Job losses predicted at Auckland Council

Guest post by Stephen Berry

After Auckland Council’s narrow passing of the Auckland Long Term Plan, I predict several job losses to occur at Auckland Council. That’s eleven jobs to be precise, right about October 2016.”

That’s the Mayor and the ten councillors who supported for the huge rates hike that underpins the Long Term Plan. They will suffer the wrath of voters in next year’s election, with a large swing toward toward fiscal responsibility and few of the councillors supported Len Brown surviving.

Affordable Auckland will be helping voters find replacements for those councillors by putting up candidates in several of the wards occupied by councillors supporting the rates increases.

Candidates from Affordable Auckland have been announced for the Mayoralty, Albany, Waitakere and Albany will several more to be revealed.

We will be presenting a plan for future rates increases to be capped at the level of inflation, for council spending to be restricted to the core functions specified by the Local Government Act, and for housing made affordable by streamlining the Council consents process.

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Stephen Berry is 2016 Affordable Auckland candidate for Mayor and Albany ward

PS: The "Terrible Ten" are:

• Len Brown
• Arthur Anae
• Bill Cashmore
• Linda Cooper
• Chris Darby
• Alf Filipaina
• Mike Lee
• Calum Penrose
• Wayne Walker
• Penny Webster

Liar Len’s dirty rotten trick [updated]

Guest post by Stephen Berry

Many of us were surprised yesterday when we saw the 9.5% rates increase figure splashed across the front of the newspapers, but in hindsight it is easy to see the path of Len Brown’s dirty rotten trick.

The voters of Auckland have been cynically played by Mayor Brown, from the 2013 election up until today.

The first trick occurred before Brown was re-elected as Mayor, when he promised voters that the average rates increase would not exceed 2.5%. The Mayor made that promise with absolutely no intention of sticking to it.

In November 2014 the Mayor changed his support from a 2.5% increase to a 3.5% increase within a week, saying at the Governing Body meeting, “I haven’t been able to find the savings to deliver on (the original plan). If the community doesn’t like the 3.5 they’ll say it.”  The Mayor came to this new rates increase figure after dangling a deceptive spending plan in front of voters that attracted the right sort of supportive feedback. We now know it is the same tactic he has used this year.

As the Council sought submissions on a new Long Term Plan in early 2015, they were presented with two different transport options; one being bigger and more expensive. Fifty percent of the 27,000 submissions showed support for the more expensive plan. [Just as surveys  regularly demonstrate voters wanting more spending, but lower taxes – Ed.]

Funding options for Len’s big plan included the option of tolls, which also had wide support.  But this was a red herring engineered to make it look like Len had all of Auckland’s support. He presented a high-spending plan to be funded in a manner the Council has no power to introduce, and which central Government has made crystal clear is not going to happen. And then he claimed support for the spending that supposedly sanctioned.

So then last week, on the back of this, the Mayor unveiled a plan for “keeping rates at 2.5%,” but placing on top of that a “targeted transport levy” of 4% – in other words, a total rates increase of 6.5%.

It was immediately obvious that the entire submissions process had been a way for Len Brown to present a mandate for increasing rates far beyond what he had initially promised. He ensured most submissions would support a plan for a big spending transport proposal so he could then pretend he was “obligated” to ramp up rates.

But wait. There’s more!

Not content with a 6.5% rates increase, a combination of lower business rates and higher council valuations caused by the overheated property market now means the total average rates increase will be in the region of 9.5%.

Len Brown has played the people of Auckland like puppets with manipulative games of deceit.  Now Auckland’s ratepayers need to tell the Mayor this increase is unacceptable and force him into a back down.

It is clear that 2016 should be Len Brown’s last as Mayor of Auckland.

Let’s make it so.

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Stephen Berry is the leader of Affordable Auckland, and Candidate for Mayor of Auckland and Albany Councillor in 2016. He was third place-getter in the 2103 Auckland mayoralty election.
Like Affordable Cities on Facebook.

UPDATE:

It gets worse.  The Herald reports:  “Auckland councillors have voted 15-7 for a 9.9 per cent rates increase for households from July.”

Yes, that’s right:

9.9!

