Rodney Hide's assault on super city 'naysayers'

Rodney Hide’s assault on the ‘naysayers’ of his super city nirvana, who he accuses of spreading ‘wild, hysterical’ falsehoods about his cherished creation, prompted North Shore Mayor Andrew Williams to reflect on the Local Government Minister’s approach to winning over public support.

In his classic novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell introduces the concept of newspeak. The book’s hero, Winston Smith, explains this notion using the example of the newspeak word ‘blackwhite’, which when applied to an opponent, means the habit of impudently claiming that black is white, in contradiction of the plain facts.

Up front in his article, Hide presents what he claims to be an “unassailable fact”, that ratepayers are “sick of their region being paralysed by the woeful inability of eight councils to agree on anything”. This is an excellent example of the use of ‘blackwhite’.

Evidence suggests that the existing eight councils actually cooperate very well together, either on a city to city level, through the mayoral forum, or via constructive collegiality between CEO’s and managers. Examples from a Shore perspective include the western ring route, the northern toll road, northern busway, library pooling, waste recycling, joint animal shelter, cleaning up the harbour, the regional growth strategy, One Auckland Plan, and major sporting, arts, and economic development initiatives.

There are high levels of ratepayer satisfaction with what is provided at the local level by the existing councils, with the latest North Shore city customer satisfaction surveys returning between 70 and 100 percent positive result, the lowest unsurprisingly being over transport services.

It beggars belief that somehow universal harmony and consensus will be delivered by replacing seven local councils with 21 local boards competing against each other for both funding and resourcing, and bickering with the uber-council over the extent and exercise of their delegated authority and powers.

Curiously, later in his article, Hide says that “for a hundred years, Wellington has set Auckland up to fail” arguing that only Wellington, through imposing his super city on Auckland, can liberate the region’s success. More ‘blackwhite’ deception.

Closer to the truth is that Wellington refuses to release its grip on Auckland. It has gouged money from Auckland for decades, taking over $7 billion in fuel taxes, road user charges and vehicle fees and returning just $3 billion in transport related investment between 1990 and 2005. It is no wonder that Auckland has not functioned efficiently when it has been starved of transport funds to make it a well connected internationally competitive city and region.

Another stand out example of ‘blackwhite’ is Hide’s extraordinary claim that the expense of creating his super city is a “drop in the bucket”. In May last year, he characterised these costs as “miniscule”.

The real costs of setting up the government’s shiny new super city are unknown.

The Royal Commission on Auckland Governance estimated the cost of setting up its model to be between $120 and $240 million. Rodney Hide proudly declared in the House recently a $94 million cost for his version, the same day he issued a press release putting the cost at $160 million, figures repeated in his Herald article. Others estimate that once the hidden costs are included, including making hundreds of hard working, dedicated council employees redundant, the grand total could run as high as $300 million.

Whatever the final transition and establishment costs end up being, one fact that is certain is that the ratepayers of the new Auckland Council will be lumbered with it, plus interest. Hide’s article failed to mention that this mammoth sum has to be paid back by Aucklanders to the central government coffers. Exactly when and how remains a mystery. Regardless, the people of greater Auckland will suffer rising rates bills as a result to pay for Hide’s folly.

Yet more ‘blackwhite’ arises on water charges. Hide makes the unambiguous promise in his article that “water prices will be lower”. However, Hide himself said only back in April last year that allowing a move from rates to volumetric charging for wastewater will “create winners and losers”. On the North Shore, council operated water has held charges virtually constant for over seven years, whereas the corporate Metrowater model used across the bridge has led to increased water bills.

Perhaps the most insulting example of ‘blackwhite’ is the labelling of those Aucklanders who remain unconvinced by Hide’s super city rhetoric as “naysayers”. If the polls are anything to go by, that places me in extremely good company, along with the 53 percent of Aucklanders who believe a single Auckland council will be worse for them, and the half of Aucklanders who think the super city will be a worse place to live.

It seems that in Hide’s ‘blackwhite’ world, the enemy are the tens of thousands who would prefer their own councils to remain, and the thousands who have written letters, attended meetings, and made submissions, in order to maintain their local democracy.

In perhaps the ultimate example of ‘blackwhite’, Hide asked on his ACT Party weblog not long before the last election, “how to get the bastards under control so they don’t waste our money, don’t rob us blind” in relation to local councils and rates. A couple of years on, I wonder whether the profligate, open ended spending of $300 million or more of Auckland ratepayers’ money on the instruction of Wellington central government politicians to set up the Super City, that we did not ask for and do not need, now qualifies they themselves for Hide’s title of ‘bastards’?

By the end of the book, the hero of Nineteen Eighty-Four, Winston Smith, is worn down by the tyranny and the thought police, and forcibly re-educated to accept the Party doctrine and to love Big Brother. Hopefully, this will not be our fate too.

This opinion piece was submitted to NZ Herald but was not published

ENDS

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