Money talks – what will city’s Budget say?
OPINION: In just over a fortnight Auckland’s mayor Phil Goff will release his proposal for how ratepayers’ money should be spent in the next Budget.
Money talks, and the proposed Budget will speak about climate action, which so far has been hesitant and focussed inside Auckland Council, along with public transport and a commitment to encouraging less polluting ways of moving around.
Or maybe it won’t. The politics of the 2022/23 annual budget are interesting.
Based on current smoke signals, it may be the last one Goff proposes. He has yet to announce his thoughts on seeking a third term, but the current belief is he won’t.
So will this budget be bolder and take leadership in a way that past ones haven’t?
Might we see a targeted rate to both increase and ring-fence spending on climate action?
It’s an idea that in 2020 never made it out of the closed prebudget discussions, where the politicians filter a lot of ideas away from public scrutiny.
Those ideas included freezing public transport fares, which has been a pipe dream of Auckland Transport’s but never survived the pencil-sharpening fiscal pressure from the council.
Like no other budget, this year’s will balance the expectation of genuine, urgent action on climate measures against unprecedented fiscal gloom.
Covid-19 continues to squeeze council books. Auckland Transport fears a $50 million deficit at the end of the financial year next June, less if a new round of government public transport support emerges.
The council itself may have to allow for a possible $28 million refund of Goff’s beleaguered Accommodation Providers Targeted Rate, after the Court of Appeal agreed with hoteliers that it was invalid.
The less tangible ingredient is the public environment into which the budget emerges.
After more than 3 months of Covid-19 restrictions, there are signs public tolerance is stretched – and while the urgency for climate action grows, the acceptance of change by many may decline.
It may not worry Goff if he chooses to step away from office five months after the budget takes effect.
But it will add a further challenge to remaining councillors, who need to be more courageous in driving change to a lower-carbon future – at a time when resistance by some to political mandating is hardening.
Whatever other pressures are on the budget next week, it is worth remembering that a big investment in climate action – outside the council’s own operations – has been deferred twice.
The council has pledged to halve carbon emissions from 2016 levels by 2030.
This might have been a year in which the council chose to be more open about all the ideas and bids for funds that go into the months of deliberations before the mayoral proposal, which frames further debate.
Auckland Council insists (and may be right) that because no decisions are made in the confidential workshops, that part of the process does not need to be public.
However, the simple fact is that not every idea raised will emerge into the daylight on December 9 when ‘‘non-confidential’’ budget workshop material is made public, only after the mayoral proposal is released.
There is of course public consultation early in 2022, but in the past, not much has changed once the mayoral proposal comes out of the political jelly mould.
Money talks. But the Budget proposal will need to shout big news to be heard above the discussions on how a Covid-19 summer will look, which will be front of mind leading up to Christmas.
Over the next three weeks, the councillors need to focus on getting both the volume and tone right.