This "mega-plan" induced a "mega-cringe" at the amount proposed a mere $35 billion dollars. To put this into perspective, the entire annual spend for our council is less than 0.4% of this.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not against Auckland looking at its traffic woes and planning for the future — it is something we all should be doing. I guess I am still feeling the pain from a couple of years ago after the last harbour bridge announcement where just the plan (that was scrapped) cost over $55 million dollars.
This was timed perfectly with a cutback in our budget from Waka Kotahi that had a major impact on our budget, and our ratepayers’ pockets.
This brings into the foray once again the elephant in the room for local government — how we are funded. Do you remember back at school when they were picking teams for sport in PE and the dread that accompanied it not be the last kid to be picked? It kind of feels a bit like that at the moment, and it shouldn’t. Auckland is the popular kid, followed by all the other bigger cities where the most votes come from, and they will get picked first.
We know full well our contribution to the team is going to be substantially more than we get recognised for. We aren’t wearing the flashiest gear. In fact, we might be wearing red-bands and a chequered shirt as opposed to Gucci and Louis Vuitton but we have the muscle, the knowledge and the strength to deliver, even though our contribution to the team is quite often overlooked.
The question that I keep asking, which ties into the recommendations of the Future for Local Government report that has just been released, is why we don’t have more of the funding that comes in from the vast array of taxes to spend locally.
One of the concepts is around GST. Should we get to locally spend the GST from where it is generated? The same should apply to our road user charges and a number of other potential revenue streams. We can still contribute to the entire team, but we can also ensure that we can do the best for our great region too.
