Rudman's city: Ho hum... another week of dysfunctional local politics

By BRIAN RUDMAN

Despite all the weeping and wailing up at the Town Hall, no one at Auckland City really expected Infrastructure Auckland to grant it the full $91.5 million requested for the $250 million Britomart project. My guess is that after a bit of ritual grumbling, they would have been willing to live with about half that amount.

What has really brought out the smelling salts is the niggardliness of the $29.8 million to $35.2 million that the Infrastructure executives proposed on Wednesday - that, and what the city council sees as unacceptable conditions attached to the grant.

One that really stuck in the craw was that the grant would not be handed over until the scheme was completed.

Another was that to qualify for the reduced level of grant, the city would have to prove to Infrastructure that any modifications to the scheme as a result of these funding cuts didn't reduce the station's eligibility for a grant.

The city is also incensed that Infrastructure's allocation formula was not unveiled until the day the board met to make its decision.

Threatened court action by Auckland City persuaded Infrastructure to delay any decision on the application until the two bodies got around the table to try to sort out some compromise. And so ends another week in dysfunctional Auckland politics.

Isn't it always the way? Every time you think Auckland's various political bodies are working together for the good of the region ... bang, they're at each other's throats again.

I wandered away from Infrastructure's press conference on Wednesday astounded and appalled that two organisations which claimed to have been working so closely together over many months on the Britomart project could suddenly explode like Pakistan and India over Kashmir.

Like the Kashmir dispute, some issues are long-standing. Infrastructure says it will have $675 million to distribute over the next five years and has allocated $410 million of that for passenger transport. The rest is for roads, stormwater and "innovative solutions." Auckland City says that all but $50 million of the $675 million should go towards passenger-transport infrastructure.

There are even those in the city who argue that Infrastructure could find even more to distribute by selling some of its port company shares as well.

But so far $410 million is it, to part-fund the region's $1.45 billion proposed new rapid transit system.

I must say I sympathise with Infrastructure in regard to the Britomart application. Within the funding limits it had set, it risked a huge outcry from the rest of the region if it had sunk some 22 per cent of its total transport grant into one project.

Sure, as the city says, it is a pivotal part of the overall scheme - the flagship station, the interchange where all roads and rail tracks hopefully lead and so on. But for all that, if this project had got the full $91.5 million requested, then all the other developments on the proposed network would have been short-changed and had to look elsewhere for their funds.

Infrastructure is also entitled to scratch its head at the variables of Auckland City's expectations as far as Infrastructure's coffers are concerned. Only last November, this paper was announcing that the cost of Britomart would be $174 million, of which Infrastructure Auckland and the central Government funding organisation Transfund would together be asked to provide $40 million.

By March the project had jumped to today's price and Infrastructure was to be billed $90 million and Transfund $25 million - an almost threefold increase.

Auckland, for its part, can justifiably argue that it is the driving force behind the attempts to solve the Auckland transport crisis, and, as with all regional projects, is once again being expected to pay the lion's share of local costs. Therefore it should get more than everyone else.

Adopting the formula used for most regional funding - the ARC levy, contributions to Auckland Museum and Motat and so on - Auckland City ratepayers pay about 45 per cent. Reversing that, Auckland city could argue it is entitled to 45 per cent of Infrastructure's grants.

Somehow I doubt that such reasoning will prevail when Auckland City and Infrastructure meet over the next few days.

What must prevail though, is a common-sense agreement. How do we expect the Government to take us seriously, when our civic leaders fail to provide any leadership?