You know your case has real merit when your opponent's attempt to suppress your views
Steve Howard and Bronwen Summers tabled the Keep Our Assets petition at the Deputations by Appointment section of yesterday’s council meeting. The petition underpins the KOA submission to Councils Long Term Plan consolation process.
All the presentations are available to view on-line EXCEPT ours.
So much for all the hyperbole about being ‘community-orientated’ and acting with “integrity”.
"We” the council website loudly proclaims “are honest, transparent and take responsibility”.
Bullocks !!
Here’s what Council, and the vested interests that support the asset stripping agenda, don't want you to hear
KOA speech notes for petition presented To Christchurch City Council 11/6/15
Mauri ora ki te whenua
Mauri ora ki te rangi
Mauri ora ki te ao whanui
He waka eke noa
Kia ora tatou
Good morning to the mayor and councillors and Good morning to those who have come along in support. The whakatauki means we are all in the same waka together
We are here this to present to the council a petition opposing any plan to sell publically owned assets as part of the council’s long term plan.
Some points we need to make are;
• No councillor campaigned to sell assets and at least six councillors were elected on a platform of not selling assets.
• Aligning the council’s assets with the council’s strategic direction is a no brainer but selling these assets off means that profit for shareholders will over rule any strategic outcomes desired by council
• Many of the actions in the last year show a blatant pattern of the council having decided on asset sales before the process of public submissions for the long term plan even started
• The process has been rushed at a time when many in Christchurch have been suffering a range of pressures related to recovering from the earthquake
• The process has been contaminated by the reliance on Cameron Partners who on their web site boast of the Telecom privatisation, where both sides were played against the middle resulting in a telecom environment held back but plenty of profits for consultants,
• Hiring these consultants leaves a very sour taste
• Further to that, hiring Cameron Partners as permanent consultants is problematic.
• The latest memo from Camerons to the council shows a serious breach of process in that it appears to be based on a decision to sell having been made prior to the council’s deliberations
• Just on Tuesday a Wellington area local government politician spoke of how local democracy is undermined when services are not seen to be delivered by council, this pattern of democracy deficit with assets sell down is repeated throughout the academic literature.
• City Care’s raisone d’etre was always to deliver services which had previously been delivered in house. If the council is not happy with its direction the council should bring that work back in house or take a more direct control over City Care’s direction and directors
• If the mayor is serious about having an alternative budget let’s start the whole process again after the public have had a real chance to digest the new proposals
• Just to finish to suggest that residents objecting to an asset sell down don’t understand economics is simply insulting. The Triumphalism of the NeoLiberal model of private good, public bad has been really well discredited by a number of 21st century economists. Being trained in neoclassical economics models is the same as not being educated as an economist.
• Even the recent OECD report makes the point that these policies are so last century
Thank you for receiving our petition and please consider carefully before you forge ahead down the dead end of privatisation. A city council has to be a leader for the whole health of its city and as Picketty points out privatisation simply increases all the problems of inequality. And using disasters to drive further neoliberalism is a viscous attack on democracy.
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Five Deputations by Appointment at yesterdays Council meeting
Only four make the public domain
