Rodney Hide’s hand picked appointees to run the new corporatised Auckland have been announced.
Apart from Sir Don McKinnon and Mayor Bob Harvey most Aucklanders won’t know who they are. And that is the point: these people will now wield enormous power over local government in Auckland but they’ve been selected in secret by the Minister, without Aucklanders having a say.
Not only did the Key-Hide Government insist on corporatising the super city against the will of Aucklanders. But Hide couldn’t wait two months and let the newly elected Auckland Council make the appointments – he had to put his own people in there. Hide promised to consult Auckland Mayors on the appointments and then promptly broke that promise.
The appointment that sticks in the craw is that of Mark Ford. Mr Ford is a former chief executive of Watercare and chair of the Auckland Regional Transport Agency(ARTA). He is Hide’s man put in place to run the Auckland Transition Agency setting up the super city. Along with Hide he is the main architect of the over-centralised and undemocratic corporate jack up that the super city has become. He has been extraordinarily influential, at times advising Cabinet directly.
As well as setting up the super city, and overseeing the appointment process for the directors of these council owned companies, Mark Ford now has arguably the most powerful job in the whole set up. He is going to run the new mega-transport agency which will spend 54% of Aucklanders’ rates. Transport is the area Aucklanders most want to see fixed. It’s importance cannot be over-emphasised.
Underlying the concerns about the Auckland super city has been a fear that power is being concentrated in the hands of a highly centralised bureaucracy, and corporate boards operating behind closed doors. Mark Ford is the personal embodiment of both.
I think the Auckland Council should hold US Senate-style confirmation hearings on the appointment of these board chairs. Let the newly elected Mayor and Councillors question Hide’s appointees on behalf of the people of Auckland in open session. Ask the questions their electors want asked and then decide whether these appointments should stand.
I would dearly love to watch Winston Peters stand against Hide in Epsom. That would some show.
Hide … appointed …
– I need a drink, and it’s too early dammit 
Who the hell is Simon Allen? Or ‘call me Dave’ McConnell? Neither would stand a chance of being elected to a Local Board, yet they are now running the show. And we now know how much a ‘Bob Harvey’ costs.
What about Tuku Morgan? Or Dame Jenny Gibbs?
From the business sector which gave us Hanover, SFC and Feltex, welcome to the new CCO boards of lawyers, businesspeople (what a lot of men!) and also-rans in whom we should place our confidence. And, indeed, Mr Ford has been amply rewarded!
“I think the Auckland Council should hold US Senate-style confirmation hearings on the appointment of these board chairs. Let the newly elected Mayor and Councillors question Hide’s appointees on behalf of the people of Auckland in open session. Ask the questions their electors want asked and then decide whether these appointments should stand”.
What an excellent idea, Phil! Perhaps you should stand in Epsom against Rodney Hide…………
They shouldn’t even do that, the new mayor needs to write very specific Statements of Intent and ask the CCO CEOs if they will follow it to the letter, if they so no they get immeaditely canned… Simple and lets the CCOs know who is boss from the outset…
Banks is never going to do that…
How about setting them some enforceable KPIs? Just because key and Hide are terrified about fronting up with anything quantifiable re: their own objectives (aspirational goal anyone? its about efficiency- what efficiency? lets see some numbers), does not mean we should let their buddies off the hook.
I will post this on the TM messageboards. I hope you don’t mind phil, but I will make out it is my own words.
this is corruption. it’s crystal clear, hope to god he doesn’t get back in.
i don’t know why people are so surprised by this. after all, we voted for a government that would do our “thinking” for us. national have always used the “wise uncle” approach. nothing has changed within that party. if people want these issues decided for them, then having no say in how things are done is part of the bargain.
this is just standard modus operandi.
Compare Sean Plunkett’s tone and attitude toward PPTA spokesperson this morning and then toward Hide minutes later.
Hide repeated his mantra, Council can sack these guys at any time…
Watercare CEO gets a Director role. Hide also said we wanted Aucklanders, Isn’t Tuku Morgan ceo of Tuhoe, based in hamilton?
I actually really hope this works, cos I live here. But Plunkett just rolled over for Hide, no challenge on the dismantling of democracy, while hounding the PPTA spokesperson to give him the answer he wants.
Why are we sitting by and letting this insanity happen?
BFM’s the Wire had me and Hide on today. Hide says I am a worrier. You know just because you are paranoid doesnt mean they are not out to get you. http://www.95bfm.com/assets/sm/196646/3/RodneyHideAndPhilTwyford.mp3
Good question Patrisha O’Sullivan.
Talking of insanity, what about the foreshore and seabed giveaway, or should I just keep quiet and it will all go away.
Open your eyes, ears and minds people.
Phil, Rortney always ‘plays the man’ when he is out of bluster. It’s a basic characteristic of the uber bully. He must have been ‘all pumped’ from the slavish coverage by the indolent, craven and brain-dead media.
Why would we want politicians to be worrying about the governing of 1/3 of NZ’s citizens..?
I heard Rodders promising 20% lower water bills today… He must think we are really dumb…
The ‘interview’ that Geoff Robinson performed this morning was simply appalling. Robinson strikes me as someone who would be better off fronting “Sooty and Sweep”, but I suspect that even a sock puppet would stump him given recent evidence.
