Airport answers demanded

A leading political scientist is calling on Christchurch City council to release documents justifying the $45 million spent on a proposed Central Otago international airport to prove accountability.

Canterbury University professor Bronwyn Hayward urged the council to justify why a decision to buy land was made in the absence of a business plan or consent process.

Hayward’s concerns came after a proposal for the city council to formally express concerns about the project was shot down by a two-thirds majority at a meeting yesterday.

Christchurch Airport announced the proposed ‘‘world-class sustainable airport’’ for Tarras – about 90km from Queenstown – in July last year.

The council owns a 75 per cent stake in the airport via Christchurch City Holdings Ltd (CCHL), a company created to be a non-political buffer between the council and its businesses.

Hayward described the decision to spend public money without a public rationale or business plan as ‘‘extraordinary’’, and called for the council to be accountable by debating the project publicly.

‘‘For a healthy democracy, sunlight is always the best medicine.’’

Hayward was also concerned about the council using CCHL as an ‘‘arms’ length trading body investing in research and development in a way that was not transparent’’, likening it to a ‘‘common land-bank’’.

‘‘There are many science teams and tech teams that could put up a case for $45m to do speculative work . . . we needed greater accountability and transparency from the beginning.’’

Hayward said a recent report to Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta highlighted concerns that local governance systems were struggling to support robust and transparent community decision-making and the importance of making major strategic decisions public.

Dr Helen Roberts from the Otago Business School said the council needed to have external consultation with a representative taxpayer body or a ratepayer vote, because ultimately the international airport would be an investment the council would make on their behalf.

Roberts said the relationship between the council and CCHL could pose a risk that decisions were not made independently.

Councillors James Gough, Sara Templeton and Andrew Turner, along with mayor Lianne Dalziel, sit on CCHL’s board but were not allowed

‘‘For a healthy democracy, sunlight is always the best medicine.’’ Professor Bronwyn Hayward

to take part in yesterday’s vote.

‘‘There might even be some commonality between councillors and indirect associations,’’ Roberts said. ‘‘I don’t know that at all, but New Zealand is a small place, so chances are there is an overlap of interest, shall we say.’’

Unless taxpayers or an independent group within the community were willing to challenge what the council was doing, they would have majority control over whatever decisions were being made, she told The Press.

Councillors voted yesterday on whether they were concerned about the airport’s strategic direction and the cost and climate change impact of the proposed Tarras airport. The vote was lost, four to eight.

The four councillors who voted in favour of expressing concern were Yani Johanson, Melanie Coker, Tim Scandrett and Jimmy Chen.

Several councillors who voted against the amendment said they did so because they did not yet have enough information about the climate change impact of the proposed airport.

Cr Sam MacDonald, who chaired the meeting, noted the vote was not about deciding whether the airport would be built, but setting a strategic direction.

‘‘I think if we were to go down this path of being very specific, very deliberate, we could be at risk of being called the Kremlin,’’ he said, later saying it was an

allusion to a situation ‘‘where we dictated everything’’.

‘‘We’re not making a decision today on Tarras, and it’s unfortunate that the debate has become about that.’’

Cr Mike Davidson said he felt Tarras would be built in ‘‘a decarbonised environment’’. He said it could potentially be better to have people flying into Central Otago, instead of driving there in cars.

‘‘We actually don’t have enough information to make that kind of call today,’’ he said.

The vote over whether to express concern about the proposed airport was taken because Johanson proposed an amendment to a wider discussion about councilowned companies and their strategic direction.