Auckland mayor Wayne Brown on council’s long-term plan

Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown says his proposed long-term plan consultation document should “sail through” today as he has enough support from councillors.

Brown was speaking to Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking this morning ahead of presenting his proposed budget consultation document to councillors this morning.

Three options for rate rises have been proposed, with most of the council, including Brown, supporting a “medium” increase of 7.5 per cent the first year, 3.5 per cent the next year and 8 per cent the following year.

The long-term plan (also known as the 10-year budget) consultation document will be presented to councillors this morning, so they can vote on whether to put it out for public consultation.

The public will then have four weeks to comment on its contents.

Brown pointed out that most other councils in New Zealand were facing 15-20 per cent rates increases this year.

His preferred version was “bang in the middle, it’s justifiable, there are no major cuts, there’s a lot of restraint”.

The council had “borrowed like hell” and had a lot of debt servicing costs but he would not be increasing debt, he said.

”We’ve had 40 meetings so far, I’ve bent over every way to accommodate everybody I possibly can. It should sail through - but then again there are people who’ve got bees in their bonnets about odd things.”

Brown said the public had a better understanding of what he wanted to do than some of the people around him, so he hoped people would have their say on the proposals - which Hosking pointed out covered 773 pages.

Brown has been warning for some time that Auckland faces immense budget pressures, last year proposing a raft of cost-cutting measures as well as rates rises to balance the books.

While modelling had indicated a 14 per cent rates rise would be required in the first year, Brown last year had revised that down to 7.5 per cent, followed by an increase of 3.5 per cent in 2025 and 8 per cent in 2026, with annual increases around 3 per cent thereafter.

Brown’s proposed budget also included selling a long-term lease for Port of Auckland’s operating business while keeping the waterfront publicly owned.

The proceeds would go into an Auckland Future Fund, which would invest billions of dollars in a similar manner to the NZ Super Fund.