Centre-left council circus set to continue regardless of ringmaster

Today’s revelation that Auckland Council’s current wage and salary expenditure is already tracking over budget as well as the costly move to establish a Rainbow Community Advisory Panel shows this Labour-led administration is still not listening, nor will any of its Labour-appointed successors, says Auckland Councillor for Orakei, Cameron Brewer.

“Last week the Left also managed to keep the proposal alive for Auckland Council to join the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group and regularly fly council representatives around the world to conferences. At the same time news broke that image consultants had been hired for staff, and again all on the ratepayer.

“Rest assured nothing has changed at Auckland Council, and nothing will change if the torch is passed to a new centre-left Mayor to carry on with the agenda. It won’t help Auckland’s critical relationship with the National Government, and it will do nothing to help the back-pockets’ of ratepayers.

“Aucklanders are not saying let’s keep this circus going but just change the ringmaster. Ratepayers have had an absolute enough. They increasingly want regime change and a complete overhaul of Auckland Council’s current and proposed direction.

“On Tuesday I issued five top line priorities that the next Mayor of Auckland should focus on: Getting back to core business; respecting ratepayers’ money; exploring all the funding options; achieving a betting better balance in transport; and empowering local boards and communities.

“The Centre-Left is not interested in any of that. They’re all about hanging on to their power base in Auckland, keeping their jobs, and growing the bureaucracy,” says Mr Brewer.

Today in the Finance & Performance Committee it was revealed that the six-month expenditure for Employee Benefits (wages and salaries) recorded an actual of $394m compared to a budgeted $371m, with the explanation “services provided in-house previously outsourced”. No assurances were given that the full-year FY 2014/15 budget of $719m will not be blown.

www.cameronbrewer.co.nz

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