Author: Tony Holman

ABOUT THIS BLOGGER: Tony Holman – NZ born and bred. Has had a lifelong interest in community, political and environmental matters. Some of this has been expressed in letters, articles and occasional TV interviews over fifty years. Published material has mainly been featured in the NZ Herald and other newspapers, especially the North Shore Times. On the community side, Tony has been involved in ratepayers’ organisations, environmental, educational, and political groups – both central government and local bodies. He also served two terms on the Auckland Conservation Board. His careers have spanned teaching (secondary and tertiary) in NZ, UK and Canada; regional government (ARA); the kiwifruit export industry; two major government projects; animal welfare (Royal NZSPCA). All have been senior positions. Later on Tony became firstly, Chair of Board of Directors, Watercare, then spent 15 years as a Councillor on the North Shore City Council and as a Community Board member. His wide experience has been aided by considerable travel and living overseas, plus academic qualifications of BA, Diploma of Local Government, and Diploma of Teaching. Tony Holman has been awarded: QSO for public services; 1990 Commemorative medal, and North Shore Mayoral Award for ‘outstanding dedicated service to Local Government.’

Report Card for Mayor Goff – Year 1.

27.11.17

LETTER TO NZH (not published)

Report Card for Mayor Goff – Year 1.

Pre-election, 2016, Mr Goff was reported as calling Council wasteful and inefficient. What has he done to rein in the burgeoning staff and the growing salaries bill?

Why has the incredible cost of business class fares for so many flights of fancy been allowed to continue?

How many of the bloated P/R section of have been given notice?

What, as Mayor, has he done to counteract the lack of integration occurring with six Council (un)Controlled Organisations, each with its own Board, management and policies? The only move seems to have been to remove the two elected Council representatives on the Board of Auckland Transport, the single highest spending CCO.

Another pre-election report outlined Goff’s policies as: “capping rates at 2.5% or less; cut council spending between 3 and 6%.” Anybody noticed any of that happening?

Bernard Orsman also noted : “Phil Goff plans to put the heat on the Chief Executive to change the culture of the Super City.” Seems the bureaucracy has not felt any heat when one reads the chaos of our parks maintenance, or the wasteful and community-destroying actions of Auckland Transport.

Mind you, Mr Goff will offset this criticism by planting 1 million trees – sometime.

Posted on by Tony Holman

An outrageous situation.

21.11.2017

Editor,
NZ Herald.

Dear Sir, Letter to the Editor: An outrageous situation.

I am outraged the Auckland Council’s CEO has refused to accept a legitimate notice of motion from some Councillors. Under normal Standing Orders, of a normal council, no officer (including the Chief Officer) has a right to refuse to put a notice of motion on a council agenda, unless it has been recently debated.

It is even more outrageous that the Chief Officer is one of those who could be affected by a change, which is by his intervention will now be delayed for some months allowing the spending spree to continue.

Finally, I am amazed that very few Councillors seem savvy enough or brave enough to stand up for their democratic rights as our elected representatives, and to impose their wishes on the hordes of officers, rather than what seems to be the other way around.

Posted on by Tony Holman

Comments to PM Arden, Ministers: Robertson,Twyford and Mayor Goff, re “New Deal” for Akd.

Dear Prime Minister, Ministers Robertson & Twyford,and Mayor Goff.

I refer to the media item below:

“NEWS ITEM: Auckland Mayor Phil Goff will travel to Wellington this week to hold his first talks with the new Government. He will meet Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, Finance Minister Grant Robertson and Twyford.
The talks will be the start of a conversation on a “New Deal for Auckland”, Twyford said.”

A few quick ‘headline’ responses which I hope you will take into account in your deliberations:

1. The amalgamation of Auckland and creation of the “super City” was imposed on Auckland without approval of the populace – quite unlike other regions where the ‘Auckland model’ has been proposed (and rejected.)

2. With that in mind, and the major problems and dysfunctional, corporate style of this undemocratic ‘model’ requires urgent review – a public one, with real feedback from the public, institutions and community organisations. This to be undertaken urgently by an independent and non Council and non Governmental body. (i.e. not the LG Commission).