That’s the average rates rise. David Farrar has the breakdown of which ratepayers are most kicked in the teeth, from biggest increase to smallest:

• Mangere-Otahuhu 16.9%
• Kaipatiki 16.1%
• Whau 15.7%
• Albert-Eden 14.9%
• Maungakiekie-Tamaki 14.9%
• Puketepapa 14.5%
• Otara-Papatoetoe 12.2%
• Henderson-Massey 11.6%
• Howick 9.9%
• Upper Harbour 9.9%
• Manurewa 9.5%
• Orakei 8.5%
• Devonport-Takapuna 7.9%
• Waitemata 7.7%
• Hibiscus and Bays 6.3%
• Waitakere Ranges 5.4%
• Franklin 4.4%
• Papakura 3.3%
• Rodney -1.4%
• Waiheke -2.8%
• Great Barrier -13%

And the 13 council-scum who voted for you to be their milch cow (only 9 voted against):

• Len Brown
• Penny Hulse
• Penny Webster
• Arthur Anae
• Cathy Casey
• Bill Cashmore
• Linda Cooper
• Chris Darby
• Alf Filipaina
• Chris Fletcher
• Mike Lee
• Calum Penrose
• Wayne Walker

Why not give the bastards a call and tell them what you think.

Council blackmails government

Guest post by Stephen Berry

Auckland Council’s attempt to block the creation of three Special Housing Areas can only be described as blackmail, to which the government should start playing hardball.

The council has rejected plans to set up three Special Housing Areas in Huapai because it expects central government to assist the funding of transport infrastructure to connect them. But it is not the government’s but the Council’s responsibility to fund the costs of connecting new housing areas to the power, water and road networks.

The developers of housing areas actually pay for the roads and water pipes so half the job of the Council is already done for them. If they are a bit short, then it is perfectly reasonable to borrow money, by issuing bonds for example, to fund the connection of the new project to existing utilities, and then pay it off with the increased rates revenue that will result.  [The Texas MUD model is one such that could be emulated – Ed.]

Part of the problem is that Auckland Council doesn’t restrict its function to its core role, which makes it harder to pay for the things Council actually exists to fund. Right now for example Len Brown is considering a $190 million wish list he has been given by the Independent Maori Statutory Board. This request includes funding for economic development, education and development of iwi assets. Were the Council sticking to its core responsibilities, Brown would be giving the Maori Statutory Board a simple “no.”

I suspect the real reason the Council is fighting back against these Special Housing Areas is because of the compact city ideology of Penny Hulse. Despite the overwhelming evidence showing that restricting Auckland’s growth is causing stratospheric price inflation, Ms. Hulse keeps her head in the undeveloped land of outer Auckland. [Another reason is she sees a chance of exerting political pressure to make taxpayers begin footing the bill for Len’s train sets – Ed.]

Minister Nick Smith says the Government has the power to issue its own consents for the Special Housing Areas. If the Council continues its game of blackmail, then I certainly hope he does.

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Len Brown pulls the knife out

Guest post by Stephen Berry

Len Brown has saved his biggest dirty trick for yesterday’s Governing Body meeting with his proposal to add a 2% transport levy on top of the crippling rates increases already inflicted on Aucklanders.

It seems the Mayor has been hatching this trick for quite some time by building public support for an expensive transport plan. Once he has obtained 50% support of submitters for the most expensive option in the Long Term Plan, he has pulled a knife from behind his back in the form of an extra transport levy to fund it.

Essentially what has happened now is that the Mayor has turned his promise for an average 2.5% rate increase, broken when he voted for a 3.5% average increase, into a whopping 5.5% rates increase. This transport proposal is the country’s lamest magic trick.

The 2% transport levy is proposed to remain in place until 2018 when the Government is hoped to allow the Council to implement tolls on Auckland roads. Essentially the Mayor’s plan is to keep hoping the National Government eventually gets voted out of office so he can implement tolls. Considering he has no chance of surviving the 2016 election, this plan isn’t a very good one.

The Council needs to be a bit more open minded in choosing how to fund capital projects rather than taxing and borrowing. With the Government ruling out the possibility of charging tolls, the Council needs to look at options such as obtaining private sector involvement and selling assets that are a lower priority than its proposed transport solutions.

Repeatedly grabbing from property owners can no longer be considered an option.

