Auckland Mayor Len Brown is locking future ratepayers into paying at least $90 million a year for operational costs once trains begin using the City Rail Link some time from 2021.

Amanda Banks' "obsessive" detective work saw her husband John Banks' electoral fraud conviction quashed and answered a High Court judge's doubts over her honesty.

When the Corruption Perception Index comes out next week there will be much attention paid to whether New Zealand takes a dive, writes Bryce Edwards.

Mike Hosking asks, "Am I the only one who thinks things around Auckland Council are getting hopelessly out of control?"

The whole Roger Sutton controversy raises important questions and concerns about sexual politics and the state, writes Bryce Edwards.

A trust that funded Auckland Mayor Len Brown's election campaign and kept donors' identities secret is under police investigation.

Who runs New Zealand? That’s one of the big questions to arise out of the Waitangi Tribunal’s landmark ruling that Maori never gave away sovereignty.

Perhaps the balmy spring weather is lulling me into a false sense of optimism, but I am getting the feeling that the old Auckland City administration "skyscraper" might survive the wrecker's ball after all.

Low-income ratepayers in Auckland got more than $10 million of state aid to help pay last year's rates bills.

Plans to save New Zealand's first skyscraper, the Civic Building on Aotea Square, or demolish it have been outlined to councillors and the media today.

Auckland's $2.4 billion underground rail project may get a push-along from the Government if it follows advice from its Transport Agency.

Homeowners feeling flush after learning their newly-released property values are borrowing more from banks to splurge on new cars, boats and home renovations.

Christopher Luxon was brought in to put the foot down and drive profit, writes Grant Bradley. He's not about to let historic ties to some towns influence cold, hard business decisions.

With Auckland councillors searching the city vaults looking for a long-forgotten hoard of gold bars to fund their "visions", it was only a matter of time before someone zeroed in on the $2....

Heavy demand by homeowners desperate to access details about newly released property revaluations has now brought down the Quotable Value website.

Auckland residents eager to find out the new value of their home have been disappointed this morning after the Council's website crashed.

Auckland property owners will today find out the new value of their homes when the Auckland Council releases individual capital valuations online.

How refreshing it would have been if they'd waited for the rates-blending process to work its way through the system before deciding to stick the vacuum cleaner into our wallets again.

The cost of burying two to three people who die each year on Great Barrier Island left Auckland councillors stone cold at the end of a marathon, two-day budget meeting yesterday.

Public fear around crippling rate increases is real. An expediential rise in the cost of growth associated with the proposed Unitary Plan is leaving Auckland panicked.

Auckland Council's budget committee has voted 16-7 for a proposal to increase rates by 3.5 per cent for each year of a new 10-year budget.

A new mountain bike park is in the pipeline at Woodhill Forest after iwi took over ownership, but cyclists also face an increase in fees.

Main work on the $2.4 billion city rail link will be pushed out to 2020 unless the Government comes on board with early funding, say officials.

The $2.4b City Rail Link could be deferred until 2020 because of mounting concerns by councillors about its impact on rates, debt and big cuts to community services.

So without enough to do, the elected body ponders long-term planning objectives and reads a great deal of paper on subjects such as environmental sustainability.

Motorway tolls. Or higher rates and petrol prices. Those are the options being presented to Aucklanders as a silver bullet to fix the city's traffic woes.