Click photo to enlarge
Basil Walker passes (from left) Otago Regional Council
director of corporate services Wayne Scott, chief executive
Graeme Martin and lawyer Alistair Logan as he leaves the
High Court at Dunedin yesterday. Photo by Gerard O'Brien.
A Queenstown man trying to stop Otago Regional Council
funding for the Forsyth Barr stadium in Dunedin came up against
a High Court judge who questioned many of his arguments
yesterday.
Basil Walker, who is seeking a judicial review of the funding
decision, represented himself at the High Court at Dunedin
hearing before Justice Graham Lang, with Alastair Logan
counsel for the ORC.
The ORC has agreed to contribute $37.5 million towards
construction of the $198 million stadium, and yesterday's
hearing followed a May hearing in which Mr Walker attempted
to gain an interim injunction.
The first matter of the day was Justice Lang's questioning of
Mr Walker, an undischarged bankrupt, as to whether he was a
ratepayer, and had the right to bring the case against the
council.
Mr Walker said he was not a ratepayer, and would not be until
after bankruptcy proceedings were finished.
Justice Lang accepted that payment of the council's funding
would fall on ratepayers over a number of years, and Mr
Walker could be a ratepayer in future, so the case could
proceed.
Mr Walker's submission developed into a long-running debate,
as Justice Lang repeatedly intervened to question his
arguments and assumptions.
Mr Walker made clear his concerns about consultation, and the
council's decisions, but was told for the first of many times
the court could not rule on political decisions.
He told the court the stadium would be built on a flood-prone
area in a time of climate change.
"That is a merit based argument," Justice Lang told him. "I
can't go there."
Mr Walker argued the council had not disclosed its funding
would be sourced from borrowings, and there were what he
called "undisclosed interest" costs.
"From the outset the borrowing has been disclosed," Justice
Lang told him, the council had said that consistently, and
made it "absolutely clear".
Mr Walker responded later in the hearing the cost with
interest was $82 million, and the $37.5 million figure was
"much more sellable than the truth".
He said having Otago's regional councils help provide the
funding was a dangerous precedent.
GST and the stadium
Of course the council gets its GST back - it does so by charging GST on its rates and writing that off against the GST it pays on the $37.5M. That's the nature of how GST works - it's the rate payers who will get stuck with the GST on the $37.5M because they can't write it off against anything.
Also Mr Harland's affidavit in this particular case shows that the cost of the stadium is no longer $198M - if you add the figures he gives on what the DCC has spent to date (as reported by the ODT) to the cost of the contract ($165M) the total is $217.4M - the $198M number, like the $188M before it is just a milestone along the way.