3. City problems and planning: The Unitary Plan is impenetrable, has largely removed democratic rights and processes in favour of speed and developers, is an insensitive and random “plan.” This too needs some major simplification and improvements. It also needs much stronger requirements to assist and protect the environment.

4. The environment and community health: These will be heavily impacted by the UP, with the rapid loss of private open space, public open space, including overriding of the Reserves Act by various other plans and proposed new laws – including ‘Special Housing Areas.’

The fact that there is very little expansion of parks planned, measures to remove protection of relevant, community oriented management plans, and new regulations (UP) providing for more buildings in reserves, all point to a greater degree of pollution and decline in community health as the intensification of population presses more and more on the shrinking open space.

5. Congratulations on the proposal to consider satellite cities around Auckland. In my many years on the Auckland Regional Growth/Sustainability Forum, some of us were keen on this proposal. The report recommended places such as Helensville and Wellsford as suitable towns to develop as satellites, (a) because they are on rail, (b) because they are a reasonable distance from Auckland, meaning that those who can work remotely and only need to visit the central city occasionally can commute easily and quickly by (upgraded) rail systems, as could commuters. (c) these places already have a reasonable amount of infrastructure. Satellite cities, complemented by reduced immigration and regional development plans (incorporating ‘bonded’ immigrants settling in those areas) would greatly assist Auckland’s desperately costly housing situation.

Since 2010 I have thought that Huntly, Hamilton, and even Whangarei could be developed in similar fashion, especially if your Government proceeds to upgrade rail services in any of these linkages – and also should Whangarei have some of the Port services transferred from Auckland.

6. Petrol tax for Auckland: This a clumsy, untargeted proposal hitting all car owners. A more positive project should be considered which encourages ALL vehicle owners, (public and private) to switch to EVs or hybrids. This could be done in a variety of ways and would greatly assist in reducing diesel and petrol pollution, with a congestion levy being placed on vehicles (other than public transport) entering certain limits.

7.Finally, Public Transport: It seems to me to be ridiculous to duplicate an horrendously expensive ‘underground’ up Queen Street, when it is now proposed to have a tramway on the surface. If the latter is to happen, then the expenditure on the mole hole should be terminated, and a huge amount of extra expenditure avoided.

(Sent 31.10.17)

Posted on by Tony Holman

An Alternative ‘Report Card’ on the “Super City”

(This is in response to an article on pages A18 & A19 in the NZH on Sat.Oct. 2017.)

AN ALTERNATIVE REPORT CARD ON THE ‘SUPER CITY.’

The biggest travesty of all: That no govt. allowed one third of this country’s population its democratic right to have a referendum on whether it wanted a “super city” or not. That was denied to us, although referenda have been allowed in two other parts of NZ (Wellington being one) and in both instances the public voted against the proposition. This was the first, and major stomping on our rights, and everything has been a consequence of that.

The corporate style governance model that has been imposed on us has resulted in the following:
Weak position of democracy – (a) local boards – lack of delegated powers and lack of reasonable funding. (b) Council – division of powers between Mayor, Council, CCOs and bureaucracy. (c) A veneer of democracy, but reality is domination by bureaucracy and commercial interests.

Huge lack of satisfaction with council performance. Only 15% “Satisfied”, but even there it’s not clear how satisfied. I hear major dissatisfaction from many ratepayers as well as current and former council officers.

A monolithic, poorly organised, highly wasteful bureaucracy. Many sections of Council have undergone 3, 4 or more “reorganisations” since 2011 – in only 6 years! Some officers have told me that any reports need to have the final approval of anything from four to eight managers before reports could be passed to the elected members. Reports get shuffled backward and forward as each manager tries to put his own desires into the report, while the next one is likely to disagree with the previous one, and the un-merry go round continues. This highlights extremely bad and inefficient organisational structures, and the excessive managerial levels, costs and reasons for snail-like progress.

