Minto for MayorOrganising Meeting

Saturday July 23^rd

10.00am ~ 12.00pm

WEA Hall

59 Gloucester St

For a peoples’ Christchurch ~ Decisions by us, for us, made here 

Last week KOA (Keep Our Assets Canterbury) announced well-known political activist John Minto as their mayoral candidate for the upcoming local body elections. 

KOA is not standing a candidate to “wave the flag” on asset sales. We are standing a candidate to win the mayoralty and to win with a progressive, people centred, programme.

Key policies include –

• Stop asset sales
• Free and frequent public transport
• The living wage as the minimum for all council work
• Building 1000 additional council homes for rent and rent to buy in 3 years
• End the corporate stranglehold on the CBD rebuild
• All Canterbury rivers to be swimmable

The success of this campaign will depend on how many activists and supporters are able to give time and energy to support the campaign leading up the election on 8 October.

We are inviting all KOA supporters and those in the wider progressive movement to come to this campaign planning meeting to hear from KOA and John Minto and join the campaign.

Note: Campaign material (T-shirts, badges, signage etc) will also be for sale at the meeting.

Minto For Mayor

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·         donate

·         Six Reasons to Vote Minto for Mayor

Don’t tie the hands of the incoming council – stop the sale of City Care

Mayoral candidate John Minto is calling on the outgoing mayor and councillors to halt the process to sell the council’s works company City Care.

“We are now less than three months from the local body election and councils should not be making major decisions which tie the hands of an incoming council.”

This is especially so in Christchurch because neither the Mayor nor any of the seven councillors who voted to sell City Care had an electoral mandate to do so. There was no proposal to sell assets and no public debate at the time of the last election. Instead it was sprung on the city well after votes were cast.

The sale of City Care was to have been completed by the end of June but this deadline passed and a special general meeting of the council to approve a sale late last month was cancelled.

“It’s time for Christchurch voters to have their say”

“Let’s put democracy ahead of repeating the failures of the 1980s and 90s when our national assets were privatised by successive Labour and National governments.”

Christchurch City Council Must Restore Enable to Its Strategic Assets Register

The recent decision by the Christchurch City Council to buy the Government’s share of Enable Services Ltd would be commendable if it wasn’t for the fact the Council took Enable off the Council’s strategic asset register in 2015.

Now that it owns 100%, there is no impediment to the Council doing a backroom deal to sell Enable, which is doing the broadband rollout in Christchurch

The question arises – for whose benefit are the large sums of public money being pumped into Enable? 

Is it for the people of Christchurch, who own it? 

Or is it to prepare it for sale to a private (quite possibly overseas) corporate buyer? 

Selling Enable is the digital equivalent of selling the roads or water

 – a ridiculous idea and bad economics.

 If the latter, the people of Christchurch demand an explanation as to why their money is being used to make Enable a more attractive buy.

Enable is the basic infrastructure for the broadband network. 

It is vital digital infrastructure that needs to be owned by the public. 

It is as important as electricity.

Selling Enable is the digital equivalent of selling the roads or water – a ridiculous idea and bad economics.

Keep Our Assets Canterbury calls on the Christchurch City Council to restore Enable to its strategic assets register without delay.

Being on that register (along with Orion, the airport and port companies) doesn’t mean that it couldn’t be sold. 

But it would mean that Enable could not be sold without a process of public consultation.

Currently it can be sold without any input from the people of Christchurch who own and have paid for it.

Help us take back control of our City 

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Join the 

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Minto for Mayor Campaign

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www.mintoformayor.org.nz 

KOA candidate for Christchurch Mayor announced

A Peoples’ Candidate for a Peoples’ Christchurch

Decisions   by   us,   for   us,   made   here 

Visit: www.mintoformayor.org.nz

At 10am this morning Keep Our Assets Canterbury announced that well-known political activist John Minto will be standing as the KOA candidate for Christchurch City Mayor in the coming local body election.

We are standing a candidate because we want to stop the council selling our city assets.

The proposed, imminent sale of City Care is a betrayal of Christchurch residents who have NEVER voted for asset sales.

We will have the debate the city should have had but was denied by the current council.

As well as stopping asset sales we have developed a series of bold policies to address the big problems faced by city residents. More details of these policies will be announced in due course but they include:

• Free and frequent public transport to all parts of the city.

• Building a minimum 1,000 extra council houses in the next three years.

• The living wage as the minimum pay rate for all council work – to be paid from reductions in senior management salaries.

• Ending the corporate stranglehold on the rebuild with steep rate increases on undeveloped land in the CBD.

• All Canterbury rivers to be swimmable (rather than “wadeable”)

As part of the announcement today we emphasised we are not standing a candidate to “wave the flag” on asset sales. We are standing to win the mayoralty.

The success of this campaign will depend on how many activists and supporters are able to give time and energy to support this campaign leading up the election on 8 October.

We are inviting all KOA supporters and those in the wider progressive movement to come to a campaign planning meeting on 

Saturday 23rd  July

10am to 12noon 

 WEA  

59 Gloucester Street. 

EVERYONE WELCOME

We are looking forward to seeing you on Saturday 23 July.

Renegotiation of Cost Share Agreement Should Wait Until After Local Body Election

Keep Our Assets Canterbury has consistently called for the Christchurch City Council/Government Cost Share Agreement (entered into by the 2010-13 Council headed by Mayor Bob Parker) to be renegotiated.

That is one obvious way to alleviate the pressure from central Government for the Council to have to sell public assets in order to pay for white elephant anchor projects (like the proposed covered rugby stadium in the CBD).

In June it was announced that just such a renegotiation is under way.

But the timing is all wrong.

It’s too close to the October local body election.

The motive for the Government is clear – to tie the hands of the incoming Council before it has even been elected (which is exactly what happened last time around).

By all means renegotiate – but wait until after a new Council has been elected.

Current Councillors (not all of whom are standing for re-election) have no mandate to tie the hands of their successors.

Nor, for that matter, do they have a mandate to sell City Care – because nobody campaigned to sell public assets at the 2013 election.

That sale has failed to meet the Council’s self-proclaimed June 30^th deadline, which is even more reason why it should be left for the new Council.