The NZ Herald rates the Auckland Council half way through their first term. In order:

• Cameron Brewer A
• Mike Lee A
• Cathy Casey B+
• Sandra Coney B+
• George Wood B
• Dick Quax B
• Chris Fletcher C+
• Ann Hartley C+
• Richard Northey C+
• Arthur Anae C
• Len Brown C
• Michael Goudie C
• Penny Hulse C
• Noelene Raffills C
• John Walker C
• Wayne Walker C
• Penny Webster C
• Des Morrison C-
• Calum Penrose C-
• Alf Filipaina D
• Sharon Stewart D

The comments on Cameron Brewer are:

Brewer is leader of the opposition, and more effective than the entire C&R team combined. Some accuse Brewer of being a self-publicist, but there is no more effective councillor at getting their name in the media.

Brewer has unashamedly postioned himself as the leading opponent of Brown and provided an alternative voice. The ambitious Brewer says he has no plans to challenge Brown next year. He is probably too far to the right to lure the middle ground.

I think Cameron would be a very serious contender in 2016, if Brown is re-elected for a second term in 2013 – which is far from certain.

Abby Gillies at NZ Herald reports:

Auckland mayor Len Brown is conditionally supporting a controversial government decision to negotiate a convention centre deal with SkyCity.

The Government has faced mounting criticism over discussions with the casino that would see the company fund a $350 million convention centre in Auckland in return for an extension to its casino licence.

Mr Brown, speaking to Radio New Zealand this morning after returning from a trade mission to China, said there was a huge need for a convention centre in Auckland, but if the deal goes ahead controls should be put in place to minimise harm to gamblers.

“I’m not anti gambling at all. I think there is a place and time for it and people are entitled to make their choices and they do that.”

Very sensible. Len is showing the responsibility of being in office. Those who do not have to live with the consequences can oppose everything and anything.

Fiona Rotherham at Stuff reports:

Chinese investors have shown encouraging interest towards the Auckland Council’s planned $10.8 billion worth of infrastructure projects and other trade and investment opportunities, Auckland Mayor Len Brown says. …

But the council has also been touting for early stage interest in three of its own major projects: the inner city rail link that central government has rejected funding for; a second harbour crossing; and for the new Innovation precinct in the Wynard Quarter on Auckland’s waterfront. …

China, as our second largest trading partner, was one of the few countries with significant capital to invest offshore and was particularly interested in tourism investment, Brown said.

The first project off the block will be the $2.4b inner city rail loop and Brown favours a PPP (public/private/partnership) deal over borrowing, issuing infrastructure bonds, or raising rates and taxes in order to fund it.

An excellent idea. I look froward to the local Labour MPs supporting an innovative PPP such as this.

The NZ Herald editorial:

Courage in politics too often goes unnoticed, especially when it requires silence. Auckland’s mayor has shown remarkable courage over the past week, resisting pressure to call the Auckland Council’s port company to heel in the current dispute. Some of that pressure has been exerted in public, by commentators, union leaders and a protest march in sympathy with the sacked watersiders that the Labour Party’s leader saw fit to attend. But just as much pressure will have been coming on him in private, from Labour members of the Auckland Council and party activists who helped him get elected.

The latest challenge for the Mayor is one of the Labour Councillors, Richard Northey, has moved a motion to have a Council committee declare opposition to the Ports restructuring, which would humiliate Len Brown if it passes.

The contractual stevedoring arrangements the company wants to make would match those its nearest rival, the Port of Tauranga, has enjoyed for many years.

They were introduced at Tauranga without the strife that has disrupted the Auckland port for so long now, and members of the Maritime Union are still employed on Tauranga’s wharves.

The Port of Tauranga is only part-owned by its local authority. There can be little doubt partial privatisation makes a difference. Boards of directors can more easily resist political pressure when they owe a duty to private as well as public shareholders. More important perhaps, trade unions know this. They cannot as readily bring political pressure to bear in a dispute.

This is absolutely true. The union becomes far less reasonable, because it has lackeys on the local authority who will interfere on their behalf.

The other advantage of the PoT model is that it allows the employees to become share-holders, as 90% of stevedores at Tauranga are.

The best argument for a partial sale of Ports of Auckland Ltd would be intervention by the mayor and council in this dispute.

