Viewpoint – Fighting for Rodney

Last month, nine Auckland councillors, including myself, signed a highly-publicised letter criticising the leadership style of Auckland Mayor Phil Goff – a style labelled secretive and non-inclusive. This was followed by further accusations of bullying and the existence of a corrosive culture within Auckland Council. I keep asking the tough questions about reining in Council’s overspending, getting financial transparency and fighting rate increases. This creates a powerful political tension, and I always anticipated some political push back by the mayor and those heavily aligned with him, who want to introduce new taxes.

Ratepayers deserve the best return on their rates. Sometimes the flame must be held to Council’s feet to get Rodney what its ratepayers fairly deserve. My job is to fight for Rodney’s voice to be heard and for our rates to be spent back in Rodney. The result has been that Rodney has emerged as one of the real winners in the latest budget released by Council. Although this is good start, Rodney still needs a lot more spent due to years of under-investment.

Over the next 10 years, Council and government have approved spending $12 billion across Auckland on transport issues. Much of this is earmarked for the major Auckland CBD projects. However, Rodney did win over $1 billion of it. That’s a massive win for Rodney. An excellent start. A significant win was wrestling money to finally fix Hill Street ($29 million). This money is approved and the design is already underway. The public will be able to see the plans and comment on them in a few months. Fixing Hill Street was one of my election promises.

Furthermore, another $51 million has been earmarked to upgrade the Matakana/Sandspit Road intersection so that it will have a double lane left-hand turn into Elizabeth Street. Other wins include the Puhoi motorway extension being retained, the massive quadrupling of the road sealing budget ($121 million), dangerous rural intersections to be fixed ($122 million), safety improvements to the Dome Valley SH1 ($30 million) and a local bus service finally starting up. Improving the quality of road maintenance work is my next focus.

Overwhelmingly, Rodney’s residents did not support the regional fuel tax. Tolls, rates, fees, government subsidies and development contributions already exist and should fund all of Rodney’s projects. Across all of Auckland, rates will increase on average by 2.5 per cent this year, except for Rodney where they will go up 8.4 per cent, thanks to the imposed Rodney targeted rate. Fuel taxes add yet further costs. I vigorously argued and consistently voted against these increases. Our least resilient residents will bear the greatest burden of these costs – good people are being unfairly taxed out of their homes.

Greg Sayers, Rodney Councillor,
greg.sayers@aucklandcouncil.govt.nz