1] Mayor Should Resign For Council's Failure To Pay Living Wage
2] KOA Says City Council Must Put Stop To CIAL's Tarras Empire-Building Project
3] From Mayor Dalzie To KOA Re: Fixing Bus System In Christchurch
Mayor Should Resign For Council's Failure To Pay Living Wage
Keep Our Assets Canterbury (KOA) was disgusted to read within the last week that Council-controlled companies have still not fully implemented the Living Wage for all Council work but that these same companies have found the money to award lavish post-covid bonus payments to their highest-paid employees.
It was not surprising this policy was
opposed by Christchurch City Holdings Ltd and the Council-controlled companies
involved so many years later; where was the leadership and Council backbone to
drive this policy through?
In the meantime the Mayor and Councillors
themselves have received generous increases in pay despite having failed the
most basic test of leadership.
We are sick of hearing lame,
pathetic, embarrassing excuses – it seems obvious now that this policy has
never been important to the Mayor or most of the Councillors.
The people of Christchurch have a
right to expect better. For this abject failure of leadership the Mayor should
resign and the Council insist the workers denied Council support should be back
paid to the Council decision to support the Living Wage. If Council-controlled
organisations can pay big bonuses to self-serving senior staff their leadership
can pay a small back pay bonus to the workers they have failed for more than
three years.
February 15th 2022
KOA Says
City Council Must Put Stop To CIAL's Tarras Empire-Building Project
Dear Acting
Mayor and Councillors
Keep Our Assets
Canterbury (KOA) states that Christchurch City Council's declaration of
a Climate Emergency (2019) is now a broken promise to the citizens of
Christchurch and all New Zealand.
Councillors
appointed to sit on the Board of Directors of Christchurch International
Airport Limited (CIAL) either forgot or ignored this declaration.
Effectively they
have agreed to the emissions of a huge amount of greenhouse gasses, which
is completely contrary to the Council's envionmental commitment.
Apparently those
Councilors failed to inform non-CIAL Board Councillors of plans for a
CIAL-owned airport at Tarras.
CCC owns 75% of
CIAL. Were you informed in advance of this major move by CIAL? Was its' 25%
owner (the Government)? This is a recklessly cavalier move using tens of
millions of ratepayers and taxpayers dollars.
The body of
Councillors have clearly failed to effectively and publicly express their
disapproval to Christchurch City Holdings Ltd that it is condoning rogue
behaviour by a CCC-owned asset.
For example: CIAL
lied to Tarras landowners (through its sales agents) about the reasons for the
purchase of land. This behaviour is unethical.
All Christchurch
citizens are unjustly implicated.
CCC owes a
public apology to the deceived Tarras landowners
and community!
They (and visitors
to the region) had no reason to believe that their area would be
arbitrarily damaged and changed. Its landscape values would be
compromised.
Christchurch should
not be muscling into Central Otago. What would your reaction be if
Dunedin or Queenstown airport companies announced that they would be buiding an
airport on the Canterbury Plains? This is another egregious example of
Council-owned trading assets competing against, and undermining, each other. It
is part of an idology which does not serve the common interest.
To spend $45
million (or any amount) ignores the cash-strapped plight of our Council.
Councillors must reclaim any funds dedicated by CIAL to Tarras
Airport!
Charitable Trusts
and improved wages and conditions for staff would benefit from any surpluses
not dedicated to Christchurch Airport.
The Council has
many more important and urgent financial priorities than passively conniving in
CIAL's empire-building Tarras airport project.
It is not a good
look when a Council-owned asset is spending $45 million on covert Otago land
purchases when its majority owner (CCC) is putting up rates and looking
at cutting costs left, right and centre. That money should have been
spent where it belongs - in Christchurch and Canterbury. If CIAL has got tens
of millions of spare money, give it back to the people of Christchurch via CCC.
Councillors must
examine carefully any plan by any of its assets (strategic or not)
to spend money which is unrelated to the statutory purpose of our
assets, and forbid and cancel the plans and subsequent arrangements.
Tourism is so
fractured because of Covid 19, that any planning for a new airport is, in the
foreseeable future, a waste of ratepayer money.
Looking forward to
much greater diligence by Councillors.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PC-fxaoPewqRp-SQb4gdL0Znke6qG0kq/view?usp=sharing
13 August 2020
We have been shocked to see the
Christchurch City Council has sent Destiny Church pastor Derek Tait an invoice for $24,000 to pay for traffic
management costs on several recent marches in the city.
We are not supporters of Destiny
Church or the Freedom and Rights Coalition and have no connection with them.
However the proposal to charge them for traffic management on their recent
marches is an insult to everyone in Christchurch who believes in free speech and
the right to public protest.
No organisation we are aware of has
ever been sent invoices for traffic management as a part of protest marches.
Our collective memories go back to the 1960s.
