $104 million in grants.

One suspects IA continues to survive mainly because politicians, both here and in Wellington, can't agree on how to replace it. Not yet anyway. But many more weeks like the last one and who knows?

Ten days ago I wrote about how a group of territorial local authorities (TLAs) were applying to IA for a $11.7 million grant to buy up the ferry terminals now in the hands of the port company, and another $23.1 million to upgrade both these and the ferry facilities owned by a variety of bodies including North Shore, Auckland and Manukau Cities and the Crown.

The plan was to hand control of these facilities over to a regional entity to develop and manage.

In the course of discussions between the city councils, Auckland City and Manukau favoured giving both ownership and management control to Auckland Regional Transport Network (ARTNZ), the local government trading enterprise established to manage the region's rail corridors.

To achieve the goal of a fully integrated transport network, it made sense to them to combine both modes in the same company.

North Shore City, which has no rail and had not joined ARTNL, agreed to the new ferry infrastructure network being managed by ARTNL - or a subsidiary - but was not prepared to deliver to the company ownership of its wharves, including Bayswater, Stanley Bay, Island Bay and Beachhaven.

Some North Shore councillors feared future privatisation. Others wanted to retain ownership until the dream of a regional passenger transport authority came true.

This would return transport infrastructure and operations back into the hands of a single regional public body.

Rather than halt everything until this controversial issue was thrashed out, the TLAs wisely decided to put this debate to one side and not to force the issue.

After all, ownership was not the crucial issue. Management and public control of the wharf network was. And on this there was unanimity.

In their March 7 application to IA for $34.8 million for the ferry project, the TLAs noted that governance was still an unresolved issue. In the section entitled "governance" the submission explained that:

"It has been assumed that the assets will form the basis of a regional ferry infrastructure owning entity/authority, either owned by a local authority trading enterprise (LATE - owned by Auckland, North Shore, Manukau City Councils and Waitakere City Council) incorporated into the Regional Transport LATE."

Indicating that the matter was still not settled, the paragraph concluded: "The final governance arrangement will be resolved within the next month".

It was not. In numerous meetings and conversations with IA officials in the presence of other TLA officers over the next two months, North Shore's refusal to surrender ownership of its wharves to ARTNL was spelled out.

If IA officials had read the ferry project team's application for support to the Auckland Regional Council on March 15, the ownership compromise is spelled out in detail. Yet somehow it was not until the week before last Wednesday's meeting, when the application was to be decided, that IA decided to make the issue one of life and death.

Last Monday, IA chairman John Robertson pulled the plug. In a letter to North Shore Mayor George Wood he declared that no grant would be made until the "ownership issue was resolved".

He claimed that North Shore had made a "fundamental change" over ownership and that "there would appear to be no agreement among the applicants at this stage on the appropriate ownership structure".

The fact is there had been no fundamental change, as North Shore had at no stage agreed to ARTNL ownership. As for saying there was no agreement among applicants, the fact was there was a longstanding agreement to put the ownership issue to one side. The important issue, after all, was that North Shore had agreed to ARTNL control and management.

In endeavouring to bolster his case, Mr Robertson, in his letter to Mr Wood, quoted the paragraph about governance printed above from the March 7 application. But somehow he omitted the final sentence of the paragraph, which highlighted the fact that the question of ownership was unresolved.

In a subsequent press release Mr Robertson said North Shore City Council had "changed its position on wharf ownership", which is not true, and that "it involves fragmented ownership and multiple management and the potential for inconsistent service levels and standards to develop".

The fragmented ownership is true, but the rest is not. A letter to Mr Robertson from Mr Wood dated May 10 spells that out. In a list of "desired outcomes" Mr Wood notes that his council wants "ARTNL to develop and operate all ferry wharves ... "

Mr Robertson calls on applicants "to address their differences, agree on issues and put forward a common vision so that this regional project can get back on track".

The fact is that everyone is in agreement except Mr Robertson and his IA team. It's up to him to get the project back on track, no one else. And could I suggest sooner than later. Otherwise he might wake up one morning soon to discover that Judith Tizard has carried out her promise and taken away the whole IA empire, train sets, toy boats, the lot.

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