GOFF WANTS THEM OUT
TEAM NZ’S $13M FREE RENT
estimated in 2017, was barely one-toone, with a range of 0.997 to 1.14.
Since, University of Auckland economics Professor Tim Hazledine and New Zealand Initiative chief economist Eric Crampton have voiced scepticism over the purported cost/benefit ratio for the city.
Crampton told the Weekend Herald yesterday the Cup was an excuse for
“the Government to spend a lot of money on what is effectively a big party in Auckland”.
“The business case for governance support of the America’s Cup was weak to begin with. The benefits in these sorts of things are always overestimated,” Crampton said.
“Now, under Covid, the event will be much smaller than it otherwise would have been. A lot of the expected visitors on which the business case would have depended will not be showing up, so the case obviously will have worsened.
“It was never that great an idea to start with. It’s an even worse idea now.”
In 2018, Hazledine said: “It’s very hard to get to the bottom of all this but my guess is that the regatta will make less for the country than the amount Emirates Team NZ are asking the Government for.”
Auckland Ratepayers alliance founder Jordan Williams argued “countless other community groups and businesses would love the chance to use this space, and pay for it. Team NZ is hardly impoverished — its sponsors include Emirates, Toyota and Omega watches.
“They can fend for themselves without the help of struggling ratepayers.
“Ratepayers are already forking out around $150m to revamp the waterfront, including the Events Centre. Haven’t we been milked enough?
“The council probably argues that we have to spend this much to compete with other countries keen to host these events.
“This is a dangerous line of thinking that sees the council engaged in ratepayer-funded spending wars with other, wealthier, countries.”
Another unseen cost of Team NZ entering the Events Centre is the absence of an Auckland venue for big events — which has been dramatically compounded since the SkyCity convention centre burned down in October last year.
The seven-room Events Centre can house more than 3000 people, and has held hundreds of functions each year, including NZ Fashion week, political party launches, corporate functions, conferences and school balls.
Auckland-based Ninety-Nine Reasons event management director Frankie Mahoney said they were “quietly screwed” for large event locations now big hotel reception venues were also being used for Covid-19 isolation.
“We could kind of cope knowing the Viaduct Events Centre was out — it was an inconvenience — but we had other options,” Mahoney said.
“Because when we’re booking events we’re pre-booking years in advance so we’re never looking at something next week.
“When Sky City burned down then we went ‘now we’ve got a problem’; those options are gone.
“What’s even a bigger problem now is all the big hotels have become Covid hotels. I saw a client recently and I said to them ‘we can’t do this event in Auckland next year’. We’re taking them offshore next year.”
Last week, NZ Herald and NewstalkZB were served an injunction in the High Court by America’s Cup Event Ltd (ACE) and Team NZ from publishing details of a report commissioned by the Crown. Herald and ZB owner NZME, which was not represented in court, will fight the injunction on the grounds of public interest, given the level of public money involved.