Mr Brown knows this very well. It is he, almost alone in public now, who is doing the most to show that assets in full public ownership need not be a pushover in labour bargaining. This is the first step, and probably a necessary one, on the path to proving that assets in public ownership can be competitive with private enterprise in every way.

If Northey wins the vote, it will be a classic case of politicians interfering to benefit their donors and supporters.

All of them are at least half-owned by local councils. Had they been fully privatised there is no doubt we would have seen mergers and rationalisation that would have produced better returns for private shareholders, more efficient transport networks for the whole country and more bargaining strength for the ports in negotiations with shipping companies.

If this sort of rationalisation is possible with ports in council ownership, the largest port will need to lead the way. If Ports of Auckland Ltd can get close to the rate of return the mayor has set, it will be in a more dominant position than it has ever been.

But that all depends now on Mr Brown’s courage. Can he see it through?

This is a huge test for Len. Can he defeat Northey?

On the issue of too many ports, that is a view shared by the PM:

A concession from the Prime Minister that the country may have too many ports.

The drawn out and often acrimonious Auckland port dispute has spawned calls for the number of ports to be culled.

John Key’s giving some thought to suggestions we’re overloaded in the unloading business, and he says the Productivity Commissioner is looking at the overall structure.

“In the end the truth of it is if we have too many ports then they won’t be financially viable and some will close,” he told Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking.

Mr Key says Ports of Auckland is losing business to Tauranga because Tauranga is more efficient.

And as the editorial notes, the ownership model stops there being a sensible rationalisation, where a 10% cut in transport costs would add $1.5b to the economy.

Matt McCarten attacks Len Brown in his HoS column:

Brown’s actions, or lack of them, over the port fiasco are perplexing.

His officials set an impossible 12 per cent return for his port’s directors.

When they ran into trouble I’m told the board offered the mayor their resignations. If true it was a master stroke. Because once he assured them of his support he was their puppet.

No experienced politician who knows what they stand for would have been manoeuvred like this.

With the biggest citizens’ revolt for 60 years about to erupt in his city, he is pathetically reduced to whimpering that he doesn’t have any real power. He looks weak.

The biggest citizens’ revolt for 60 years? Really? 3,000 people turned up to the support rally for the Maritime Union. That’s 0.3% of Auckland’s population.

I defend Len Brown in my Herald column today:

Len Brown campaigned to be the first Mayor of the Auckland super-city with the slogan, that he would be the Mayor for all of Auckland.

Mayor Brown has come under huge pressure from his party, his donors and his activist supporters to abandon his campaign pledge, and to intervene in the Ports of Auckland dispute. It is to his credit that he has resisted putting the interests of the Labour Party above the interests of Auckland.

I conclude:

Len Brown got elected on a slogan of being the Mayor for all of Auckland. The Labour Party shouldn’t complain that he is taking that slogan seriously and putting the interests of Auckland ahead of the interests of the Labour Party affiliated Maritime Union. He should be congratulated for his stance.

In my full column I articulate why I think this has helped Brown get re-elected.

Phil Twyford blogs:

Len Brown was elected the people’s mayor on a wave of support across west and south Auckland. People opted decisively for his plan for public transport, and a modern inclusive vision for the city that embraced the young, the brown and working people.

Which makes it puzzling that he is choosing to stand by and watch while his port subsidiary tries to contract out 300 jobs. …

It is all the more puzzling given the Mayor’s commitment to reducing social inequality, reflected in the excellent Auckland Plan. It is hard to see how we are going to build a more prosperous and inclusive city by stripping the city’s employees of their work rights and job security. …

It is time for Len Brown and his Council to rethink their demand for a 12% return, and replace it with something reasonable and not excessive. He should tell the port company casualisation is not an acceptable approach to employment relations in a port owned by the people of Auckland.

This is the same Phil Twyford who spent years saying that Wellington should not dictate to Auckland, yet is now trying to bully Len Brown into putting the interests of the Labour Party (for the Maritime Union is part of the Labour Party) ahead of the interests of Auckland.

Len knows he would be toast if he kneecapped a Council subsidiary, just to please the Labour caucus in Wellington.

After having failed to get the residents of Oamaru, Christchurch, Wellington and Napier to pay for Auckland’s CBD rail loop, Len Brown has proposed half a dozen new taxes as possible ways to pay for the loop.

