Giving a Pyromaniac Matches Will Simply Cause Them to Come Back for More
4 JULY 2016

Joint release by the Auckland Ratepayers' Alliance and the New Zealand Taxpayers' Union

The Taxpayers’ Union, and its sister organisation the Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance, say Auckland Council are not trustworthy when it comes to spending the taxpayer money announced yesterday by the Prime Minister, for Auckland and other high growth regions, to assist with infrastructure development.

Jo Holmes, a Ratepayers’ Alliance spokesperson, says “Mayor Len Brown has welcomed the extra money saying it is needed to help Auckland grow. But we’ve heard all this before. Mr Brown hiked rates by 9.9% and introduced the transport levy. Despite this, capital spending in transport infrastructure was down last year. “

“Every time Auckland Council receives more money to ‘grow’ Auckland the only thing that results is growth in Council staff numbers and the number of non-core activities the Council throws our money at.”

“Before Auckland Council can be trusted with one cent more, it should be addressing the systemic problem of wasting ratepayer money.”

Jordan Williams, the Taxpayers’ Union Executive Director, says, “Given the lack of details around how this financing scheme is going to work, it appears the billion dollars was seen as a good headline and the actual policy detail will come later.”

"Rather than thinking, ‘what needs to be done and how much will it cost?’ John Key’s office has thought, 'let’s announce we’re spending a billion dollars and figure out the rest later'. From a taxpayer perspective that is very scary.”

ENDS

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