Loss of control by the elected wing of council – i.e. our representatives. What was supposed to be greater integration by having one council instead of seven territorial councils has ended up with six CCOs and one Council = seven separate and virtually unco-ordinated units. Six of those seven units have no elected members on them, only appointed business people. We have seen at least one of them (Ports of Auckland) publicly thumb its nose at the then Mayor and Council, while the others, rather more subtly go their own way, with little effective control by our elected Council.

Further loss of public rights with the imposed Unitary Plan. A virtually impenetrable and massive document, the ‘Unitary Plan’ demolished the chances of most citizens (and some professional planners) from submitting to this complex, badly written, planning-ese and thus preventing so many to present alternatives to many proposals within it. It seems the basic mission of the UP was to ensure that massive intensification could take place almost anywhere and everywhere. That open space, by definition would need to be greatly reduced, with grave consequences for decent living, open space and the environment.

Costs and dis-benefits. Burgeoning rates, staff and managerial positions. Insufficient prudence and due diligence leading to major and avoidable budget blowouts – IT; the ‘new’ headquarters, and debt, now $8 billion, the ceiling!
Environment. Private and public open space is rapidly being reduced through infill and selling off public open space. Parks are being neglected because of major budget cuts –probably to help pay for more staff and more cycleways (largely unused.)
Increasing congestion and parking problems in most areas of the city, in turn increasing pollution problems and economic wastage.

Posted on by Tony Holman

THE Election

THE Election.

(Published in the ‘Gisborne Herald'(28.10.17),titled “So many big issues to address.”)

Did you vote? Did you like the result? Did you think that you would have to wait so long to see who would govern the country?

So why has it turned out this way?

Perhaps NZ is becoming more divided, or more “diverse” which means more divergent needs, objectives or loyalties.

Also, a disillusioned section of the community seems to feel that the political parties are introverted, talking mostly among themselves rather than discovering the key issues that people are worried about.

People who care about the really important things want to see brave and inventive leadership that galvanises caring people. There are so many big issues:

Poverty; housing; immigration; climate change; child abuse; water; increasing corruption; one-sided trade agreements; international tensions; environment; health; education; loss of sovereignty and ownership of land, particularly of our productive land; land speculation; economy.
Finally, the uncomfortable feeling that the NZ way of life is being rapidly eroded.

While waiting for the final outcome, some have used the opportunity to disparage the MMP system, promoting a return to First Past the Post.

They conveniently ignore the fact that a government was frequently elected with the largest number of MPs, but with fewer voters than the ‘defeated’ party. This was not democratic and did not allow every person’s vote to count.

The most important aspect of MMP, and the reason the country voted for it, is that now everyone’s vote does count, rather than how many MPs of each party are eleted. In the end it is the total vote for the party that now gives the proportionate number of representatives for Parliament.

Thus with 50.4% voting for change and only 44.4% voting for the ruling party, a new government promoting significant changes is the outcome.

The people have voted for a number of parties and those parties offer a number of alternative policies and emphases. The discussions between the various parties has meant that they have had to hone their key policies and priorities in discussions with one another.

This is good, sharpening up the chosen policies, removing vague ideas and promises, ensuring that constructive criticism provides a stronger and more realistic base for the chosen policies.

For those who think that a FPP system is simpler and better, I suggest that view is somewhat simple-minded, especially in a country without any real constitution, and without a second house (like Australia or the UK) which enables rushed, defective, or very unpopular Bills to be re-debated, and if necessary sent back for amendment.

Whether Mr Peters was reflecting a central, common theme of the new government in his TV announcement or not is yet to be seen, but it must have sent a chilling message to some here and overseas when he referred to the failures of capitalism.

To some that may have seemed (or will be interpreted by commentators) as communist talk. But I would refer them to many capitalists and some very rich people around the world who agree that excessive capitalism has become a monster, now referred to as cannibal capitalism.

I hope that some of our major problems can be effectively faced and solutions put in place. But we must realise that these problems are so large, and have been ignored for so long, that they won’t be eliminated quickly or even in one term.

It is up to us all to do as much as we can to help solve these things at a local and individual level and not expect that any government can do it alone.

Posted on by Tony Holman