Rudman's city: Fun fades as action man Banks targets pensioners

By BRIAN RUDMAN

In his first days in office, Auckland Mayor John Banks was like one of those old action toys you wound up and put on the lino floor.

Off he raced, lights flashing, arms jerking and cracked record screaming "core business, core business," and we all chuckled.

But like all novelties, the fun has faded fast. For me it ended last Wednesday when he zeroed in on the pensioners. Just how mean-spirited and penny-pinching can you be? That the mayor of this prosperous community feels able to talk of selling off city-owned pensioner housing in order to cut a penny or two off our rates, reflects badly on all of us.

Mr Banks claims he's not about to throw our old folk "to the wolves", but what else does he think will happen if he sells off the city's 1670 subsidised pensioner units?

I somehow don't see him or his neighbours rushing to offer the oldies alternative lodgings in the pool sheds and tennis pavilions at the bottom of their gardens.

Fingering the pensioners is part of the $56,250 stunt Mr Banks has launched at our expense, to try to prove he is the action man of his election promises. Conjuring up a non-existent financial crisis, he has run roughshod over the democratic processes and appointed a review team "to conduct a critical review of the city's finances".

The review is to "include an examination of the expenditure, assets, debt and income of the council".

He pushed it through, with the aid of Auckland Citizens and Ratepayer Now cronies David Hay and Doug Armstrong, under seldom used urgency procedures. The democratic way would have been to wait until this Thursday's full council meeting, or to have called an emergency council meeting.

To do either, though, risked exposing the waste of money involved. It would also have held up to scrutiny the consultants retained. To resurrect the Mr "Think Big" of the Muldoon era, Sir William Birch, to chair the review and label him "one of New Zealand's most respected financial managers" is weird enough.

The appointment of super-dry former Treasury boffin Greg Dwyer is hardly reassuring either - though it must be said he has first-hand experience in the task ahead. For, before the 1998 city council elections, the same Mr Dwyer was retained by Act Now, the local government off-shoot of the rightwing Act Party, to prepare a paper outlining cost cutting measures Act Now could campaign on.

His proposed cuts to Auckland City Council spending turned out to be so deep that even Act Now realised they would make them unelectable, and they put them to one side.

Before last month's election, Act Now combined forces with Citizens and Ratepayers and brought with them an updated version of the Dwyer plan.

This plan, dated April 30, 2001, and on the letterhead of the joint party, takes the razor to Auckland City's spending plans and comes up with cuts totalling $45.99 million.

The Citrat executive considered this rather excessive and decided to campaign on a $25 million cut which would result in a 10 per cent rates cut.

This is the figure Mr Banks is now talking of slashing from the city's budget. And he is paying out $56,250 of our money so outsiders can identify where the cuts can be made.

Why, you have to ask, pay good money for a report your Citrat mates already have sitting in their top drawer? A report that is based on work done in 1998 by Mr Dwyer, now one of the independent review team.

Among the savings identified are: exiting from pensioner housing, $5.84 million; reductions in grants and partnerships, $2.8 million; leasing city carpark buildings, $3.07 million; sale of airport shares, $15 million; halving the city advocacy budget, $4.88 million. By now you get the picture.

The note under subsidised housing makes the agenda clear: "These programmes are the business of central government, not Auckland City. We would sell these assets to Wellington or close them. Our citizens already pay for subsidised housing when they pay tax."

By word and action, Mr Banks has sided with the Citrat team on this. They set the $25 million figure that the mayor says needs slashing.

He is now playing games with ratepayers money, forking out $56,250 in a pretence that some sort of scientific study is to take place to identify areas of saving.

For a start, it doesn't need outside experts to come in to identify how the city spends its money. It's all there in the council's annual plans and budgets. Council staff could have handed it over if he had asked. Instead, middle men have been brought in who will ask for the documents, shake them up a bit, attach an invoice, then hand them on.

As for where to make the cuts, that is a political decision pure and simple. The Citrat report has already come up with $45.99 million worth to choose from. Mr Banks should explain why he's paying out ratepayers money to reinvent this wheel.