....Its About Credibility!...

I believe in playing the ball, not the person (to coin a phrase) and I have thought very seriously before writing this.

Like many of you I received a pamphlet in my letter box from one of our Mayoral aspirants. It was impressive, well produced lots of quick stories full of good news about her aspirations.

However there are problems with her assertions in a number of areas but I will dwell on just one. That was her story titled "Rates up:Growth Flat" In this story she states; "I've challenged Council on jacking up our rates, ..." setting out a number of scenario where rate increases impact heavily.

That assertion would not be so bad except for one simple fact. She did no such thing. At no time during the debate did she make any such comment. Not only that her voting record provides clear evidence that she voted for the rates increase, the only two dissenting voices being Crs Free and Ritchie.

And the record gets worse for her. There were three successful amendments which reduced expenditure in the budget by approximately $3m (meaning the rate increase was 4.9% rather than the projected 5.1%) and she voted against all three of them. (See Wellington City Council, Government Finance and Planning Committee Minutes, 26 May 2015, pages 8 through 11.)

She would have voted for a rate increase of 5.1% if her voting intentions had been realised with the amendments failing.

It would not be so bad if this was a simple lapse in memory, but alas no, there seems to be a problem. Only a couple of weeks earlier there was the "Kate Shepherd Traffic Light Crossing Signals Scandal" where she came out on her white charger to rescue the situation before NZTA took away our "Kate".

NZTA blew the cover on this one with an emphatic statement that "Kate" was never in jeopardy of being removed.

So the ball I am playing is "credibility". In light of the disdain in which politicians are largely held it is a commodity which must be paramount in the character of one who wants to lead the city.

Out of charity I will not name the person I refer to. But I will say this, she needs to be much more careful with her utterances if people are not to think that she "just made it up".

Mark Peck
City Councillor
Lambton Ward

ENDS

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