Month: December 2014

New Zealand in Mourning as #Fonterra Slashes Payout, Fall of 2.7% GDP

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Well that is a triple ouch for our Finance Minister as we go into Christmas.

Looking at stats for Auckland I notice our heavy industry complexes are doing well and continuing to expand especially in metals and heavier manufacturing.

Whether that would be enough to insulate at least Auckland’s economy from the dairy collapse is yet to be seen

OIA Request Back from the Auditor General

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And we learn something new

 

After Councillor Cameron Brewer was flinging around assumptions about correspondence between the Auditor General and Auckland Council I decided to file an Official Information Act request with the Office of the Controller and Auditor General to see if there was any correspondence that could be found to substantiate Brewer’s claims.

This was the OIA I sent:

From: Ben Ross

December 09, 2014

Dear Office of the Controller and Auditor-General,

I am aware that Audit New Zealand audited the Auckland Council
Draft Long Term Plan 2015-2025 in which Audit NZ through its audit
has stated: that owing to circumstances it would be prudent of
Auckland Council to push back the City Rail Link start date from
2015/2016 to another date owing to uncommitted funding by
Government prior to 2020.

My information act request centres around correspondence between
Auckland Council and your Office in relation to the audit of the
2015-2025 LTP and/or the City Rail Link start date situation.

What if any correspondence was had between Audit New Zealand, the
Office of the Controller and Auditor-General, and Auckland Council
before and after Audit NNZ carried out its audit of the Long Term
Plan draft.

If there was any correspondence can it be released into the public
domain please as we have confusion coming from Auckland Council
specifically our elected representatives on whether there was
correspondence that either lead to or came as a result from Audit
NZ auditing the draft Long Term Plan.

Yours faithfully,

Ben Ross

……

 

And this is the reply I got back today (which was very fast):

From: Tamar McKewen
Office of the Controller and Auditor-General

December 10, 2014

Kia ora Ben,

Thank you for your query. Auckland Council and Audit New Zealand’s correspondence is part of an ongoing audit process. On 18 December an audit opinion will be issued concluding this process.

The Auditor-General is not subject to the Official Information Act. But as noted above, you will not need it as the opinion will be made public when it is finalised.

Ngā mihi,

Tamar McKewen
Communications Advisor (media)
Reports and Communications Group
Office of the Auditor-General Te Mana Arotake and Audit New Zealand Mana Arotake Aotearoa

 

——

Source: https://fyi.org.nz/request/2312-correspondence-between-auckland-council-and-the-office-of-the-controller-and-auditor-general-in-regards-to-the-2015-2025-long-term-plan-including-around-the-city-rail-link#incoming-7503

 

And there where have it in that I learnt something new insofar as I can not OIA the Auditor General.

 

In any case though my OIA was answered satisfactorily and we will see that opinion on the 18th – the same day the Governing Body meets for the final time this year.

 

My thanks to the Auditor General’s office for a very prompt reply 🙂

 

City Rail Link Start Date Set to 2018

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Governing Body Agrees Finally

 

Just In:

After debating – well relitigating four years of previous debate the Governing Body in an extraordinary session of Council has agreed by a vote of 14-6 (one absent) for the main City Rail Link project to start 2018. That is Option Two of the recommendations per the agenda (below).

As for the Notice of Motions I called for well they didn’t happen (was to be expected but tried) so will try again in the Long Term Plan submission rounds early next year.

 

The debate itself which dragged from 1:30 to 4pm and should have realistically taken 45 minutes was absolute torture and shows the lack of capacity some of our elected representatives have in that Governing Body. The sole purpose of that debate today was to vote for Option Two and work out funding arrangements to satisfy the Auditor General’s concerns she has raised over the situation. NOT to push a personal barrow from the last four years and especially since the Government has agreed to the City Rail Link in the first place.

 

So yep again the Governing Body did screw up a debate and continue on its history path of being ineffectual as a collective. Which is a damned shame as we do have some fine and smart individual Councillors in there.

Bring on 2016!

 

Reference Post and link to agenda

Amendment to CRL Start Date in the Long Term Plan

 

Update on my Journo rant

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Bevan Chuang's avatarMsBevanChuang

I have to admit that I do share too much. I do. You ask me anything and I just tell you, tell you the answer you wanted to hear. And that is how I got into the massive shit I was and probably still in.

And now, I am still very honest. When I told you, no, I cannot respond to Council matters, I cannot. Apparently many media are aware that the Council does not allow their employees to comment.

So when I said “No sorry, I cannot comment as staff”, it is not conspiracy theory that I’ve been gagged. Or paid. It is the policy. No comments = no comments.

And when I’ve learnt that my manager has been approaches 30 mins before your deadline, after you have approached me and I said no; and again on Sunday morning to say “this is an urgent call”, no it is…

View original post 237 more words

Feedback Period Extended for Chamberlain Park

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Extended until next year

 

From Albert-Eden Local Board

More time to have your say on Chamberlain Park

 

Albert-Eden Local Board is in the early stages of developing a masterplan for Chamberlain Park and wants to know what users of the park and local residents think.