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Stephen Berry is the leader of Affordable Auckland, and Candidate for Mayor of Auckland and Albany Councillor in 2016. He was third place-getter in the 2103 Auckland mayoralty election.
Like Affordable Cities on Facebook.

The rates are too damn high!

I”m happy to hear there are other Aucklanders “who are sick and tired of the Council wasting ratepayer money.”

Auckland Board Member of the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union, Gabrielle O’Brien, says, “Traditionally it’s been the business and property groups that have stuck up for fiscal responsibility within Auckland’s local government. Unfortunately most Auckland business groups are now heavily reliant on ratepayer money and find it difficult to bite the Council hand that feeds them.”
“With rates digging deeper and deeper into the pockets of Aucklanders, residents need an organisation that gives a collective strength to their voice. The Taxpayers’ Union has assisted in establishing the Ratepayers’ Alliance to ensure that Auckland has a dedicated organisation holding Len Brown, his Council, and officials to account.”

Sounds good to me.

Council Housing Strategy a Failure

Guest post by Stephen Berry

Len Brown’s admission that only 170 homes have been built in Special Housing Areas since he was elected Mayor proves the Council’s housing strategy is a total failure.

Unprecedented sales activity in March has seen Auckland’s residential housing market establish new records for prices and sales numbers. The average house price is even more expensive than in Sydney, with the gap widening as a stronger Kiwi dollar heads towards parity.

Auckland houses are still the second-most overpriced in the world. Over thirty suburbs in Auckland now have a median house value of over one-million dollars. Building 170 homes on still-overpriced land will not make one iota of difference to this damning statistic. A different approach must be taken and it cannot be one that is led or co-ordinated by Council.

But that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t help if they got out of the way.

The most powerful step Council could take to arrest the housing bubble is to abolish their Metropolitan Urban Limit. Land values two kilometres inside the limit are seven times the values of land two kilometres outside of the limit. It doesn’t take an economist to see what is causing the problem.

Equally damning is the average cost of obtaining consent to develop a site in one of the politically-driven Special Housing Areas. The Mayor has revealed it costs an average of $33,000 to obtain consent to build, not including the cost of inevitable delays. When it is cheaper to buy a new car than to deal with Council bureaucrats, you know something is seriously wrong.

The Special Housing Area are not making housing affordable; instead they are simply Affordable Housing Theatre.

The Council isn’t leading a housing strategy; it’s preventing one.

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Stephen Berry was the Affordable Auckland candidate for Mayor in 2013, coming in third.
He will be hosting an exploratory committee at Tasca Café, Newmarket this Saturday, April 11, at 4pm to examine what role Affordable Auckland will have in the 2016 local body elections.

Dangerous Murmurings Pulse from Hulse

Guest post by Stephen Berry from Affordable Auckland 

Anyone who reads between the lines of politician gobbledygook should be very worried by comments about rental tenancy tenure made by Auckland’s Deputy Mayor Penny Hulse .

Following the release of the ‘Residential Mobility’ report from the Growing Up in New Zealand study, which shows high levels of residential movement in young families,  Ms. Hulse says she is “disturbed” by findings that “a high proportion of our most vulnerable, being children, have unstable accommodation in the first years of their lives.”

This situation is not acceptable on any level [she says]. 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.

Comments like that clearly indicate Hulse wishes to further regulate the housing and rental market – that she harbours a barely-concealed desire to write another volume of ill-begotten regulations making life worse for all involved.

Should go down that path, she would effectively be condemning her low-income constituency to homelessness.

The more rules that are put in place to supposedly protect renters actually add costs for landlords, which result in higher rents and fewer rentals. If legal minimums are implemented for periods of tenancy, for example, then landlords will become more risk-averse in dealing with young and low-income applicants, making it far harder for them to rent a house.

Policies supported by the Len Brown-nosing Hulse have already shut the young and poor out of buying property. Now she clearly intends to shut them out of the rental market too.

Stephen Berry believes that with the waning of Len Brown’s political career, Penny Hulse is now the greatest political threat to the freedoms and wallets of Aucklanders.

Brown knows his career is over in 2016 and that is why his behaviour is increasingly erratic. Hulse on the other hand clearly has plans to succeed Brown as Mayor, which is very concerning.

