Evidence Not Rhetoric Best for Wellington Super City

The Taxpayers Union is disappointed that even business groups are getting caught up in the rhetoric and ignoring evidence in the Wellington Super City debate ahead of the Local Government Commission's announcement later today.

Taxpayers’ Union Spokesman Ben Craven says:

“Hutt City ratepayers forked out for a thorough peer review of the evidence on super cities. Instead of using the lessons from Auckland and around the world, even the Wellington Chamber of Commerce is using buzz phrases like ‘collective decisions’ and being 'one voice’ rather than considering the cold reality.”

“The Hutt’s economic expert’s thorough review on the sweet spot for the size of local government showed that cost per ratepayer could drop as size grew toward 40,000 but above 200,000 scale-inefficiency starts to bite.

The Union is also concerned that local politicians such as Greater Wellington Regional Council Chair Fran Wilde are promoting the regional infrastructure argument, even though water and transport is already managed on a regional level.

“Fran Wilde’s argument that Wellington’s network infrastructure should be managed on a regional basis trade on the public not knowing that already in Wellington they largely are. If the Wellington Regional Council is failing at these regional issues that is no reason to disband the other councils and give a regional council the lot.”

Transcript of John Milford, President of Wellington Chamber of Commerce , on this morning’s Morning Report on the proposed Wellington Amalgamation.

SF - Susie Ferguson. JM - John Milford

SF: The President of Wellingtons Chamber of Commerce, John Milford, Good morning.

JM: Yes Good morning.

SF: A super city for the Wellington region, is it a good idea?

JM: We believe its a good idea, our members have consistently told us that, over 70% of them in fact have told us that.

SF: Why?

JM: They believe, I mean business, lets look at the facts here, business rates pay for the region 28% of the rates, in Wellington City its nearly 50%. So businesses have a vested interest in making sure the region performs economically strongly. You know the ten years up to 2013, Wellington region performed worse than the national economy in all indicators except one, its in the business interest, it’s in the regions interest to make sure we are a strong economic region.

SF: Yes but, what is the connection between that poor economic performance and the 9 existing councils? What’s the link?

JM: The link is basically, working together to make sure that projects across the region work and are streamlined. It’s about making sure that we have a voice, in the country. It’s about making sure that we move the region forward collectively. It’s not about each individual council, having their own schemes, doing their own things, it’s about moving the region forward.

SF: OK, well that all sounds very nice, and are nice phrases, but what does it actually mean? What are some examples of some things that either have fallen away, or some things that would like to see progress and would be easier to progress under a super city?

JM: Well things like infrastructure discussions, roading discussions. Things that affect the collective decisions that we make across the region. To be honest with you, we want to be able to sit around the table, New Zealand Inc, and talk collectively about 500,00 people talking to central government, not the individuals talking to central government. You know we’ve got, 13 percent of the population lives in the wellington region and yet we only produce 2.6 percent of the exports of this country, we are under performing as a region, we need to perform better. You know economic prosperity will benefit all people in the region.

SF: So what do you say to those who say, well look we’ve got a specific community of interest here, say in Lower Hutt, or where ever it may be, and we are going to lose our self determination and our ability to look after our own local issues.

JM: Well of course those people that are advocating that they’re going to lose are the current incumbent councils. If you go and talk to the local board in Auckland and the local board chairs, as we have done, and we’ve had them come down here, they would actually paint a different picture. The would actually say that they’ve actually got more control and more say now and that it’s locals that are having their say.

SF: All right, thank you very much for joining us with it, that was John Milford, he’s the President of Wellingtons Chamber or Commerce.

ends

© Scoop Media