The board has extended the survey period, which offers Aucklanders the opportunity to provide input into the early stages of the planning process, until 30 January 2015.

Local board chair Dr Peter Haynes says the board has been overwhelmed by the amount of community interest in the future of Chamberlain Park already, and wants to ensure that all groups have the opportunity to provide input.

“This is the first stage of a significant process for the future of the park and it’s important that we start with a clean slate and consider as many ideas as possible.

“Right now, we are faced with a dilemma – the Albert-Eden area has Auckland’s lowest levels of open space with only 2.8 hectares for every 1000 residents.

“We also have almost one third of the region’s capacity shortfall in sports-field provision – this means that, with no real scope to add or improve more playing fields, many players are missing out.

“Projected population growth, lack of suitable land and funds to buy and develop more parks, and the changing needs of our people demands that we make smart decisions about the future use of places like Chamberlain Park.

“We need additional parks and reserves to allow residents to lead active and healthy lives,” he says.

People can complete the Albert-Eden Local Board’s online survey at shapeauckland.co.nz until 30 January 2015. The survey is a first-look at all of the possibilities for the park, including the adjacent Rawalpindi Reserve and the Western Springs Garden site, and asks people’s views on:

  • type of golfing activities – including six, nine, 12 and 18-hole courses, driving ranges, starting-new-at-golf and practice areas
  • sporting activities, including cricket, football, multi-use artificial turf, all types of rugby and baseball
  • passive recreation like walking, cycling, jogging, dog exercise and picnicking
  • play spaces, from playgrounds to skate parks and playing courts
  • cultural uses and community-based ecological restoration.

In keeping with exploring all options for the park, the survey asks for the public’s views on housing; however the board itself does not support this as a future possibility for the park.

“No decisions will be made on the future of Chamberlain Park until extensive consultation has been carried out. It will consider the interests of all users of the park and the wider community,” says Dr Haynes.

Dr Haynes points out that studies of golf trends indicate a preference for shorter courses with starting-new-at-golf facilities and driving ranges.

“Shorter courses are increasingly popular overseas, and learn-to-play facilities enhance the chances that we’ll see another Lydia Ko emerge in Auckland.

“The demand and market for golfing provision is changing. This is an opportunity to review facilities in light of current pressures for open space and recreation provision within the inner city.”

Once survey results have been collected, options will be developed for further consultation. This is likely to be later in 2015.

 

Further Information 

On behalf of New Zealand Golf, O’Connor Sinclair prepared National and Auckland Regional Golf Facility Studies (2013). The studies identified the following golf course trends and issues. This summary is derived from: “Auckland Golf Facility Strategy New Zealand Golf”. Findings include:

  • Increasing operational costs
  • Lack of income diversity: golf courses have traditionally relied upon membership revenue as their main source of income
  • Lack of diversity in golf experiences and player pathways: golf facilities are becoming less relevant to their surrounding community and not evolving alongside societal and technological trends or diversifying the golf experience enough to attract new participants
  • Oversupply of rounds in Auckland and low utilisation of golf courses across Auckland is low at 23 per cent. There is an oversupply of relatively homogenous golf services and facilities and therefore an oversupply of rounds at these facilities
  • Untapped target markets: Golf is currently meeting the needs of a relatively narrow part of the potential market and there is considerable opportunity for participation growth in new market segments.

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Bouncing Houses

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Too many on the move?

 

From Auckland Council on Housing:

Too many small Kiwi children moving house

 

Auckland Council says data showing nearly half of New Zealand’s children moved house at least once before their second birthday is a sign that renters need more security on the length of their leases.

The main finding of the University of Auckland’s Growing Up in New Zealand report – Residential Mobility Report 1: Moving house in the first 1000 days, is an unexpectedly high level of residential movement in young families – much higher than an equivalent UK study.

The report identifies housing tenure as the key determinant of whether a child moves; that is, those in private rental accommodation are most likely to move.

Auckland’s Deputy Mayor, Penny Hulse, said the survey provides evidence that achieving a stable housing situation is a major challenge for families with young children who are renting in Auckland.

“I am disturbed by the report’s findings that such a high proportion of our most vulnerable, being children, have unstable accommodation in the first years of their lives,” said Ms Hulse.

“This situation is not acceptable on any level. Auckland Council’s Housing Action Plan identifies the need for more secure rental tenure as a key priority. We are calling on the government to urgently address this issue and put some options to the community on how this can be achieved,” said Ms Hulse.

“Security of tenure for renters was a major focus of the recent Auckland Conversations event ‘What’s wrong with renting?’ which attracted close to 600 people, showing this is an issue that matters to Aucklanders”, said Ms Hulse.

Growing Up in New Zealand is a contemporary longitudinal study tracking the development of approximately 7,000 New Zealand children from before birth until they are young adults (the majority are in the Auckland and Waikato regions). Today’s release is the fifth substantial report from the study and the first in the new ‘Residential Mobility’ series.

For a link to the Growing Up in New Zealand report, see: www.growingup.co.nz/reports

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