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Stephen Berry was the Affordable Auckland candidate for Mayor in the 2013 election. He finished in third place.
www.affordable.org.nz
www.facebook.com/affordablecity

Who cares about Len’s hidden room?

No, I don’t care about what’s going on behind Len Brown’s closed doors, or hidden doors.

I care about how much ratepayers’ money he’s (over)spending, and what he’s going to Auckland right out in public.

His grandomania and how much we’re forced to pay for it – in which he’s far from unique in this country, just the most indebted -- is far more important than what goes on behind locked or hidden doors in the mayoral chambers.

Monument building does not an affordable city make.

How to bridge Len Brown’s gap.

Len Brown says there are very few choices to make up Auckland Council’s spending shortfall.

The first option is a motorway toll.

The second is higher rates.

The third is a complicated combination of those first two, along with addition fuel taxes.

It is said these are Auckland’s only choices to bridge the spending gap.

But that’s bollocks.

There is  a fourth choice.

I like to call it my Stop-Spending-So-Goddamned-Much Plan.

Unlike the other plans, it’s very uncomplicated – it is, by far, the simplest way to bridge the gap between what Len Brown’s council spends, and what it takes our of your pockets.

It looks like this: Stop Spending So Goddamned Much.

I commend it to Loopy Len’s attention.

[Pic NZ Herald]

And the country’s most indebted council is …

Some councils save for a rainy day. And others are already heavily indebted when rain arrives.

So it’s no wonder that the third-most indebted council in the country, with a debt three times the NZ average, is Christchurch, already irresponsibly over-spending when natural disaster arrived, and now struggling to pay for the infrastructure repairs a more responsible might have afforded better.

The great new survey released by the Taxpayers’ Union does a great job showing the under-performance and over-spending of councils across the country, revealing however that precious few deserve the epithet “responsible.”

All of Canterbury is sick. Christchurch City Council spends $3901 per ratepayer - well ahead of the national average of $3175 – and simply borrows the rest. Yett

the Ratepayers' Report shows the Waimakariri District Council has the highest average residential rates in Canterbury. Waimakariri ratepayers pay an average of $2130 a year in rates, while in Christchurch City the average rates are $1706 a year.
    The Selwyn District has the second-highest operating expenditure per ratepayer and the second highest liabilities per ratepayer.

Second-most indebted is Dunedin, owing $15,093 each to pay for that glorious stadium that will get its one international game per year this weekend. As you watch the test match this weekend, think about what Dunedin ratepayers are enduring so you watch the All Backs dismantle England under cover of a roof.

Mind you, if Canterbury has a disaster to pay for, and Dunedin a white elephant, long-suffering Auckland ratepayers only have the unnatural disaster of Len Brown to pay for (and keep paying).

With a debt of $15,858 per ratepayer, 518,784 ratepayers on the hook, the grand prize for most indebted council in the country (per ratepayer) and a mayor intent on monument-building rather than debt-reduction, Auckland ratepayers will be receiving no respite for years to come.

Our future is a city permanently in debt.

It makes an Auckland ratepayer long for Central Otago.

READ: Taxpayers’ Union’s Ratepayers’ Report

A Liveable City? But You Can’t Drink to That.

For a city to be liveable¹ you have to be able to go out and have a drink. For a city to be “the show that never stops,”² you might need to respect the showplaces that don’t actually stop.

Sadly, this council is having none of that.

If you can’t get out to the bars and bottle stores when council says you can, then new council rules³ say you can’t.  Hard to disagree with Hospitality Association Auckland president Kevin Schwass, who says the changes would be a massive step backwards for the city.

"They are trying to close us down. The 3am closing in the CBD and Newton and Ponsonby and 1am everywhere else is a massive step backwards - it's draconian.
    "If they are talking about Auckland being the most liveable city in the world, it's a joke."
    Mr Schwass said downtown problems were caused by drinkers "preloading" - buying liquor at retail outlets and drinking at home or in the car before going out to a bar or club.
    The city's proposal follows sweeping new measures in last year's Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act, which forced bars - some of which used to open 24/7 - to close at 4am, and also allowed councils to develop their own alcohol policies.
    Auckland councillor Cameron Brewer says the Super City's policy has taken a more restrictive approach to standard CBD hours than Wellington's draft policy, which allows 5am closing.
    "This policy will make a joke of council's latest marketing campaign that promotes Auckland as 'the show that never stops'."
    However, council strategy and policy committee chairman George Wood said the plan aimed to strike a balance between alcohol-related harm and the desire to have a vibrant and healthy entertainment scene for residents and visitors to enjoy.