The proposed taxes include:

• Regional income tax – new income tax paid only by Aucklanders.
• Regional payroll tax – new income tax paid by Auckland employers.
• Regional GST – raising GST in Auckland.
• Regional fuel tax – raising petrol and diesel taxes across Auckland.
• Visitor taxes – nightly charge for hotel and motel rooms.

It only took a couple of blog posts pointing out his donations from the Maritime Union, and Len has leapt into life on the issue of the militant industrial action by the union. Better late than never, I say. The Herald reports:

Auckland Mayor Len Brown has issued an ultimatum to the Maritime Union in the bitter industrial dispute on the city’s wharves, saying there must be more flexibility in work practices to make the port more productive and profitable for the council.

Excellent. It is not just a matter of being more profitable for the Council – it is also being productive and competitive for its customers. They do have choice, and have been using it to desert Auckland.

Mr Brown – a member of the Labour Party who received a $2000 donation from the Maritime Union towards his 2010 election campaign – yesterday said the board and management of the 100 per cent council-owned port company had his full confidence but he refused to express confidence in the union, which he was not responsible for.

It is good he has now backed the Council owned company.

In a sign that he is standing up to the union, which is set to strike again tomorrow for 48 hours, Mr Brown said it was time to review some of the decades-long work practices to reflect the increasing and changing trends of the international shipping market.

The practices are probably little changed from the 70s.

Maritime Union president Garry Parsloe said the union had offered to investigate changes to improve productivity …

Ha, offered to investigate. How stupid does he think Ports of Auckland management are, that they don’t realise that is no commitment at all.

You’re the Mayor of Auckland and one of your largest commercial facilities in paralysed with industrial action. Even worse, it is a facility owned by your Council.

Over several weeks you have seen Auckland’s economy get battered after first Maersk and now Fonterra announce they are abandoning Auckland for Tauranga and Napier, due to the militant industrial action taken by the Maritime union.

So it should be a no-brainer to come out publicly and lean on the Maritime Union to stop driving businesses away from Auckland. I mean ever Wellington’s Celia Wade-Brown stood up for the wellington creative industries when a militant union looked set to destroy them.

So why has Len been so silent and non-commital? It didn’t make sense.

Well it didn’t, until I read at Whale Oil that the Maritime Union was one of Len’s donors. They also donated to Mike Lee.

I guess that was one of their better investments.

The Herald reports:

At last year’s local body elections, he promoted Manukau’s policy of a fixed charge for wastewater, saying adopting the Auckland City system of user pays would lead to increases of $1000 a year for some households.

Mr Brown has not modelled Manukau’s wastewater system of a fixed charge for households and a fixed plus metered charge for business.

Instead, he is proposing part-fixed and part-metered charges for households and businesses.

Yesterday, Mr Brown said he believed during the election campaign that the fixed charge was the fairer way to go, but now as mayor for all of Auckland it had become evident to him that a part-fixed, part-user charge was the fairest system.

To be consistent, I now expect Phil Goff to denounce Len Brown as a liar.

At Stuff I blog on the train blame game.

Jonathan Marshall in the SST reports:

Auckland Mayor Len Brown said last year he’d start commuting to work by train – and he did. But while he rides, his mayoral car, a V6 Holden Commodore, kept in his home garage, makes the same trip via the motorway with no passenger.

Critics claim his ticket to ride is a PR stunt that’s doing nothing about pollution or congestion.

On Friday the super city’s first mayor completed – for the fourth time – his $5.10 journey from Papatoetoe to the downtown Britomart transport hub, travelling with mayoral aide Jansje Tobeck, and walking 1.1km from Britomart to his office.

But with his driver on the motorway into Auckland at the same time, comparisons are being drawn with New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, who was caught in 2007 boasting of catching the subway from his home when he was having his limousine drive him from his home to a station closer to his destination.

On Friday Brown’s driver Ronald Showler arrived at the mayor’s home around 7.40am, having travelled the 11km from his house in his own car.

Moments later Tobeck arrived in her car, driving 19km from her east Auckland home in order to car- pool with Brown to Papatoetoe station, while Showler began the 25km trip to the city.

Len seems to not understand how most people use public transport. It sort of defeats the purpose to have your car follow the train to work. The idea of public transport is you walk to a bus stop, bus to the train station and then take the train to work, and do it in reverse in the evening. That way you leave the car at home.

