North Shore Times (New Zealand)
20k sign petition for CAB
Aucklanders rally behind services facing council funding cuts
Peoplerallied behind Auckland’s Citizens Advice Bureau and libraries as public consultation on Auckland Council’s draft budget closed on Tuesday night.
The Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) planned to deliver 20,000 signatures in support of its operations to deputy mayor Desley Simpson on Tuesday.
The draft budget outlines how Auckland Council hopes to close a $295 million budget shortfall.
The future of CAB is uncertain amid proposed budget cuts to community services.
CAB Auckland City general manager Kate Anderson said if the cuts went ahead, ‘‘Auckland Council’s proposed cuts would shred Auckland’s social fabric. ‘‘Aucklanders value the CAB and see it as a vital local service.
‘‘Continued funding for Citizens Advice Bureau is about delivering core social infrastructure that underpins community wellbeing.’’
Consultation on the draft budget closed at 11pm on Tuesday.
The Public Service Association planned to join CAB to hand over its petition on Tuesday.
Social justice sector organiser Simon Oosterman said following years of Covid-19 and more recently the Auckland Anniversary floods, closing CABs ‘‘is simply outrageous’’.
Meanwhile, library advocates are decrying proposed cuts to library operating costs. It could mean libraries might be closed on some days and librarians replaced with volunteers.
Public Libraries of NZ research into Auckland Libraries data showed even after discounting the 180 days libraries were closed during Covid lockdowns, the average number of books borrowed per day had increased by at least 319 during the past three years.
Former Silver Fern Linda Vagana, who is the general manager of charity Duffy Books in Homes, said the move would disproportionately affect vulnerable communities.
‘‘Schools, charitable organisations like ours and libraries all work together to provide a wraparound service to whanau who would otherwise not be able to access books, reading materials or assistance with digital literacy.
‘‘We know that for Mā ori and Pasifika communities, literacy and numeracy skills continue to be a struggle and libraries and their staff provide a much-valued resource,’’ she said.
‘‘For some . . . the library is a quiet, safe place to work, when homes may be cold or overcrowded or there is no access to digital technology.’’
Author Alan Duff founded Duffy Books in Homes ‘‘to break the cycle of booklessness’’. It donates more than 700,000 books to vulnerable children a year.
‘‘I think the Auckland Council needs to go back to the drawing board and come up with some other ways to reduce funding, rather than penalise the most marginalised in our society.,’’ Vagana said.
Auckland Council has been approached for comment.
To have your say, visit the Auckland Council site.
‘‘Continued funding for CAB is about delivering core social infrastructure that underpins community wellbeing.’’
Kate Anderson, CAB Auckland City
Stuff has launched a new daily podcast – Newsable. It is all about what everyone’s talking about. High brow, low brow, exclusives, analysis and hot takes – it’s a fresh way to get up to speed on the day’s big stories, delivered in a uniquely Stuff way – at 6am each weekday.
It’s what you need to know about as you start your day.
In it’s first episode, Newsable revealed Prime Minister Chris Hipkins says he actually agrees with some of the comments outspoken former health boss Rob Campbell has made about the health system.
Last week, Campbell, dumped by Hipkins from being chairperson of Te Whatu OraHealth NZ, described the health system as ‘‘constipated’’, with too many oversight and managerial roles, and claimed a failure to effectively allocate resources was costing the country hundreds of millions of dollars.
Talking to Newsable, Hipkins says Campbell has a point.
Hipkins agrees with criticism that staffing in the health system is looking bloated and misdirected, and hopes a successful reorganisation of the sector will help boost Labour’s economic credentials in an election year.
‘‘That’s exactly the reason we’re reforming the health system: having 20 district health boards, all with their own backoffice teams, isn’t actually the most efficient way to run a health system.
‘‘In that regard, I actually agreed with some of the comments Rob Campbell was making.’’
Hipkins also acknowledges the government is spending too much on contractors and consultants.
In an abrupt pivot, he also went on to back steak and cheese in Stuff’s battle of the pies poll.
Also in that episode of Newsable, Stuff’s Charlie Mitchell investigated the unfounded rumours being spread about hundreds of dead bodies in Hawke’s Bay after the cyclone. How do such rumours start and why do people spread them?
ANALYSIS: There’s an old saying, take care of the cents and the dollars will look after themselves.
There are a lot of cents in a proposed $6.4 billion Auckland Council budget and it is easy to dismiss any focus on small spending as inconsequential or trivial.
That could include the $195 spent by mayor Wayne Brown’s office on a freelance photographer to capture his November 2022 meeting with National Party leader Christopher Luxon.
Or the $206 spent on food for councillors at the most recent Governing Body meeting, even though most had brought their own lunch following Richard Hills invoking a ‘‘no free lunch’’ rule for the Planning, Environment and Parks committee he chaired.
Meanwhile, communities in the Waitā kere Local Board area found the council would no longer supply traps or native plants for environmental work they were doing after a budgetfocussed decision to curb all ‘‘discretionary spending’’.
For Anzac Day events there will be only one council wreath per event, rather than past practice where one was provided for each local board.
If the mayor or a councillor also attended, a second wreath was laid.
The sums are miniscule but important. The council must close a $295 million deficit in its next budget, which will challenge councillors to decide which spending is the most important to Aucklanders.
The public’s opportunity to have a say ended on March 28 and the collective views will be analysed and debated behind closed doors at the end of April, as the politicians start to take their respective stances.
Anecdotally, those who have turned out for community budget feedback sessions have not been strongly in favour of the relatively low rates rise (4.66%) and big spending cuts proposal.
Part of the mix also includes the sale of part of all of the council’s $1.9b stake in Auckland Airport, with the proceeds intended to reduce debt and the associated interest costs.
If the feedback, which includes more than 10,000 individual and group submissions, leans that way, councillors will need to start looking for the million dollar versions of either the ‘‘free lunch’’ or the personal promotion photography.
Within a broad proposal to cut $20 million from community programmes lies pain via a thousand cuts to groups whose activities help weave the fabric of a healthy city.
A feedback meeting in
Ō tā huhu heard of a sports club whose hire cost for council facilities would rise from hundreds of dollars to thousands.
Public views will strengthen arguments against deep and widespread community spending cuts, but also highlight the need to find a means elsewhere to balance the budget.
The mayor’s proposal pitches an average rates rise of 7%, discounted to 4.66% by temporarily reducing two environmental target rates, a modest rise when compared with Wellington City’s proposed
12.8%.
From feedback meetings across the city have emerged varying support for paying more to cut less, with each extra 1% costing an average value home less than 60 cents a week and bringing in $20m.
It is a formula not spelt out in the most public version of the budget material, but is now being publicly canvassed by Ō rā kei ward councillor, and deputy mayor Desley Simpson.
The budget, as proposed, is the work of Wayne Brown and his office – but now proposed, the process belongs also to the 20 councillors and 149 local board members on behalf of those they represent.