KEY POINTS:
It hasn't been a great week for Auckland Mayor Dick Hubbard. The New Zealand Herald continues its campaign to embarrass him and any councillors who jet off overseas on junkets. I think Hubbard has a right to feel unfairly treated when he had to defend his trip to Auckland's new sister city, Hamburg.
He went with city councillor, John Hinchcliff, and the city's manager of international affairs, after they visited Busan in South Korea - another sister city. Auckland's daily newspaper's bias against the mayor's trip was obvious when the story ran alongside a photograph of Hamburg's red-light district. I don't think anyone would accuse the mayor of being of tourist of such areas, so it was a cheap smear.
I've never personally been convinced of the need for sister cities. It's always struck me these relationships are of dubious value. I presume it has something to do with building business opportunities for our merchants to make money. But if that is the case, one would assume the mayor would take with him a posse of local business leaders who were either exporters or in tourism.
You can see how there would be some public scepticism over the use of these sorts of visits when only the mayor, a councillor and a non-business staffer arrived in Hamburg.
After councillors Vern Walsh and Penny Sefuiva got a public caning last year for their month-long tour of North America and Europe, you would think the mayor would be more careful. I see Bruce Hucker has quietly shelved his visit to China this week.
Hubbard's outrage at the media attacks over the cost of his airfares has some validity. We aren't seriously suggesting that Auckland's leading citizen is required to travel to the other side of the world cramped in economy class, then expected to arrive bright eyed and bushy tailed to meet and greet his opposite numbers in sister cities. Anyone who has done that sort of trip knows that if you travel economy class, you need a day to recover. The mayor says he had no downtime and was back at his desk within two hours of landing.
Apparently Auckland has five sister cities and two "friendship cities", whatever these mean. I defy anyone to name them. I presume there is an expectation that the mayor will visit these cities from time to time to hob-nob with local dignitaries. The real debate we should be having is whether there is any purpose to or benefit in having these sister-city relationships at all. That has been lost in the silly hysteria over travel costs.
Hubbard didn't make it easy for himself when he couldn't come up with what the financial benefit would be to Auckland. The Herald jumped on his unfortunate statement that he had a "vibe" the Hamburg relationship was worth millions. To put the matter to rest, all the council needs to do is put out some hard financial numbers and other benefits that justify these relationships. And if it can't, then scrap the idea of sister cities and be done with it.
If the council doesn't justify them, these trips really do look like junkets for local-body politicians. Given the furore over rate rises, it doesn't take much to imagine what their political opponents will be saying during the city council elections this October.
The councillors' move to ban commercial billboards in Auckland has already seen billboard owners use them to attack certain politicians. Commercial billboard owners are targeting anti-billboard councillors such as Deputy Mayor Bruce Hucker, Vern Walsh and Penny Sefuiva for their overseas jaunts. The re-election of a centre-left council is going to be difficult enough without these attacks, but ammunition like dubious overseas travel will make it much harder.
The most politically naive, silliest thing last week was the backing down over the billboards by two Hobson Action councillors, Christine Caughey and Richard Simpson. This weakening by these two former opponents of the ban will ensure the survival of commercial boards - at least during the election. The billboard owners know full well that next term, if there's a centre-left majority, the councillors will follow through on an intention to rid Auckland of commercial signs.
The billboard owners will use their signs to run smear campaigns against opponents. If they are successful, those councillors will be dumped at the next election and the businesses will be saved. There are also thousands of business owners who have illegal signs plastered over their shops. You can count on them joining the campaign to save their businesses.
The councillors should have either left the issue of signs until after the election or made sure they got rid of them before October. The silly compromise by Caughey and Simpson has merely warned billboard owners they are coming after them after the next election. Stupidly, they have allowed the signs to be used against them, with the billboard owners having no choice but to take their political opponents out if they want to keep their business.
If you think political attacks by billboards aren't effective, think of the series of Don Brash billboards at the last election. National jumped nearly 10 points after that campaign and came within a whisker of winning the general election. Given that most city councillors' majorities are only a few hundred votes, you can see how such a campaign can easily re-shape the political landscape at the next local body election.
Let's hope the overseas trips and the derailed anti-billboard campaign don't seal the fate of this centre-left council in October.