Bernard Orsman writes in the Herald:

Just one in four of Mayor Len Brown’s “100 projects in 100 days” are new projects initiated from scratch, according to a Herald analysis.

The mayor yesterday released a list of the 100 projects he promised in his first 100 days, which ticks over on February 8.

Mr Brown, who promised “we will see things really fly” when he began his programme, has acknowledged many projects were already in progress in one way or another.

The Herald has counted 25 projects that appear to have been initiated from scratch by Mr Brown. Of the 25, Mr Brown has made visible progress on five – removing graffiti from the historic Yates Building in Auckland, beginning regular Mayor in the Chair meetings at town centres, rotating council meetings around the region, establishing an Auckland First XV for the Rugby World Cup, and organising a bus tour of the region for councillors.

I think Len Brown has been silly with his 100 projects boast. There was no need to make the claim, and the end result has been that the areas in which he has made good progress, get overshadowed by the inclusion of the dubious stuff on the list.

I don’t think Len has done a bad job to date. Sure a couple of decisions I disagree with, but overall a reasonably solid performance. But if he gets a perception that he is more about the spin, than the substance, it will harm him.

Citizens & Ratepayers co-leader Christine Fletcher said nearly 100 days into the council, councillors and local board members were still waiting to know what the strategic priorities were for the council.

“I hope in the next 100 days, the mayor gives priority to establishing the role of our local boards and to establish what the key priorities of the council are going to be,” she said.

I have to agree with Chris. It would be great to get the role and powers of the local boards finalised – so most decisions can be made locally, not regionally.

The Herald on Sunday has discovered that Len Brown has taken the train to work only once since becoming Mayor – the day he invited the media to come along and see him on the train, where he promised he would “start taking the train to work on a regular basis as part of his commitment to public transport”.

It reminds me of something Maurice Williamson has often pointed out – that many of the noisiest advocates for public transport never use it themselves. They just think everyone should be forced to. I recall the Wellington Green MP who didn’t even have a Snapper card, which all regular bus users have.

Brian Rudman mocks Len Brown’s list of achievements, and tells him to focus on buses:

Mayor Len Brown’s curse is self-inflicted – a rash promise before his coronation last November to within 100 days unveil 100 projects he would complete.

“We will see things really fly,” he promised.

With less than 20 days to go, Mayor Len’s immediate problem is not so much getting things airborne, it’s struggling to come up with bright ideas to launch.

This week, he and his retinue managed to scrape together a list of just 52. And many of those belonged in the “got up,” “brushed my teeth” category.

Claiming credit for setting up various advisory panels required by law is rather cringe-making.

So is “recommending the budget”, “monthly town hall meetings”, “regular engagement with local boards” and “spatial plan initiative”, all nuts-and-bolts functions that were going to happen regardless. …

Of course he’s not the first politician to bathe in the glory of tasks initiated by his predecessors. But few are quite as bare-faced as this.

With 48 to go and desperation setting in, what next? No 53: Sun Rises

I can’t wait for the full list of 100 to be published. Maybe once he has, then Len will focus on the important issues and forget the PR stuff for a while.

My suggestion to Mr Brown is that before ordering new ferries for Takapuna or musing about the wonders of the new electric train services, he should, as his first priority, sort out the workhorses of Auckland public transport, the buses.

As Josh Arbury in his Auckland transport blog reminds us, 49 million of the trips on Auckland public transport this year will be on buses, and if the mayor wants to hit his 2021 target, that’s where the main growth will have to occur.

He also notes how little bus patronage has increased this decade, up from 45 million trips in 2002 to 49 million this year.

Why is that? For me, the biggest turn-off is lack of punctuality.

Waiting for the missing bus is a killer. You can’t even fill in the time reading a book for fear that when the bus does appear it will speed past unless you’re kerbside, waving your arms like a windmill.

I always look at the public transport systems of overseas cities when staying in them, to see how well they work and why. Punctuality is an absolute must. Ideally you don’t even want route timetables – you want a train or bus to be frequent enough that you know you will never have more than say a 10 – 15 minute wait.

As important is integrated and electronic ticketing. No cash Everyone just swipes in and off.

