So here she was, kindly being invited by budget committee chair Greg Sayers to sign her name to Brown\u2019s proposal, which conveniently also meant Sayers wouldn\u2019t have to do so himself. Simpson leaned back in her chair and, following a brief bout of nervous laughter, said \u201cyes\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She needn\u2019t have worried. The next six hours were a parade of humiliations for the budget\u2019s opponents. They were led by North Shore councillor John Gillon, who put forward an amendment he claimed would lower rates rises from 7.9% to 5.9%. He started off with a bang, delivering a speech<\/a> bemoaning the effect of Brown\u2019s budget on homeowners and renters, while arguing it doesn\u2019t deliver for his area. Brown has sold his plan as a 0% rates rise \u201cplus a train set\u201d, arguing almost the entire 7.9% rise was down to the cost of running the soon-to-open City Rail Link. \u201cWhile I acknowledge that the CRL will be well-utilised and will be of benefit to parts of Auckland, for many of my constituents on the North Shore, it is not relevant,\u201d Gillon said.\u00a0<\/p>\n He went on to propose 11 potential cuts and savings to lower the proposed rates. But his speech was followed by a question-and-answer session that several of his more progressive colleagues used as an opportunity to subject his proposals to a thorough vivisection. By the time it was over, many of the suggestions were little more than gooey remains on the council table.\u00a0<\/p>\n The backbone of Gillon\u2019s plan was a move to delay the council\u2019s efforts to fully fund its depreciation. It would potentially save millions of dollars. But Gillon\u2019s North Shore colleague Richard Hills noted the council\u2019s Moody\u2019s credit rating was already on watch<\/a>, partly thanks to the government\u2019s rates capping announcement. Couldn\u2019t Gillon\u2019s proposal trigger a downgrade? \u201cThat could put our credit rating at risk,\u201d answered the council\u2019s finance chief Ross Tucker.\u00a0<\/p>\n The general thrust was that in saving some money now, the council could end up costing ratepayers more for years to come. Gillon\u2019s other proposals didn\u2019t fare a lot better. He\u2019d asked for advice on cancelling all regional and local grants for a year, potentially saving the council around $7 million. Whau councillor Sarah Paterson-Hamlin noted that those grants had gone to a host of worthy causes, including the Santa parade. Hills listed other events that relied on the council\u2019s major events funding, including NZ Fashion Week, the Auckland Marathon, Pasifika, Auckland Writers Festival and the ASB Classic. \u201cDo you understand that deferring the $7 million, that would mean that those events don\u2019t happen?\u201d he asked. \u201cI assume that information will be included in the chief executive\u2019s response to this amendment if it passes,\u201d Gillon replied.<\/p>\n Wait\u0101kere\u2019s Shane Henderson noted that Gillon had proposed setting up an independent taskforce to look into potential extra cost savings. He wondered whether that would double up on work already being done by the council\u2019s value for money committee, which is led by the deputy mayor. Wouldn\u2019t these new committee members also expect to be paid, potentially costing ratepayers? \u201cI\u2019m eagerly anticipating the chief executive\u2019s advice on this,\u201d Gillon said.<\/p>\n The Q&A continued for half-an-hour in that fashion, with the answer to nearly every question put to Gillon being deferred to a future report from council chief executive Phil Wilson.\u00a0<\/p>\n Albert-Eden-Puket\u0101papa councillor Julie Fairey was withering over the proposed amendment\u2019s lack of detail, implying the council would be essentially failing in its legal duty to pass a budget. \u201cThis would be saying \u2018we\u2019re passing a budget today but we\u2019re not passing all of the budget today\u2019,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n The combined effect of the grilling was to make Gillon\u2019s proposals look threadbare, poorly evidenced or redundant. Toward the end of the session, Manukau ward councillor Lotu Fuli asked how much money actually carrying out the cuts suggested would save the average ratepayer. The answer, as it turns out, was just over $80 a year or around $1.70 per week.<\/p>\n It was sufficiently brutal that in the debate that followed the Q&A, Manurewa-Papakura ward councillor Daniel Newman felt compelled to give his North Shore compatriot a pick-me-up. He accused his colleagues of carrying out an interrogation straight out of \u201cPerry Mason\u201d, which a Spinoff internet search has revealed was a 1957 American legal drama<\/a>. \u201cI thought as the interrogation continued, you did very well,\u201d he told Gillon. \u201cI think you got stronger and stronger.\u201d<\/p>\n Not strong enough. By the time the debate rolled around, Simpson looked a lot less uncertain. She delivered a robust defence of the 7.9% rates increase, saying that while she wanted to see lower rates, she didn\u2019t think what Gillon and his supporters were proposing was feasible. She derided deferring depreciation, while saying other ideas \u2013 like cutting travel and catering budgets and reducing staff numbers \u2013 were already under way.\u00a0 \u201cI like some of your suggestions, I really do,\u201d she said. \u201cIn fact, I like them so much we\u2019ve already started looking at them.\u201d<\/p>\n After she spoke, the budget passed 14 votes to seven. It was a tough sell during a cost of living crisis. Backing Brown\u2019s budget wasn\u2019t easy for a lot of councillors, least of all right-leaning ones like Simpson and Sayers. But it sure got a lot easier after seeing the quality of the alternative.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After the interrogation was over, one councillor was compelled to give his beleaguered North Shore counterpart a pick-me-up.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":447476,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[23066,229043,229044,111,43,139,69,2114,135,18130],"class_list":["post-449800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-auckland-council","tag-auckland-rates","tag-john-gillon","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-opinion","tag-politics","tag-wayne-brown"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=449800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449800\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/447476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=449800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=449800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=449800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}John Gillon, right, and Whau councillor Sarah Paterson-Hamlin, who voted against his amendment.<\/p>\n
Julie Fairey, right, and Howick councillor Bo Burns, who seconded John Gillon\u2019s amendment.<\/p>\n