I’ve been saying for a while the Government’s agenda for Auckland is to corporatise our democracy and privatise our assets. In 24 hours they have delivered on both.
Yesterday we had Rodney Hide announcing plans to loosen up the controls on privatisation of water services just two months after he and his National cronies denied any plans to privatise when they voted down my private member’s bill to protect Auckland’s assets.
And now I hear from concerned senior staff at the Auckland Transition Agency of the agency’s extreme corporatisation agenda for the super city. The plan, due to be announced on Monday after agency chair Mark Ford briefs mayors today, is to parcel almost all the functions of the new city into commercially-run ‘council controlled organisations’ (CCOs). The elected mayor and councillors will presumably turn up to work and eat their lunch. There will be nothing else for them to do. Why would good people bother standing for office under this model?
Up to eight CCOs with their own boards and CEOs will run all the main city services including transport, water, stadiums, land development, and economic development. They are even planning to corporatise libraries and community houses. A rump Auckland Council CEO will be left to administer things like human resources, public relations, IT and finance.
To make it even more difficult for elected representatives to exercise any kind of accountability, these CCOs will all report to a Council-owned holding company with its own CEO and board.
So you are a ratepayer. You get mad that the trains aren’t running on time. Or the footpath is not being maintained. You get on the phone to your local councillor. What is the councillor going to do? Talk to the Mayor? Talk to the Council CEO? Ask him or her to talk to the holding company CEO, and in turn ask him or her to talk to the CEO of the council controlled organisation, who in turn will probably have to talk to the contractor?
Get ready to spend a lot of time waiting on the end of a phone to the customer services call centre.
This Government is planning to run our country’s biggest city like a group of companies. But Auckland is not a private firm. It is a collection of communities.
A case can be made for the CCO model for certain activities where you might want to insulate from direct political control. But not the whole operation of our city. It is corporatisation gone mad.
So we go from many councils to one, but with many separate little empires.
What is the sense of this
That’s horrible
I wish I could say I’m surprised, but I’m not.
Essentially unelected individuals, two steps removed from their elected bosses, will decide everything: Rodney Hide’s bold move to get rid of that messy community democracy nonsense.
I suppose, according to the market model, an Aucklander unhappy with how his present footpath ‘provider’ is performing, can go get a footpath of another supplier. Of course, in practise, there is no other supplier, and no real punishment for underperformance.
All this brought to you via the National Party, without whom Hide’s ACT party would just be a fringe group.
“So you are a ratepayer. You get mad that the trains aren’t running on time. Or the footpath is not being maintained. You get on the phone to your local councillor. What is the councillor going to do? Talk to the Mayor? Talk to the Council CEO? Ask him or her to talk to the holding company CEO, and in turn ask him or her to talk to the CEO of the council controlled organisation, who in turn will probably have to talk to the contractor?”
Well given that the status quo is that ARTA (a CCO under the ARC, set up by the last government) contracts with Veolia (a private company), to run the trains in Auckland, which leases the trains from ARTA, on track operated by Ontrack, part of Kiwirail, which is an SOE, the example is completely bogus.
Which part of the current rail governance structure, which Labour set up, is it now opposing?
@ Libertyscott – Remember there is an additional holding company in the proposed super city structure which makes it even more convoluted. I take your point that transport governance is pretty complicated now. Mike Lee makes a good case that transport should be under direct control of the democratically elected Auckland Council. Reform and development of transport will be the litmus test of the success of the super city for most Aucklanders. Why not make the politicians directly accountable for getting it right? Public transport isnt and will never be a profit making operation. The shabby conduct of NZ Bus and Infratil over the drivers’ lockout is reason enough for us to be very sceptical about the idea that the private sector always does these things better.
Phil: Labour set up ARTA and ARH (Auckland Regional Holdings Ltd), so are you saying that was a mistake? I just want to make it clear that Labour policy has changed from that implemented by the last government.
If so, that is a substantial swing to the left and back to the old ARA days of everything being run in house. Politicians were directly accountable then, and the ARA ran buses appallingly, with fleet investment haphazard, the appalling anti-user exact fare policy which drove people away, the scheduling and routing changes that were driven by parochial politics rather than surveys and professional decisions on patronage and demand. In other words, the very model Auckland had during 40 years of almost continuous decline in public transport usage. It is also the model used in the USA, which often means buses are ignored because few politicians see votes in it, as most swinging voters drive.
Funnily enough, some public transport is profit making, there are commercial bus services in Auckland today – always have been, as there are in Wellington, Christchurch and other centres. The issue is whether you let that be and fill in the gaps with contracted services, or franchise entire series of routes so profitable cross subsidise the unprofitable. There is a legitimate debate to be had over those models, but going back to politically determined decisions on public transport operations would be a disaster. Don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater because of one industrial dispute with one of several companies running buses in Auckland.
Libertyscott – Read the ‘About’ statement top left of the page. These are opinions. We don’t yet have policy on this. You have locked on to transport as an example but the broader point of my post is that the ATA is applying the corporatised model to every area of the new city’s services and functions, even libraries and community houses. Its going way too far.
Excellent news!
Just excellent.
The fewer meddling politicians we have the better.
How do you run a library as a corporate entity. Charge entry fees? They will hae an interesting time explaining how they will do it.
