The Auckland Ratepayers' Alliance says Auckland Councillors' acceptance of free concert tickets from Eden Park 'stinks' and is the sort of behaviour you'd expect in third world countries, not a council about to vote on Eden Park's future.

Ratepayers' Alliance Spokesman Sam Warren said:

"These gifts were clearly a breach of the Council's own Code of Conduct. The Code instructs councillors to avoid accepting gifts that give rise even to a perception of impropriety or creation of a conflict of interest."

"The councillors were given tickets because they are councillors, at the very same time they're considering the future of the stadium. It's beyond belief that anyone is defending this."

"Councillors aren't concert reviewers. These gifts were clearly 'kick-backs' by Eden Trust's management to buy goodwill with councillors. It should be illegal."

"The idea that councillors were given tickets to the events, but somehow avoided speaking to the stadium's lobbyists targeting them—who coincidentally were in the very same corporate boxes—is similarly fanciful. The fact that the risk was identified means that staff knew full well that risks of impropriety were real."

"Not since Len Brown's appointment of his mistress into a paid Council 'ethnic advisor' role have we seen such sleaze around Auckland's Council chamber. The councillors who took the gifts should be paying every cent back, or at least preserving the integrity of process by recusing themselves from Thursday's vote."

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