The NZ Herald editorial:

He first made this proposal during the election campaign when it was suggested that voters in the rest of Auckland might resent paying for the former Manukau City Council’s free pools. Mr Brown’s answer was that he would extend the policy to the whole of Auckland. This week he repeated that intention as one of his “100 projects in 100 days”.

Free swimming pools would be a complete waste of money for most of Auckland. This blessed city has a vast free swimming pool all around it. Two harbours and the Hauraki Gulf provide warm, calm, sheltered bays in abundance.

Nobody in Auckland lives much more than a 15-minutes drive from a beach, and most live within easy reach of many.

Unlike Wellington, where there are basically no beaches where the water is warm enough for swimming.

Better still, the issue could be left to local boards. Those new elected bodies are waiting for the Auckland Council to define their role. This time last year Mr Brown’s website offered them responsibilities that included liquor licensing, local street management, libraries, swimming pools, public toilets, camping grounds and beach control.

If they are bulk-funded from council revenue for services such as those, the boards would asses the importance of a free pool to their communities against the need for other amenities. No public body is better placed to make that assessment. Voters can punish boards that misread their priorities.

Leaving it to the local boards is a good idea.

But Mr Brown is not talking of delegating the decision. He says his next step towards free pools for all is to commission a report on the cost, equity and fairness of the proposal. He says he picked up an “overwhelming sentiment” in the election that free pools would be welcome across Auckland.

Doubtless he did. Nobody rejects a free offer in election campaigns. He could as easily have offered free gymnasiums, free golf courses or free dance classes in the name of health and opportunity.

Please, don’t give him ideas.

Bernard Orsman at the Herald reports:

The Auckland Council is divided on a proposal by Mayor Len Brown to set a maximum rates increase of 4.9 per cent next year.

Mr Brown narrowly won backing for his plan yesterday after a rebellion by eight councillors who voted for a maximum increase of 3.9 per cent proposed by the right-wing Citizens & Ratepayers group.

In his first major test as mayor, Mr Brown pleaded with councillors not “to be divided on this issue”, but could only muster 10 votes, including his own vote, to pass the plan.

Can’t get much of a closer divide than 10-8. Who were the three Crs who did not vote on such an important issues?

The 4.9 per cent target is a stretch of Mr Brown’s election promise to keep rates low and near the rate of inflation. It is nearly 50 per cent above the forecast rate of inflation of 3.4 per cent.

Stretch is the polite term for it.

Mr Brown, whose job as mayor is to deliver the budget, argued at yesterday’s strategy and finance committee that the maximum rate of 4.9 per cent was a responsible target and would work for a final figure of mid- to high-3 per cent. The final figure would “go down from here, not up”, he said.

That would be better, but will they manage even that?

The high-level committee meeting went off the rails when three former Auckland City councillors, Cathy Casey, Richard Northey and Leila Boyle, who is now chairwoman of the Maungakiekie-Tamaki Local Board, tried to relitigate a number of old issues, including the relocation of Monte Cecilia School and an elephant herd at Auckland Zoo, to the fury of other councillors.

Deputy Mayor Penny Hulse said the meeting needed to be really clear about what it was doing, while Ann Hartley was fuming at the parochial behaviour of her left-wing colleagues.

Obviously they felt the rates increase should be even more than 4.9%!

Matthew Dearnaley in the NZ Herald reports:

Prime Minister John Key says he supports a proposed inquiry into a donation by a Manukau trust to Auckland Mayor Len Brown’s election campaign.

Mr Key yesterday said he supported the view of Local Government Minister Rodney Hide “that it may be appropriate for the Auditor-General to look at the nature of whether the entity that actually gave [Mr Brown] a donation is capable of doing so or whether it’s within their rules to do so”.

He was referring to a donation of billboard space worth $3375 from the Counties Manukau Pacific Trust, which runs the TelstraClear Pacific Events Centre.

One issue for the Auditor-General might be whether the value of the space is correctly recorded. I know of no billboard space in Auckland that goes for $1,000/mth. $2,000/mth is pretty much the minimum for an average billboard, and my understanding is the size and prominence of the trust billboard is such that the commercial value would be at least $3,000 + GST a month.

So if the billboard was up for three months, then the value of the donation and associated expense should be $10,125.

If the billboard was up for more than three months, then the associated expense for the Brown campaign would remain at $10,125 (as only last three months count), but the donation value would be even great – would be $20,250 if it was for six months.

