Local Government Minister Rodney Hide with Auckland Transition Agency chairman Mark Ford
The Auckland Transition Agency has swung into damage control. The Herald this morning reports Michelle Boag has been pulled from any recruitment of executive positions for the Super City.
With their decision the ATA is effectively saying their Minister was wrong. One day earlier in Parliament Rodney Hide sounded perfectly happy with Michelle Boag’s role in recruiting super city executives while being an adviser to John Banks’ mayoral campaign. He lined up with the ATA, Boag and Banks in declaring he could see no conflict of interest.
And yet all the facts were available to him: Michelle Boag’s public statements, and the tender documents released to me the day before by the ATA under the Official Information Act.
Bear in mind Boag was specifically tasked with recruiting the new super council’s chief spin doctor who was to have been appointed by March and would have been working for the duration of the mayoral campaign – the same mayoral campaign in which Boag is a campaign adviser to John Banks.
In question time Hide seemed to think it sufficient the ATA had selected the bid by Boag’s company Momentum because it was the best “in terms of quality, process, and lowest cost structure”, and he was “not responsible for what Michelle Boag does in her spare time”.
He said he was not concerned Michelle Boag’s recruitment company, Momentum, may have misled the Auckland Transition Agency when it stated in its business proposal it had no conflicts of interest to declare.
He said he saw no reason to order an investigation into the affair.
My question for the Minister: Does he stand by his statements?
My question for Aucklanders: Is this man fit to be in charge of setting up the super city?
P.S. Rodney Hide posted a comment on Red Alert last weekend in response to my post on the risk to the Waitakere Ranges posed by his latest super city bill. Rodney, if you are reading this, your comments would be most welcome on this issue.
For background on this issue, see Heather McCracken’s original story in the Herald on Sunday, my Red Alert posts from Sunday and Wednesday, Thursday’s Herald story by Derek Cheng, the transcript from question time, and the video.
… my question Does anyone believe that with Momentum still as contractor Boag will have NO input at all?
Phil, if you can now just get Michelle Boag pulled from the Panel on RNZ, you will earn the eternal gratitude of listeners up and down the country.
Good work for not letting this one go.
Phil, thanks for exposing this obvious ‘jobs for the boys’ rort, and I guess good on the ATA for finally coming to its senses. I saw a poll in the Herald, last week I think, that said almost 60 percent of Aucklanders would stick with their current councils if given the choice, and something like 70 percent said they had been ignored and railroaded by the government over the super city. No wonder Hide has gone to ground and now seems to be trying to blame everyone else. The guy is a political ‘dead man walking’.
Indeed, the heat is going on Hide. His judgement is found wanting, yet again. Time for Rodders to pack up his dancing shoes, squash racquets, fake tan and wetsuits and take the missus on a permanent overseas junket, I reckon.
Shouldn’t Nationals Auckland MPs be saying something? What good are they if they won’t stand up for the voters who elected them? Everyone can see the train wreck coming.
Thank goodness MB is still on Banksie’s team, though. May Banks-2010 be as much of a winner as English-2002.
Good Job!