First thoughts on the Auckland Council draft budget - better than the previous attempts but still not great. Given that this will probably be Goff's last, I thought he might try for something bigger, bolder - apparently I was too optimistic.
I want to be excited about extra funding for climate action, but it's 3 years since they voted to declare a climate emergency with little action since.
I do acknowledge and thank those councillors who've been fighting hard for more action, appreciate everything you do. But overall the response by the governing body is weak. If the entirety of council hasn't been refocused to deliver climate action, then I don't understand what council thinks an emergency means. Same goes for AT's approach to Vision Zero - either everyone is delivering to this strategy or it'll never happen.
We need to reduce our climate emissions and for Auckland the largest contributor is transport. Most of this is private vehicle use, which will not be fixed by electric vehicles (will take decades, too expensive and congestion remains). We need systemic mode shift to public transport & active modes. Now.
Predictable yet still disappointing response from one of my local councillors who, despite being one of the longest serving members, still seems to have little grasp of how transport funding works or how desperate we are for investment in East Auckland.
As always, talk of "average rates rise" is misleading, since the actual impact varies significantly. I'm sure this will be the focus for many, but there's far more to a budget than just the average rates. More broadly endless rates rises are unsustainable - we desperately need reform of local govt funding to incentivise the right outcomes.
All that said, the devil is always in the detail and I look forward to the release of the public consultation documents on Feb 28 (let's hope we get the information we need to make informed decisions).