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Vol 52, No 23
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7% OF AIRPORT SHARES TO GO
By LAURA KVIGSTAD, Auckland Council reporter Funded by New Zealand on Air
A
two-day brawl among councillors for Auckland Council’s shares in Auckland International Airport ended in a decision for partial sale. At the Extraordinary Governing Body meeting on June 8, Mayor Wayne Brown’s final budget proposal was tabled. Brown’s proposal included a total sale of Auckland International Airport Limited (AIAL) shares, an increase of debt by $100 million, a rate increase of 7.7 per cent and reduced a majority of cuts for social services. After day one’s discussion among councillors it became clear Brown was not going to get the votes needed for a total sale of the shares. He ended the day’s discussions with several amendments to the budget in the works from councillors. On June 9, day two began with the first amendment from Cr Lotu Fuli. Her amendment took the shares sale out of the budget but proposed an
increase in debt to $160m and a decrease in the proposed rates rise by one per cent to 6.7 per cent. “We have not had a strategic approach to the shares but that is our fault – we have not had an investment strategy in place for some time and that’s our failing. We failed the people of Tāmaki Makaurau,” Fuli said. She said some criticism of the airport shares was that they cost more to keep than they returned but she argued that was true of every asset council owned. “I accept that if we have underperforming assets then we should look at selling them but this is not an underperforming asset.” Cr Shane Henderson said he could not support an even greater increase to council’s debt. “If I did support this amendment, I would feel irresponsible to my ward, irresponsible to Aucklanders and their future services,” Henderson said. Huge costs for the City Rail Link, storm related costs and buyouts of Aucklander’s flooded homes were coming
which he said council needed a strong ability to borrow in order to address. “We also need headroom to cover the decades of underfunding that we have done for infrastructure in the city.” Fuli’s amendment was lost with 13 votes against and eight in favour. A second amendment landed on the table from Cr Angela Dalton. Similarly to Fuli’s, it took council’s airport shares out of the mix, increasing debt by $140m while keeping rates in line with the mayor’s proposal of a 7.7 per cent increase. “This enables the airport shares to be retained for discussion into the long term plan where we can have a fuller discussion [about sale] with more information,” Dalton said. She hoped that by reducing the debt proposed in Fuli’s amendment more councillors would be open to retaining the shares. Cr Richard Hills said he could not support the use of debt to fund council’s operational expenditure. Continued on page 2
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