George Wood and his fellow wowsers should try minding their own business some time. Not least the police

who have been quoted frequently as saying "nothing good happens in the central city after 3am" … [and] had asked for CBD bars to be banned from letting anyone in after 1am, when the non-CBD bars would close.

The police appear to have forgotten their position in civil society. Their role is not to decide when or if folk might be allowed to go out and play, but to protect them when they do.

That good people choose to drink or do whatever after 3am in the city is their business only because it is their business to serve and protect.

And if Mr Wood and his wowsers don’t like what they see out and about around they city after 3am, then I suggest they don’t go out and about, or don’t look.

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1. “The world’s most liveable city” being Mayor Len Brown’s stated aspiration.
2. “The show that never stops” being the council’s latest marketing slogan.
3. Oh yes, it’s a draft rule currently in “consultation”

Len Brown Stand Down March: Media Manipulation Analysis

Vinny Eastwood and Stephen Berry analyse Saturday’s Len Brown Stand Down March,

a big success according to its organisers and in a way this is evidenced by the enormous criticism thrown at it by desperate left wing commentators and woefully inaccurate reporting by the establishment media.
To counter this propaganda we are releasing a critical analysis of a number of these news stories and blogs so that the public may be made aware of the lengths these scumbaggery filth will go to protect the corruption, financial incompetence and lies of Auckland Mayor Len Brown.

See if they make their case:

Democracy Lacking at Auckland Council

Guest post by Stephen Berry

Auckland resident Rick Splinter has had his request for speaking rights at the Governing Body meeting of 27 February 2014 declined. The request has been declined by Deputy Mayor and Len Brown toady Penny Hulse.

What democracy do we really have in Auckland politics if a private individual cannot have a mere five minutes to address the Council and make his opinions known?

The official reason for the application to speak being declined was delivered by Governance Support Manager Jason Marris. It reads:

Tag team keeps pressure on Brown

Guest post by Stephen Berry from Affordable Auckland 

I’ll be teaming up with anti-corruption watchdog Penny Bright to organise this Saturday’s Len Brown Stand Down March: this Saturday, February 22. (Be there! It departs Britomart at noon, travelling up Queen Street to Airedale Street.)

In the 2013 election I was the third-placed candidate and Penny was fourth placed. Whatever our differences, and they are many, we are united in the importance of Brown opponents from across the spectrum to work together to unseat the Mayor – hence our support for a new Len Brown Stand Down Coalition dedicated to this happy event.

The whole purpose of the Len Brown Stand Down march has always been to create a unified coalition of those who are demanding the Mayor resign. We will probably disagree on other issues, we may even disagree on the reasons why Brown should resign. However, we are united in the opinion that Len Brown is completely unsuitable to be the Mayor of Auckland and needs to resign as soon as possible.

The coalition of Len Brown Stand Down participants are now focused on appearing at as many of Brown’s public appearances as possible and maintaining the pressure on him to quit the job. A contingent appeared at Walker Park in Point Chevalier last Thursday where the Mayor was welcoming the Broncos NRL team.

Persistence was rewarded when Len’s attempt to make a quick escape from our protests turned farcical. His car was blocked in by a Broncos’s bus parked across the exit and protestors surrounded the Mayoral vehicle while attempts were made to find the person with the keys to the Broncos’s bus. (We hope this played no part in the Brisbane boys losing their final.)

We were also joined by other Coalition members yesterday to form a welcoming committee for Len outside the Onehunga RSA. Unfortunately we, along with several groups of media, were not permitted inside the meeting. Berry wonders if Brown is trying to socially engineer future engagements to avoid being held accountable in front of audiences from now on.

Len Brown will have to keep one eye over his shoulder on Friday as Len Brown Stand Down protests follow him around more official engagements. We are adamant, and we are not going away: We will not step back until Len Brown Stands Down!”