The interesting ones will be Parks and gardens, planning and building. I they try to run them as a private entities they will have to pay corporate rates to their staff and consultants which will cost a fortune.
I see that the “honourable” Minister for Local Government is planning on a $1million party for Supercity!!! Now that reeeeaaaallllyyy seems like a smart move given the cost cutting rationale for the supercity!
It’s so great to see wise spending actions now that give us hope and belief in wise leadership for the people of Auckland…..NOT!!!
Libraries Inc ? or Book Corp.
Its all a a silly corporatism which produces bloated management structure , and yet their income will come via the rates ( for now but general charges for each borrower cant be far away)
Libertyscott’s quite right. Giving the public the freedom to choose almost invariably describes true value.
For example, last year 97% of kiwis freely chose any alternative to scotty and co’s miserable reactionary dross.
“Giving the public the freedom to choose almost invariably describes true value.” – Er, I don’t think the public actually chose this.
Libertyscott points out quite clearly that transport is a mess – far too many agencies involved.
There should really only be two parties involved: the public agency that plans everything, builds the infrastructure and owns the rolling stock; and the private company which operates the service (like Veolia).
That is far far more simple than the current set up, which both this government and the previous Labour government made almost unworkable with a stupid number of agencies involved.
By the sounds of a few posts on here Labour realise that their old transport policies were rubbish, and are changing them quite significantly.
Let me see if I have this right:
The councillors are elected, they appoint a CEO and board, this CEO and board then appoints the CEO’s and boards of 9 CCOs, these CCOs then contract out services, contract consultants and hire employees at private sector rates..?
Wasn’t the supercity supposed to be about simplification and reducing the layers of the council..?
JH , silly you, if the Super City was all about streamlining and simplification.
Not to worry it will all be obvious as a rats nest just in time for the next parliamentary election
Remember the days of the Auckland Harbour Board, the Auckland Transport Board, Auckland Drainage Board.
Its deja vue all over again.
Maybe we could have Selwyn Toogood to announce it all as well.
LOL
Where, one might ask is Laila Harre in this murk?
This whole business (of replacing democratic structures that deliver services to their communities without a profit motive with privatised profit driven corporates) is highly alarming. I for one dont want to have share holders reaping profits from the necessities that my community has to have. I dont want unelected CEOs running my communities affairs. And I dont want fascists (make no bones about this, this is the corporate state a la Mussolini)like Hide and his sick cronies with their 3% and corrupt little deal with the Auckland business community aka the Nats financial backers running my affairs. To the barricades.
Will the CCO’s be covered by the Official Information Act?
If not, it will be a really good way of the bureaucrats avoiding scrutiny- salary bonuses, travel allowances, consultants etc..
You’re implying that all these bad policies were in effect for the entire 40 years when this is untrue. I can remember when exact fares became the policy and when they were dropped because they were a failed process. The worst policies over that same 40 years was that all the councils kept building more motorways and roads rather than extending and improving public transport. As roading increased it became more and more necessary to have a car instead which is why more and more people stopped taking the bus.
Your talking about National and ACT who’s sole purpose of existence is to increase profit to the big business sector from rates and taxes while ensuring that that same big business sector isn’t actually accountable.
2 mentions of Mussolini on this blog in a week. Sheesh. First Key and now Hide/ACT. Nick J – please, please give me some examples of this connection.
Clint, I suggest you read a bit more history, you might start with Mazowers Dark Continent, or even Fergussons latest tomes. The common trait with fascism and the comments is the fragility of democratic institutions when confronted by internal anti democratic force. Few fascists ever seized power, most were democratically elected then began to dismantle the state from within. Sound familiar? Another common trait was that the beneficiaries of the fascists were those who already had the money, Mussolini went through with privatisation of most major public concerns for their benefit. I dont accuse Hide of being a fascist who attempts to seize power, I see him more as a person who has no mandate and is abusing his role for the benefit of the few. You can dismissively say Sheesh, in case you are not aware history has a habit of repeating itself on those who dont learn from it. Get reading.
Interestingly Mussolini was a socialist when he was younger.
You’ve just given me an idea for a Halloween costume, cheers.
Yep, there’s evil at both ends of the left / right continum.
Continuum!
On second thoughts, that costume would be offensive, my brain has just engaged, sorry if I caused offense.
I’ll go as a poltergeist instead.
Roads, Rates and Rubbish! – That’s so similar to the three Rs in education!
It appears a bit of a no- win situation for government who were heavily criticised for not following some recommendations of the Royal Commission on Auckland Governance.
Read the Auckland Governance Report – as if firmly recommends CCO’s for more than what is being proposed
Are the govt are damned if they do and damned if they don’t?
Yip it should have been a political bonanza for Labour but it seems all the spin talent left with Helen Clark…
Phil Twyford is the only one really pushing on this and Labour has lost a huge opportunity by instead chasing every hint of a scandal with National Ministers and a whole heap of issues it is going to get caned for or people don’t care about and then not pushing them hard enough… Quite poor really…
As for hides privatising water,i’ve got my own private water supply.It’s a tank and it’s supplied by rain falling on the roof.And the day rodney comes to take it over is the day i haul out the musket and start shooting.I’ve had a complete gut full of corporations and the way they are trying to take over my way of life.
@al zhiemer, I’m with you, buddy. Let’s get em!