Auckland budget: Councillors back to the table on airport shares
Ricky Wilson/Stuff
Auckland mayor Wayne Brown and his councillors will return to the Town Hall on Friday to resume debate on the council’s annual budget.
Auckland’s mayor and councillors are back at the table on Friday to decide the annual budget The big ticket item is whether to sell 8% of an 18% stake in Auckland airport That partial sale would likely mean an average rates rise of 7.7% and reinstating $4m of cuts to local boards. Councillors could yet shift the airport shares debate out of budget, to be dealt with in their 10-year plan instead – meaning no result today
Auckland councillors will be back at the Town Hall on Friday to continue discussions on council’s budget for the next financial year – with a vote on a partial sale of $2.2bn in airport shares top of the bill.
Despite an entire day of proceedings on Thursday, the big ticket item of Auckland Airport shares was not resolved – the issue which stands to have the biggest effect on rates.
Councillors will start day two of discussions with any further questions on mayor Wayne Brown’s updated budget proposal from Thursday. They will also consider two amendments.
Manukau ward councillor Lotu Fuli tabled an amendment asking councillors to consider a full sell-down of the council’s airport shares as part of the long-term plan process which will start as soon as this year’s budget is agreed on.
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Albany ward councillors John Watson and Wayne Walker also tabled an amendment for funding to be reinstated for the Hibiscus Coast Youth Centre for the next financial year.
North Shore ward councillor Chris Darby also signalled he was considering an amendment to the mayor’s Thursday afternoon airport sell-down proposal, from 8% to 6%.
But whether Darby will proceed won’t be known until Friday morning.
Before the budget debate even really began on Thursday, Brown said discussions were likely to take two days.
Brown broke from usual proceedings and adjourned the meeting before discussion had even begun on the updated budget plan he launched last week.
Ricky Wilson/Stuff
Auckland mayor Wayne Brown and deputy mayor Desley Simpson in discussion as the Auckland Council budget meeting breaks for 10 minutes on Thursday for councillors to read through the mayor’s latest budget plan.
The mayor then moved the meeting into an open workshop where each councillor had five minutes to give their opinion on his proposal for an average rates rise in line with of inflation and selling the council’s entire 18% airport shareholding.
Nine councillors signalled they would not support selling airport shares, while three said they would support a partial sale of the shareholding.
After lunch, Brown put forward an updated plan: selling an 8.09% stake in the airport to free up about $1 billion to be used to pay down debt.
Brown’s post-lunch plan, which councillors will debate on Friday, along with proposed amendments, includes a 7.7% rates rise for average value properties, reinstating $4m of cuts to Local Board budgets, and asking the council’s chief executive to find another $5m of cuts.
This increases the amount of savings to be found across the council group to $33m in the next financial year.
“I believe this is the best, proven, achievable, balanced budget for Aucklanders,” Brown said.