If the Christchurch City Council has
its way then the only groups able to organise public protest marches will be
those who can afford tens of thousands in traffic management fees. This is
unacceptable. It’s a breach of the Bill of Rights and an attack on our
democracy, which is our most fundamental public asset.
Please ensure the invoice is
withdrawn.
From Mayor Dalzie To KOA Re: Fixing Bus System In
Christchurch
Email1
From: KOA
Convenor <convenor@koa.org.nz
Sent: Friday, 11 September 2020 1:23 PM
To: Dalziel, Lianne <Lianne.Dalziel@ccc.govt.nz>
Subject:
Mayor of Christchurch
Christchurch City Council
Dear Lianne,
On more than one occasion
during your Mayoralty you have publicly expressed frustration at responsibility
for Christchurch's bus system having to be split between CCC and ECan.
KOA shares your frustration at
this inefficient way of running a key public asset. Moreso, the
realisation that it would require an Act of Parliament to change things.
We recently wrote to the
Minister of Transport and this was one the matters we raised with him.
This is the relevant extract
from his reply (7/8/20):
"You also asked whether
this Government is prepared to change local body legislation to allow councils
to bring public transport services in-house while also bringing together the
public transport service provider and infrastructure provider into one body.
You may be pleased to know that last year the Ministry of Transport and the
Department of Internal Affairs prepared a Supplementary Order Paper to the
Local Government Act 2002 Amendment Bill (No 2) 2016 (the Bill). The Bill
progressed through the House and was enacted in October 2019".
"This allows regional
councils to transfer one or more of their responsibilities, including public
transport functions, to local authorities, if both agree (my emphasis). I
believe this change will allow regional and territorial authorities to find
optimal governance arrangements to suit local needs and provide responsive,
flexible public transport services".
It would appear that central
Government has now done what was needed, albeit belatedly. The relevant
legislation has been in place for nearly a year.
That being the case, please
advise what progress has been made in bringing Christchurch bus services back
under the control of the Christchurch City Council.
Best wishes,
Murray
Murray Horton
Email
2
On Tue, Oct 13, 2020 at 11:33 AM
Dalziel, Lianne <Lianne.Dalziel@ccc.govt.nz> wrote:
Dear Murray
Thank you for your email of 11
September regarding the flexibility for Ecan to transfer public transport
responsibilities that was reinstated by way of amendment to the Local
Government Act 2002 last year.
This was previously a barrier to
going any further than a Joint Committee to provide recommendations to Ecan on
the Regional PT plan. I have never regarded this as the goal.
However, simply transferring ownership amounts to simply transferring what is
in fact a broken system that requires whoever operates it to arrange for the
competitive tendering of routes and locking in 9 year contracts at a time of
exponential technology change. It would also mean implementing the flawed
operation model (PTOM), which includes the farebox return policy, and disabling
the capacity for innovative transformative change. That will achieve
nothing other than transfer the cost to the ratepayers of Christchurch without
any capacity to pursue a bigger vision of integrated transport and urban
development for Greater Christchurch.
The Greater Christchurch Partnership
is working on this with a view to raising this with the Government after the
election.
I think we have the opportunity to
have a much better model for public transport for the people of Greater
Christchurch.
Kind regards
Lianne Dalziel
Email
3
From: KOA Convenor <convenor@koa.org.nz>
Sent: Tuesday, 4 May 2021 10:08 AM
To: Dalziel, Lianne <Lianne.Dalziel@ccc.govt.nz>
Subject: Lianne. Fixing Bus System In Christchurch
Dear Lianne,
Anything to report
on this?
"The Greater
Christchurch Partnership is working on this with a view to raising this with
the Government after the election".
Best wishes,
Murray
Email
4
From: MayorsMessages <MayorsWebMessages@ccc.govt.nz>
Date: Tue, May 11, 2021 at 2:46 PM
Subject: FW: Lianne. Fixing Bus System In Christchurch
To: convenor@koa.org.nz <convenor@koa.org.nz>
Cc: MayorsMessages <MayorsWebMessages@ccc.govt.nz>
Kia ora Murray,
In response to your email to the
Mayor, we’ve discussed it with her and in reply would like to highlight the
Greater Christchurch Partnership’s briefing to the incoming government,
which is available online and outlines the work that is underway in this area.
The document has a section on
transport, and notes:
“The Canterbury Regional Public
Transport Plan sets out an integrated approach to public transport in Greater
Christchurch that supports and enables our population and urban growth
strategies. To give effect to this, partners are developing the Future Public
Transport Business Case. This will deliver a coordinated programme of
investments and improvements across both public transport infrastructure and
services. The first stage of this business case has been submitted to Waka
Kotahi for consideration.”
Further, the briefing states:
“As part of Greater Christchurch
2050, we will be developing a new 30-year plan and infrastructure strategy for
Greater Christchurch. We want to work with the Infrastructure Commission on
their 30-year strategy for New Zealand’s infrastructure system to ensure we
achieve alignment.”
I hope you find this information
useful.
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Ngā mihi Ross Ross Pringle |