Stephen Berry is the leader of Affordable Auckland, and was the third-placed mayoral candidate at the last election. Follow him on Facebook or contact him at Stephen.berry@affordable.org.nz.

Len’s Days Are Numbered

Guest post by Stephen Berry

As Affordable Auckland Leader and organiser of the Len Brown Stand Down March, I have now begun a full-time two-week campaign to promote the Len Brown Stand Down March – about which I am heartily encouraged by the feedback of residents and ratepayers around Auckland.

Will Ryan and I have been hitting the pavements of Auckland and I attended Sunday’s Big Gay Out. The feedback we have received has been overwhelmingly in favour of Len Brown standing down.

Yesterday I pressed the flesh with attendees of the Big Gay out, experiencing first-hand the groundswell of opposition to Len Brown’s mayoralty. I would certainly not be exaggerating when I tell you that 75% of the people I spoke to are right behind our campaign to unseat Len Brown as Mayor of Auckland. If my experiences are anything to go by, Len’s mandate is well and truly gone. He may have a thick skin, but the voters of Auckland are wielding one hell of a jackhammer.

The reasons Aucklanders are so supportive of Brown standing down are varied, but that doesn’t dilute their enthusiasm for his removal, and for participation in the Len Brown Stand Down March. I’ve said all along that I don’t care what people’s personal political views are, as long as they come along on February 22^nd to make them known. Whether left-wing or right-wing, the majority of Aucklanders clearly want Len to hand in his resignation.

Most people I have spoken to really don’t care about his affair, and neither do I. However they do agree that having sex in the workplace is wrong, receiving undeclared gifts is wrong, and annual increases in rates, spending and borrowing are disastrous for Aucklanders.

The Len Brown Stand Down march will be held on Saturday February 22 at 12 noon. It will start at QE2 Square in Britomart, finishing at Airedale Street via Queen Street. The Len Brown Stand Down – Protest March Facebook page can be found at https://www.facebook.com/events/630259507036725/

Stephen Berry is leader of Affordable Auckland

“Aucklanders Give a Hoot – Len Brown Should Get the Boot”

I still maintain that a lame duck Auckland mayor is the very best outcome for all Aucklanders – given what an Auckland mayor could do with the powers Rodney Hide gave him, if he thought he had popular support behind him. Stephen Berry from Affordable Auckland figures otherwise, however, this short Guest Post …

Auckland mayor Len Brown says Aucklanders generally "don't give much of a hoot" about his battles over the last few months.

The people of Auckland do give a hoot about your disgraceful conduct Len. And in 34 days, The Len Brown Stand Down March will show you just how much of a hoot Aucklanders give,” says Affordable Auckland’s Stephen Berry. The Len Brown Stand Down March will start at noon from QE2 Square in Britomart on Saturday February 22.

If he is receiving unanimous feedback that Aucklanders don’t care about his scandalous behaviour, then Brown must have another “bevy of heavies” vetting people before they get to talk to him.

The feedback I’ve been getting is certainly not unanimous, but the overwhelming majority say that it is time for Len Brown to go. This is backed by most opinion polls on the matter, which show large majorities in favour of Len Brown’s resignation.

In dismissing the widespread discomfort caused by his behaviour and insistence at remaining Mayor of Auckland, Brown is being naïve at best, and at worst extremely arrogant.

He can spin, bluff and bluster all he likes. The majority of Aucklanders are disgusted by his behaviour and he is completely aware of that fact. I invite him to address next month’s march to get a more accurate picture of the way Aucklanders really feel.

Stephen Berry is the leader of the Affordable Auckland movement, and the third-highest polling mayoral candidate in last year’s Auckland election.
He invites you to join him on Saturday February 22 at the Len Brown Stand Down March.

Why Len Brown should stay on

The popular argument against Len Brown staying on as Mayor amounts to saying that he has lost the respect of so many people, he is now unable to do his job.

On the second point at least, I don’t entirely disagree with that. I only wish that it were  true.

Because from my point of view, given that Len Brown sees his job as pushing Aucklanders around and building multi-billion-dollar monuments, I do not want Len Brown doing his job.

