Oram way off-beam

ROD ORAM should not be allowed to use his Sunday Star-Times column as an avenue to advance one of his other paid positions, a cheerleader for the Auckland Council (July 20). Particularly when he make demonstrably untrue statements such as Auckland Council has achieved savings through efficiencies since its outset of $188 million a year. While Auckland Council employs an army of spin doctors to advance this misinformation, there is not a shred of evidence to conclude it is true.

Every indicator shows the opposite. For example, Auckland Council now employs more bureaucrats living off the ratepayer than all the councils it replaced combined. Just last week we learnt that the Auckland Council CEO’s secretary was advertising for a secretary. The secretary’s secretary position appeared to nothing more than a normal secretary’s job. Questions were asked what was left for the secretary to do?

This demonstrates the empire-building that has occurred in Auckland Council during the past four years. Rather than achieving savings through efficiencies, Auckland Council built up a huge layer of fat that needs to be trimmed.

The time to replace Oram as a columnist is well overdue.

Max Shierlaw, Lower Hutt

I GENERALLY agree with Rod Oram, but I don’t support his optimism about Auckland Council’s finances, and nor do I agree with his assessment of what is fair or unfair about Council’s growth policies.

Oram argues it is fair to borrow money to build new assets because they ‘‘will benefit people for decades to come’’. But who really benefits? Auckland had the third highest average annual population growth rate in a recent OECD study of 78 OECD metropolitan regions. And Auckland had one of the highest proportions of its population comprised of overseas-born residents, just behind Toronto and Vancouver.

Beneficiaries of Auckland Council’s current funding plans include immigrants and people migrating internally from other parts of New Zealand.

It might be fair to get existing ratepayers to pay for growth if Auckland’s growth was natural – children of resident families. But it is unfair to force existing ratepayers to buy the infrastructure needed to accommodate population growth on top of that.

If citizens want Auckland to grow like it has been – and I doubt they do – then I’m dam sure they want the costs of extra growth to be paid by those causing that growth.

Joel Cayford, Auckland