Swarbrick Comes out Swinging at Auckland Council Budget Cuts

March 12, 2023 Stan

Auckland

Auckland Central MP Chlöe Swarbrick says a growing tide of disquiet with the proposed budget cuts to a range of council services encouraged her to help people submit feedback

A sweeping suite of cutbacks in Auckland’s mayoral budget proposal has spurred Auckland Central’s MP to launch a guide to the submissions process and encourage Aucklanders to have their say on the proposed changes.

Chlöe Swarbrick says the wide-ranging cuts to services could have a damaging effect on progress on social equality and combatting the climate crisis, and hopes to unite people from disparate affected communities into speaking up.

The budget proposal’s consultation period opened at the end of last month, and sees council collecting feedback from residents until March 28.

Feedback will then be analysed and recorded in a report for elected members to consider and deliberate during March and April, before making the final decisions in June. The budget will be adopted at the end of June – the main tool in Mayor Wayne Brown’s toolbox on his quest to fix Auckland.

Brown campaigned on promises of taking a closer look at council services and tightening the organisation’s belt in order to try and fill an operating deficit of nearly $300 million. It’s a job that’s only made tougher by the recent flooding and storm events in Auckland.

His promises of cutting costs have seen a wide range of services potentially on the chopping block.

The proposal that would save $125 million of annual operating expenditure would have the following effects:

No new public transport services
No more council early childhood education provision
Cutting Tātaki Auckland Unlimited’s funding by $27.5 million, with expected service and pricing ramifications for Auckland Zoo and Auckland Art Gallery as well as other venues
Cuts and reductions to homelessness initiatives
Cuts to local board-funded activities to the tune of $16 million
Regional contestable grants cut by $3 million
Cutting water quality and environmental targeted rates, eating into money already collected from them to keep up the delivery of associated work programmes

Swarbrick Comes out Swinging at Auckland Council Budget Cuts — Auckland mayor Wayne Brown’s budget proposal has to make some tough decisions in order to make up for a shortfall of nearly $300 million. Photo: Matthew Scott

Swarbrick said what she found upsetting about the proposal was the sheer breadth of impact the new austere funding approach would have.

“I think the most egregious thing is it’s not just any one of our communities that are under attack. It is literally everything that we value about life in this city.”

She said since the proposal was unveiled in December, she’d received a huge amount of communication from Aucklanders worried about the budget.

“I don’t think that any Aucklander that I’ve spoken to that has spent any time with the facts of what this budget would entail for our community feels very good about it either,” she said.

She said while there was widespread disquiet about the proposed cuts when the proposal first dropped in December, since the extreme weather events of this year that opposition has swelled in its ranks.

“Now with the flooding and the cyclone, people are seeing very tangibly and clearly the failure of the status quo and business as usual,” she said. “There is a far greater sense of impetus that I’m feeling and hearing from people who want to get into this. The sense of urgency has really heightened.”

The most common concern was from people worried about cuts to public transport.

The proposal seeks to maintain the December 2022 level of public transport services for this year and next in order to save $21 million.

“Auckland Transport has been told to stop wasting money on projects that Auckland ratepayers don’t want and speed up Auckland’s transport system, while making it more resilient,” Brown said in explanation of the proposed move.

Public transport is a touchy subject in Auckland, especially as cancelled bus and ferry trips continue to be a common occurrence.

But there’s a bit of a logic trap in how both sides respond to the perceived performance of Auckland Transport.

The budget (and by proxy, the mayor) alleges that the council-controlled entity has been wasteful in its spending, and too focused on things Aucklanders don’t want.

It’s a polarising debate, but one conclusion that can be safely made is that cutting funding to public transport services certainly isn’t going to reduce the number of cancelled trips, or indeed get Aucklanders back on the side of their transport provider.

“One of the things that’s most tangible for many people and is one of the things that is raised with me the most is the bedding in of those bus cancellations, which were supposed to be temporary at the end of last year,” Swarbrick said.

So in response to the concerns of her constituents, Swarbrick this week launched a guide to making submissions to council on the budget proposal.

It follows a petition she organised which has seen more than 8000 signees oppose cuts to climate action.

Since the storm events the proposal has been amended to include $20 million a year for proactive and reactive storm responses.

However, stormwater management down the track that comes in the form of daylighting streams and planting vegetation is often completed by local board grants that may see big cuts.

Swarbrick said the argument over funding for climate action right after the extreme weather events represented a real crossroads moment.

“Right now it does feel very starkly like there is a fork in the road in this country, and we kind of get to choose one of two paths,” she said.

“We’ve had a literal climate crisis land on the back door of the largest city in this country, but we are unfortunately in this situation where we’re not having a discussion about how we can and obviously need to totally transform the way that we’re developing our city – instead we’re having a conversation about harm reduction and how we can stop the worst and most egregious of things happening.”

But how optimistic is Swarbrick that submissions can make a difference?

She said the importance put on public consultation was one difference between central and local governments.

“Under the Local Government Act, there’s quite a high threshold of requirement for our councils and local authorities to pay attention to the input of our communities in a way that unfortunately doesn’t occur at the likes of our select committees,” she said.

“I would see it as completely untenable for the mayor and for council to progress with a budget that were potentially overwhelmingly rejected by a chorus of Aucklanders.”

But that’s the other side of the coin when it comes to local government – with a lower level of engagement, there are large parts of the population with low engagement in local politics and therefore small groups can make a big difference.

“The really fascinating thing about local government is often times so few people engage that those with the loudest voices in the room get disproportionate outcomes for the very little effort they put in,” she said. “You see this reflected again in the likes of the unitary plan or…. special character areas.”

Hence the submission guide – a call to action for people who might otherwise not take the time to write up their feedback and become an incremental but vital part of the democratic process.

“Politics doesn’t just happen every three years at election time, it happens every single day with decisions like this that bake in long-term consequences for our communities,” Swarbrick said.

It never stops.

“That’s right,” she said. “I wish it did!”

The mayor seems similarly encouraging about the submission process, directing the questions of Spinoff reporter Sam Brooks to the submissions website last week when asked about potential cuts to funding: “Don’t fucking come and talk to me, write a submission and make it clear that you value it.”

While some Aucklanders will value austerity and others will value holding on to the services they benefit from, all have the same opportunity to log on and write a detailed piece of feedback to go into the mix of advice once councillors start debating the budget next month.

Aucklanders can have their say online, by phone or at face-to-face events set to be held across the region.