So these two facts need to be established – the commercial value of the billboard space, and the length of time the billboard was up.

“We are a community charitable trust,” he said. Trust chairman Sir Noel Robinson said no costs were incurred or revenue lost by providing Mr Brown’s campaign with billboard space, which his board had made a decision to provide free to any mayoral candidate who approached it.

This is spin of the highest order. The trust CEO is on the Len Brown campaign team, along with two trustees and possibly a senior trust employee. And you expect us to believe that they would have stuck up John Banks billboards if asked.

The Auditor-General should ask for a copy of the board minutes where this decision was allegedly made.

Even if they made such a decision, it was obviously to give the illusion of political neutrality. Unless they actually wrote to all the other mayoral candidates advising them of the availability of the billboard space, how could they possibly expect another candidate to know that they could ask to use their space.

Mr Brown said yesterday that he was unconcerned about Mr Hide’s intention to ask Ms Provost to look into the trust’s donation.

Excellent. Let the facts be discovered.

Auckland Councillor Jami-Lee Ross has stated:

The Mayor of Auckland has been called on by one of his councillors to return a $3,375 campaign donation back to Auckland ratepayers.

The call comes after recent media reports of a donation to Mayor Len Brown from the Counties Manukau Pacific Trust. The charitable trust has been largely funded in the past by Manukau City ratepayers and continues to receive a $385,000 operating grant each year.

Auckland Councillor Jami-Lee Ross has written to Mr Brown saying he has a “moral obligation” to return $3,375 back to ratepayers. “This donation is highly questionable and, in my view, should never have been made. …

Mr Ross says the Trust’s connection to the city’s ratepayers is too close for it to have engaged in actively supporting election campaigns.

“There are very strong arguments that the donation is in effect public money, if not by definition, then by perception. The Trust’s own financial statements note that the Trust is considered a Council Controlled Entity.

“I have no doubt that the ratepayers of Manukau City would not have expected an organisation that has benefited so generously from Manukau City Council to be contributing to the election campaigns of political candidates. …

“Len Brown has a moral obligation to return the $3,375 back to the people that fund the Counties Manukau Pacific Trust. Doing so would be seen as testament to his honesty and integrity,” says Mr Ross.

The multiple links between the trust and the campaign, with an exchange of personnel, a probably illegal donation, and subsequent board appointments need investigating.

Also there is need of a culture change at the new Auckland Council for refusing to make available the donation and expenses return, unless you physically visit them. They won’t even allow journalists to take a photocopy.

This reinforces my view that the Electoral Commission should be placed in charge of all local body elections also. They have a good commitment to transparency.

The Sunday Star-Times reports:

Local Government Minister Rodney Hide has said he will complain to the auditor-general over a donation to the campaign, because he believes it came from an entity with ties to the Manukau City Council, which Brown headed before becoming mayor of the super city.

Brown’s 2010 returns, filed on Friday, show a $3375 donation from the Counties Manukau Pacific Trust, which administers Manukau’s Pacific Events Centre.

I think it is essential the Auditor-General investigates, because the links between this trust and Len Brown’s campaign are numerous.

The CMPT is a charitable trust. Donating (money or services) to a political campaign goes against that charitable status, and the Charities Commission and IRD could well ask questions about this. The donation may put at risk the millions of dollars of tax free grants and donations they get. If I was a Trustee, I’d want to know who authorised this.

But not only is the CMPT a charitable trust, it is one which has been hugely funded by the ratepayers of Manukau. The CMPT was set up by Manukau Mayor Barry Curtis in July 2000. The Manukau City Council appoint two of the seven members of the electoral college that appoints trustees, and can designate sucessor appointing organisations for the other members.

Three, possibly four, CMPT people were on the eight strong Len Brown campaign team. Trustees Karen Avery and Mike Hutcheson were on the inner cabinet team of eight, plus CMPT CEO Richard Jeffrey. In addition to those three, it is rumoured that one key campaign staffer was also on the CMPT payroll, as well as the CEO. I won’t name him as it has not been confirmed, but I understand media have asked him if it was true, and he has not returned their calls.

Regardless, you have a hue cross-over between Len’s campaign team and the Trust. And who funds the Trust?

