Editorial: Holding councils to account

It ought to have escaped nobody's notice by now that Auckland councils are in an expansive mood. Pleading a need to make up for "years of infrastructural neglect", they are talking of spending whatever it may take to make Auckland something they call an international city.

The Auckland City Council, which governs the isthmus, has a 10-year plan to lift its average rate by 54 per cent, nearly twice the likely inflation of general costs over that period. North Shore City Council has raised its average rate by 9.6 per cent this year and says its capital works programme will require annual increases of about 8 per cent over the next decade. Waitakere, Manukau and most other municipalities are looking for similar revenue boosts.

And everybody in the congested region seems to agree that it needs substantially more public investment. When the Auckland Regional Council fell out of step, proposing to limit its rate increase to only 5 per cent for each of the next 10 years, it found itself criticised by a leading business group, the New Zealand Property Council, among others.

Anyone with a stake in the city will be keen to see its traffic moving faster, its services reliable, its natural attractions enhanced by better urban design and waterfront development. But in our enthusiasm for improvements we are in danger of losing our critical faculties where public finance is concerned. Rate increases do not automatically become infrastructural investment no matter how much councils might intend them to be.

Look at the rate increases charged by all Auckland councils over the past 10 years. The figures, graphically presented in the Herald yesterday, put the latest spending programmes into an interesting perspective. The increases projected by the Auckland, North Shore and other councils are actually less than the councils' actual revenue rises since 1996, the so-called years of neglect.

If Auckland City's revenue can rise by 124 per cent over the past 10 years, and produce so little visible benefit, what hope can we have that an increase of half that much will be the "congestion buster" that Mayor Dick Hubbard has called his 10-year programme? It all depends, as always, on how the money is spent and that is the question too few are asking.

How will it benefit the city, for example, to spend $300 million to buy a stake in the redevelopment of the Tank Farm, a property already owned by the Regional Council's port company and subject to the city's land use authority? In fact, what was the point of the Regional Council's $170 million outlay last year to acquire full ownership of the port company that it already controlled?

Is it wise of the North Shore City Council to have bought the unsuccessful commercial development on Devonport wharf? Why is Auckland City still budgeting for the eastern highway that its voters seem not to need? Why is the Regional Council determined to own locomotives, preferably at Government expense, when a commercial operator could lease them? What indeed is the benefit of an upgraded railway if most of its patronage is likely to come from those already using buses?

The Government could not commit taxpayers to such high outlays without answering these questions in Parliament. Councils, lacking organised opposition parties, seldom face the same scrutiny. No Government could blithely announce a 10-year programme of tax increases across the board and survive the next election. Councils seem to do it with impunity.

And they say rates are an inadequate source of revenue; they would like a share of national taxation. Perish the thought - until we find a way to properly hold them to account.