There is no doubt that the Hide charm offensive is in full swing following last week’s “ROYal Rumble”, and the media are only too willing to oblige. Hide’s speech to the NZ Herald Business lunch almost made me lose mine, and the fact that he – of all the MPs that could have been asked – is contributing a puff piece in the Listener for Father’s Day, just reinforces that they are determined to save ACT.
Rodney can barely keep his ACT family together for goodness sake!
JMH
Remember when the establish of watercare was going to lower our charges too? Now the guy who was in charge of doing that is in charge of an even BIGGER asset
Boss Hogg, that interview was good reason to sell RNZ. What’s the point of putting taxpayer money into them to deliver quality public broadcasting and fair, balanced and accurate news and current affairs, when old Geoff behaves like Rortney’s press secretary? He should be ashamed of himself. If he can’t hack real journalism any more, he should get out.
Because we don’t have the power of recall. Still, not to sure that that would work. You’d have to get Epsom to do the recall.
Hide’s announcement today of lower water charges is a thinly disguised move to take the heat off John Banks’ mayoral campaign. Aucklanders know they are going to get it in the neck if user pays is applied to wastewater as Metrowater currently does in Auckland City – as is Government and C&R policy. It’s a joke for Hide to announce lower water rates when he has postponed the new wastewater regime til mid-2012, safely after the mayoral election and next year’s general election. He has done the same thing with general rates. He said today that Watercare, the new water monopoly, hadnt yet done the financial modelling – after a year of preparation for the super city. Yeah right. My statement: http://labour.org.nz/news/water-rates-announcement-pre-election-con-job
Don’t be such a tosser phil.
Phil is great!
Leave him alone, he would do a great job of running Auckland, much better than the Hide critters!
!
Watercare can charge what it likes for water- if it charges more, the council deficit goes down, if it charges less it goes up. How can the Minister for Local Government tell Auckland ratepayers what their council should charge for water? Its not his f—–g decision to make.
He’s treating us like little children, can’t we make decisions for ourselves?
3
plus years of private ownership rip 
FF
Auckland has a $1,000,000,000 backlog of maintanance and replacements costs for sewage and stormwater infrastructure… They SHOULD be charging us a lot more…
Oh I hope Hide keeps this behaviour up, and with the full support of Key.
You were really good on the Beatson supercity debate on Triangle last night, Phil. Thanks for showing up the lack of democratic, consultative process in setting up the supercity, Phil. Nikki Kaye did not impress me at all with her blatant disregard of democracy in explaining the non-transparent process.
Thanks Carol.
Maybe Hide is setting things up with his super city mates, in this case Ford, to secure himself a job somewhere when he is out on his rear next election. Can’t wait for that to happen.
That picture would make a good “caption that photo” competition.
Now, how is Labour going to engineer this into a 5-6% swing their way in the AKL region…the time to put the boot in nears.
Firstly National has got to be made own these changes, not Hide, who will be seen by the Right as an expendable casualty if it all goes awry.
Nice c all on Hide deflecting, Phil. I note that in 2 years we will have our hides fleeced when they add in the wastewater charges, but Hide will be holidaying with his g-friend, on us.
Just had an automatic phonecall. By the time I picked up the receiver the woman (yes, that’s all they’re good for in Hide’s super city world) had already launched into her speel.Two questions:
1. If there was a general election tomorrow who would you vote for?
2. Which Super City mayoral candidate will you be voting for?
Proceeded to read out the names.
I hung up. Wish I’d heard who she was claiming to represent. My pick is, it was a Nat/C&R initiated poll. Might even have been Farrar’s Curia killing two birds with one stone.
Poor Anne
It’s interesting Spud. The voice sounded the same as that of the woman who does the govt. and quasi govt agencies’ automatic phone services. Y’know… press one for Mickey Mouse… two for Donald Duck and so on. I have frequently been very rude to her but it never puts her off her stride.
Seriously, only someone with BIG money could afford to do it, so that makes it more likely to be a Key/Banks/Hide initiated operation.
LOL
Sock it to em 
Actually it doesnt cost very much to get robo calling done. A $1000 PC, a $1000 programme, and a phone line.
Sounds like a good business…
Would it not also depend on how many responses were recorded? A robot (presume that is what robo stands for) system could involve several phone-lines calling different parts of Auckland and they could run for hours. Does Labour use the system? Interested to know.
I’ve been called on a few polls this year – always humans, it’s that uninterested human touch that counts I think…
Hi Anne,
Yes you could have several phone lines hooked up, add a few phone/modem cards to a PC (slight additional cost for each board) to run them, so it gets slightly more expensive but not outrageously so, I would suggest.
Mind you, I haven’t formally priced out such a system myself.
Oh, so that was what it was about, Anne. I got called by that phone bot, but it hung up on me before we got to question 2. I thought I was answering question 1 in the requested way, but the bot just kept repeating the first question then hung up.
Had the bot just got over-stressed with such biased polling, poor thing?
Hi Carol. It gets more interesting. Perhaps it didn’t get to you until it had been running 12 hours and it’s battery thing(?) ran out?
That woman is a full time professional so she’d have cost a fair bit. I’m sticking with the Banks machine.
You are banned for three months. Clare