Editorial: Money-grab no way to control costs

An Auckland City Council employee with a video camera to record the illegal use of bus lanes. Photo / Paul Estcourt

Councils are always keen to trumpet their success in restricting rate increases. They know that nothing spells trouble at the ballot box quite as much as annual surges.

The present Auckland City Council is no different. Its Citizens & Ratepayers majority likes to boast that by eliminating wasteful spending, it has held overall rate rises to 2 per cent or less for the past two years.

Only now are Aucklanders learning more about how that is being partly achieved. And many, with some reason, are less than impressed with the council's methods.

What has emerged this week is a deliberate council policy to offset rates revenue by generating more money from parking fines.

This ploy was devised in December 2007 when the Mayor John Banks and his C&R allies were looking at ways to cut spending and raise more revenue to slash a planned rates increase of 10.2 per cent to 4.8 per cent.

As part of their strategy, an extra 30 traffic wardens and three infringement review officers were to be hired in equal lots over the council's three-year term. This staff has also been used to apprehend motorists who breach bus lane regulations.

In some eyes, this policy is well-justified. After all, only those guilty of breaking the parking or bus lane rules are punished, while law-abiding citizens benefit.

But that ignores a couple of unsatisfactory features. First, it is not just citizens of Auckland City who are being punished.

Every day, thousands pour into the city from areas of Greater Auckland that, for now, are controlled by their own councils. Many tourists, both domestic and international, also enter the city.

Not only Aucklanders but people from the North Shore and North Carolina who are guilty of breaching the parking and bus lane laws are contributing to lower rates. In effect, Auckland City has broadened its rates base.

Those from outside its bailiwick have reason to cry foul. This is also policy that has been introduced by stealth.

Aucklanders were never asked whether they thought it was fair or reasonable. There has been nothing from the council to justify increased surveillance.

It has come to notice only because some citizens have noticed the increased activity of parking wardens and because of the grumbles about the $4.2 million that has been raised in the past financial year from the enforcement of the bus lane regime. Only now do we know that this is part of the council's plan to raise an additional $2 million in fines in its first year, $4 million in the second, and $6 million in year three.

The accusations of "money grabbing" that have greeted this disclosure suggest this approach would have triggered a strong backlash if it had been made public.

There was, indeed, such a response last year to a similar council initiative, which aimed to make motorists pay for after-hours parking in central Auckland. There was no public consultation or release of council documents to justify the approach, only the announcement of a six-month trial that would start almost at once.

The complaints caused this plan to be quietly dropped.

The city council could have saved itself this present embarrassment if it had, indeed, paid as much attention to cutting wasteful spending as it claims. Some carelessness has undoubtedly been eliminated.

The council, however, has not been as hard-nosed as it could be. Certainly, it has not been immune from pet projects, the $15 million spending on the Monte Cecilia Park project being a glaring example.

It can also be taken as read that contractors and consultants have extracted their usual largess.

The Super City will, hopefully, place an even greater emphasis on cost-cutting, rather than trying to cut capers to keep rate increases down.