Rudman's city: Pig-headed city councillors throw common sense out with the trash

By BRIAN RUDMAN

The pig-headedness with which Auckland City is pursuing its small wheelie bin policy can have only one explanation. Councillors want to add Kabul to the twin-city list, and have been told by the Taleban rulers that they must first prove their zealotry.

In an election year, you'd think self-preservation would have persuaded councillors to bend when obvious anomalies in the new policy were revealed.

But no. The public relations advisers have told them not to bow to common sense. To do so would be a sign of weakness. Amazingly, the councillors were silly enough to take this advice.

Lest you think I exaggerate, what follows is advice recently accepted by the city works committee from Fran Comerford, a senior environmental policy analyst.

"A change in policy for MGB [mobile garbage bin] allocation could have negative media and public relations implications ... Council's media and public relations advisers have indicated that the following reactions are likely to occur:

"1. There is a risk that a change in policy may be seen as a last-minute u-turn. The public interpretation may well be that any policy amendment so near the July 1 start date is evidence of a council that is unable to make up its mind, or of a council that is wavering about the wisdom of the new waste management strategy as a whole.

"2. A change at this late stage could also be seen as setting a precedent and an opportunity for the public to pressure council for other changes that they want made ... "

Well, perish the thought that councillors might be swayed by the wishes of the people. Where will such subversive talk end?

With elections looming, now might be a good time for the politicians to start listening to the people a bit more, and the officials a little less. If they did, common sense would tell them there are anomalies and unfairnesses that need sorting out.

A few stand out.

One is that from next Monday, a large family will have to try to squeeze all its rubbish into a bin half the size of the one it now uses. If it can't, tough luck. It's the only way, say the social engineers, that we will be able to halve the city's outflow of rubbish.

But in the next breath, the council blows a great hole in this policy. Sure, the council won't take more than one small wheelie bin away from each property. But if you want to hire a private rubbish company to take the rest, feel free.

How, you might ask, does that reduce the overall flow of rubbish? All it does is hit the pockets of the large families.

Another unfairness involves the treatment of people living in blocks of flats.

Take two identical blocks of dwellings. The flats in Block A are rated separately. This qualifies each of them as eligible for an individual MGB. The folk in Block B are less fortunate. Their rates bill adds up to the same as the combined rates of the folk in Block A, but because it is levied as one rates bill, these people qualify only to share one new bin between them.

A year ago when this anomaly was revealed, the council said that once the folk in Block B had filled their one MGB, they would have to retain a private rubbish collector for the rest. Two months later and all heart, the council weakened: for $185 a year, the citizens of Block B could buy an additional bin each.

This discrepancy is unjust. And, says councillor David Hay, it also discriminates against the poor, who tend to be the people living in these single-title blocks.

Finally, it doesn't reduce the flow of rubbish. All it does is push it into the hands of private contractors who, presumably, take it off to the same tip the city is trying not to fill itself.

The same anomalies have also occurred where factories, offices, rest homes and schools are concerned.

It's as though the boffins think the rubbish will just halve overnight to match the reduced capacity of the council-supplied MGBs. Yet in the next breath, they're saying there are private contractors to take up the slack. It doesn't compute.