Well the Manukau City Council gave them a $9 million grant. Plus $385,000 a year in a service contract. And on top of that they have effectively donated all their land by way of a 99 year lease for $1/year. On top of that the ratepayers through the old MCC, guarantee a $7.5m overdraft facility for the CMPT.

This means that under the law, for financial reporting purposes, the CMPT is “considered a Council controlled entity”.

The CMPT incidentially has negative working capital of $500,000 and made a $652,000 loss last year, so you would think they would be focused on that – not on helping Len Brown get elected.

Having the CEO of a charitable trust that receives ratepayer funding, working for a partisan political campaign is a huge conflict of interest – made even worse by the fact he had the trust donate billboard space to the Brown campaign.

How much work time did the CEO spend on the Brown campaign? Is it true that another Brown campaign member was an employee of the CMPT – if so for how many months was he employed by both the CMPT and the Brown campaign?

And to make things even murkier, we find out that CEO Richard Jeffrey was one of the attendees at the secret Volare dinner, and has also just been appointed to a CCO for his services to the campaign.

This is the same Richard Jeffrey quoted in the Herald in July 2010 as praising Len Brown for his relationship with the events centre. The Herald forgot to mention that he was a member of the Brown campaign team in the article.

Just the day after the NZ Herald praised Len Brown as “winning the battle for greater openness”, it is revealed that Len has used a secret trust to launder $500,000 of donations anonymously to his campaign.

Jonathan Marshall at the Dom Post reports:

the former Manukau mayor declared donations totalling $581,900.95, of which $499,000 was to the previously unknown New Auckland Council Trust. That meant he did not have to tell the Auckland Council electoral officer the names of most individuals and companies that contributed to his campaign because the trust was listed on his return as the main contributor.

Labour has spent the last five years railing against the use of secret trusts in politics, and here Labour Party member Len Brown is revealed to have used one. This is another example of the stinking hypocrisy of Labour.

They spent a year attacking Sam Lotu-lliga for being a Councillor and an MP, and then they endorse Jim Anderton to be a Mayor and an MP.

They spent five years attacking secret trusts, and they use one for the campaign for the most powerful directly elected job in New Zealand.

The Herald reports:

Mr Brown’s campaign manager, David Lewis, last night defended using the New Auckland Council Trust to protect donors’ identities.

He said the campaign raised money from hundreds of people from across the political spectrum who supported the mayor’s vision.

Most wanted anonymity “as per the current laws, simply because they are private persons with no interest in being in the media”.

The Electoral Act requires candidates to identify any donor contributing $1000 or more to a campaign, if they know the name of that person or organisation. But Mr Lewis said the mayor had “no idea who donated to his campaign”.

Oh what bullshit. Of course he knows.

The local electoral laws do not outlaw the use of secret trusts, as the national electoral law does. Even worse they on;y require the use of this secret trust to be revealed after the election. Think how many votes would have been lost if it had been revealed before the election that Len Brown had received $500,000 of donations filtered through a secret trust.

Now as I said, Labour and the Greens have spent five years railing against secret trusts in politics. I await those political parties condemning Len Brown for his $500,000 secret trust – so secret they have not even filed its trust deed with the Registrar of Trusts (they are not legally obliged to). Will media demand Len reveal who set the trust up, who the trustees are. How about even a partial amount of accountability and reveal the largest individual donation made to Len through the trust?

The Mayor of Auckland has powers beyond any other Mayor in New Zealand. Do Labour and the Greens not think we should know if someone donated $250,000 to Len?

Phil Goff in Sep 2008 said:

The National Party, at the last election, got $2 million from secret trusts, anonymously—secret donations. The country wants to know who those donors were, what their commercial motivation was in promising you that money, and in giving you that money, and they want to know what the National Party and Mr Key promised in return.

So what we should now hear from Phil Goff is:

Len Brown, at the last election, got $500,000 from secret trusts, anonymously—secret donations. The country wants to know who those donors were, what their commercial motivation was in promising Len that money, and in giving Len that money, and they want to know what the Len Brown promised in return.

Incidentally John Banks disclosed all his donations in excess of $1,000. Some of these were anonymous, and as with national politics there should be a cap on how big an anonymous donation can be – such as $1,000.

How many of Len’s donors have been appointed to his personal staff, to ratepayer funded jobs? How many were appointed to CCOs? We have no way of knowing, due to his secret trust.

