30 April 2018

Mayor Phil Goff disregards democracy by claiming that Ratepayers’ Alliance supporters ‘skewed’ the LTP submission process, says Ratepayers’ Alliance spokesman Jordan Williams.

Ratepayers Alliance spokesman Jordan Williams says, “We’re honestly baffled by Mr Goff’s explanation for ignoring the anti-fuel-tax submissions. How have the results been ‘skewed’? Is he saying the Ratepayers’ Alliance's 19,000 members are not real people or don't count?”

“If the Mayor’s problem is with lobby groups encouraging submissions, why doesn’t he disregard the pro-fuel-tax form submissions generated by Gen Zero and Forest and Bird? Unlike theirs, our website allowed and encouraged users to individualise submissions.”

"In fact a huge number of our members heavily customised and personalised their submissions. It is frankly disgraceful that the Council can't even be bothered to read them. So much for consultation."

"If the Mayor thought he could get away with the sneaky claim that Aucklanders support the tax, based on a spring-loaded council-commissioned poll. It is absurd that he has resorted to cherry-picking public feedback in order to keep pushing this line.”

“The Mayor simply found efficiencies of 3.9 percent in Council spending the fuel tax wouldn't be necessary. His election pledge was to find between 3 and 6 percent, but to date he's delivered 0.3 percent.”

ENDS

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