Tory Whanau says her "bottom line" was to address the insurance challenge without further increasing rates. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
Wellington's mayor says the council is moving forward to amend its long term plan and address its insurance risk.
The council has to find a way to fill a huge budget hole to address its insurance risk after not selling its airport shares.
On Wednesday, Wellington councillors met to discuss the city's long-term plan, amid talk of replacing them with commissioners.
In a statement after the meeting, Tory Whanau said she did not intend to increase rates or cut projects that were critical to the city's growth and sustainability.
"A bottom line for me as we move forward is that we address this insurance challenge without increasing rates further. I also want to assure the public that, as we go through this process, I do not intend to cut projects that are critical for our city's growth and sustainability. For me, that means protecting our social housing, and continuing funding for water and key climate initiatives," she said.
The council needed to achieve $500 million of debt headroom in case of a disaster, she said.
Whanau said there was a shared commitment for council to investigate the sale of ground leases and carbon credit holdings to form the basis of a fund that would grow over time and be a vital step towards a long-term solution to the council's insurance risk.
Mayor, Minister to meet
Whanau is to meet with Local Government Minister Simeon Brown on Thursday and said she was looking forward to discussing the proposal with him then.
Brown would not confirm exactly when he was due to meet with Whanau, telling reporters at Parliament "I will be meeting with her in due course, very soon".
He said they would be discussing the government's concerns, but he was still waiting on advice from the Department of Internal Affairs, which he said he had requested with urgency. However, he wasn't sure it would come before meeting with the mayor.
"The key thing, as I mentioned yesterday, is the concern around the impact on ratepayers in Wellington, who are already facing some of the highest rates increases in New Zealand, and the impact that the decision made to relitigate the entire long-term plan might have on them."
He denied that he had jumped the gun by expressing concern before he knew whether the council met the bar for intervention.
Wellington councillor Tim Brown was at this Wednesday's urgent council meeting and he told Checkpoint there was a "collective will" to solve the problem themselves without commissioners or the government intervening, although he admitted some councillors were definitely in favour of government intervention.
"We're nine-tenths on the same page. What's critically important to realise is all that matters is 51 percent. So if you're in the 49 and you want something and you don't get it, them's the breaks. That's democracy.
"So if there are three or four councillors advocating for an appointee, as long as the other dozen or so are united… that won't happen, will it?"
He admitted it remained a possibility the government would intervene, but he did not think that was likely.
He said local government, including Wellington's council, was "extremely conflict-ridden".
"What matters is, can the conflict be resolved to the extent that through compromise, 51 percent of the councillors will vote in favour of some particular course of action? And as I say, back in May they did vote a course of action [to sell the airport shares] - and then it turned out that October, a couple of them changed sides and voted against it."
Some relationships within the council were "not of the highest calibre" and Whanau had "struggled", he said.
"I would say she's done an OK job, but perhaps not the calibre that we might have hoped for," Brown said.
Councillor Iona Pannett said they had had "high level" discussions on Wednesday and she had confidence in the mayor. She said the council had not broken the law and the government's suggestion of intervening was unacceptable.
Councillor Tony Randle described the council meeting as productive saying that "everything's on the table".
But councillor Ray Chung said he was not sure what had been achieved in the meeting.
Chung said he had written to Simeon Brown asking for an early election.
Chung, who has confirmed his intention to run for mayor at the next scheduled election in 2025, said a commissioner would be too expensive and could remain in place for years.
He said ideally an election would be held in the next three months.
He said there was already disagreement on which projects to cut, and his own preference would be to drop everything the mayor wanted to keep - including the Golden Mile project and the organic waste programme.
"You can't piddle round with, 'Oh, we want to stop the skate park,' which is worth a tiny little bit - it means you've got to find a thousand of those little things."