I bear little hope that a man who spent six months fighting to keep the names of those invited to a ratepayer funded dinner secret, will reveal his major donors. But, the Government should look to change the law so the finance provisions of the Electoral Act apply to local body elections, to ensure Aucklanders in future know who are the secret funders of their Mayor.

Note that in my submission on the Electoral Finance Bill in 2007, I proposed that the law should require disclosure of donations through trusts.

UPDATE: The hypocrisy gets worse. Here is what Len Brown said a year ago:

“We have seen the dangers of big money entering national politics, with concerns over sources and transparency of party funding, and the emergence of third party campaigns. Local government has avoided these issues, but they could emerge were candidates under pressure to raise large sums in order to be competitive,” he said.

So Len Brown talked about concerns over transparency of funding, and then set up a secret trust which he funnelled $500,000 through.

Whale Oil highlights how four of the secret appointments by Len Brown to CCOs were of politicians who failed to get elected in their own right.

One example is Mike Williams who was rejected by voters in standing for the Henderson-Massey Local Board, Wait­em­ata DHB and the Wait­akere Licens­ing Trust.

But Len has put him onto the Auckland Transport CCO.

Even worse, the appointments (done with no Council consultation – just a ratification vote) include two members of Len’s campaign team reports the Herald:

The mayor’s office has confirmed that two of the new appointees, Pacific Trust chief executive Richard Jeffery and Pacific business leader Pauline Winter, were members of Mr Brown’s election campaign team.

So of the 12 appointments Len made, four were of politicians rejected by the voters, two were of members of his campaign team, and one his controversial former CEO.

No we are not talking about Andrew Williams. Len Brown doesn’t want the public to know who is recommended for CCO Board appointments according to the NZ Herald:

Auckland Mayor Len Brown has ordered an investigation into a councillor suspected of leaking the names of council-controlled organisation (CCO) board appointments.

A source close to Mr Brown said the mayor had “lost faith in a member of the committee and is asking the chief executive to conduct a full investigation into the leak of information”.

This followed online reports at the weekend that two people with close links to Mr Brown – former Manukau City Council chief executive Leigh Auton and former Manukau deputy mayor Gary Troup – would be appointed to CCO boards on Thursday.

That is the same Leigh Auton who refused the Ombudsman’s request for information before the election.

The mayoral source refused to name the member of the CCO strategy and appointments subcommittee suspected of leaking the information.

Asked if it was Jami-Lee Ross, the Citizens & Ratepayers co-leader who issued a press release at the weekend criticising CCO appointments based on “long-standing friendships and political campaign connections”, the source said “no comment”.

Yesterday, Mr Ross categorically denied leaking information to the Sunday Star-Times reporter who named Mr Auton and Mr Troup.

Mr Ross said he had been clear that he could not comment on who was being proposed for the CCO appointments but felt the item should not be conducted behind closed doors.

Jami-Lee’s sin was to propose that the appointments be done in public session.

Audrey Young reports:

Auckland Mayor Len Brown has given an undertaking to the influential Iwi Leadership Group to talk to the new Auckland Council about dedicated Maori seats on the council. But no quick decisions are expected to be taken.

Mr Brown attended the group’s hui at Takapuwahia Marae in Porirua on Saturday as a guest.

Maori Affairs Minister Pita Sharples asked Mr Brown to attend the hui with him.

The request to discuss Maori representation on the council was put by Tainui leader Tukoroirangi Morgan and Ngati Whatua leader Naida Glavish.

Mr Morgan said last night that Mr Brown gave an undertaking to discuss the issue with his new council which has only just been sworn in.

He had said it was a serious issue and it would be discussed comprehensively.

I have two objections to Maori seats on the Auckland Council – one principled and one pragmatic.

The principled argument is that race based seats are a bad thing, and over time will lead NZ to a Fiji type situation.

The pragmatic argument is that there is no problem to solve.

In the Auckland region, Maori make up just under 10% of the population (and only 8.3% of the adult population). On the Auckland Council, 3 out of 20 Councillors or 15% have Maori descent.

Mr Morgan and Dr Sharples said there was no support for getting the issue tested through a referendum.

It would be a brave Council that introduced race based seats on its own initiative, without letting the people have a say.