Or any mayor, for that matter, with that as their ambition. So offer me a lame-duck, disrespected, abjectly ineffective occupant of the mayoral office, and I’m going to take your arm off.

So on that score, if the popular argument is right and it costs another $100,000 to keep Len disrespected, that seems like money well spent.

Len’s “living wage” has a ripple the size of a tsunami

Alan: Hey, great news.
Bruce: What’s that?
Alan: Larry’s getting a raise—up from $600 to $730 a week!
Bruce: Larry? You mean Larry Larry? For what he does?
Alan: Yeah. Living wage mate.
Bruce: But … but … that means he’s pulling down more than I am! And I’m supposed to be above his pay grade.
Alan: Yeah, shitty news, eh.
Bruce: I’m off to see HR.

If Len Brown is successful in his proposal to pay low-paid council workers a “living wage” of $18.40 per hour, that conversation above will he happening around every water cooler in all the many council buildings around the super-sized city.

Red Len reckons paying low-paid council workers a “living wage” of $18.40 per hour will cost nothing, just $3.75 million reckons Len—chickenfeed for a mayor who overspends hundreds of millions and borrows in the billions to pay for it.

But worry not, says Len, the $3.75 million cost will “be paid for through savings in other parts of the council.” 

Yeah right.  Tell me the last time Len saved you money.

But Len’s figure, that $3.75 million number, based only on what it will cost to pay 550 employees a bit more, ignores completely the very real knock-on results of paying those 550 more.

First of all, it ignores what happens to Bruce if Larry is paid more. If Larry Low-Paid is paid more, then Bruce wants to be paid more to keep rank. And there are a lot more Bruces than there are Larrys, who are being paid already just that much more. And a whole lot more just above Bruce who will want to  keep their pay rank as well. And so on, and so on, all the way up, as the effects of the first “living wage” raise ripple through the system.

Add on several million more to ratepayers’ bills to pay for those pay rises too, not to mention all the disruptions of all those heated HR meetings by council “workers” keen to keep their place in the pay scale.

Second, every new employee is going to want more too. And this is a council determined to expand.  So add on a whole lot more millions to Len’s fictional 3.75. Not to mention how every employee for every one of the council’s many contractors is going to feel about this. (Expect the cost of every council contract to go up to pay for those wage rises too.)

And what about its effect around the rest of the city? The council is already becoming one of the biggest employers around this super-sized city, so if council is paying more for all its “workers” (which will be the nett result of starting to pay lower-paid workers more) then everyone else will have to as well, or else the over-paying council will be bidding employees away from every other employer in the city. And if those other employers do want to hire employees, or keep the ones they’ve got, as a result of Len’s “this-will-cost-nothing” largesse they’ll need to pay them more as well.

So the nett effect of paying low-paid council workers more will ripple through all of council first, raising wages as it goes, and thence will ripple through the rest of the super-sized city, all the way through until it eventually affects all employers everywhere. Like a butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon, by the time that small increase in a few  council pay-packets ripples through everywhere, it has turned from a ripple to a tsunami.

Which eithers raise prices everywhere to pay for all those higher wages, or it reduces employment everywhere to allow employers to afford the higher wage bill. Or both.

In both cases, it will raise prices.

And you know the funny thing. When prices do go up to a level sufficient to cover the costs of all these nominal wage rises, and all those price increases ripple through, it will be found that the real wage that employees now get will be the same (or less) than it was before the “living wage” increase.

In other words, no-one will be better off than before.

And those who are now priced out of a job, being unable to produce more than $18.40 an hour for an employer, will all be very much worse off. (As will the taxpayers, who will have to carry them too.)

Frankly, none of this should surprise anyone. Because unlike every other wage, this so-called “living wage” is based not on how much an employee can produce, but on how much that employee can spend.

Which is to get your causality backwards.

Not that any of this will bother advocates of this so-called “living wage,” because those instigating the “living wage” campaign are not primarily motivated by making the lives of low-paid workers better. It is to enlist them in a campaign of class warfare.

In other words, it’s about politics, not economics.

Which, oddly enough, is where lies one of the solutions to the problem of low wages. In government. Because the best way government can help poorer workers is to cut their tax bill.

If Len is genuine about helping low-paid workers, then let Len go and talk to John about that.

No Comment

There will be no comment here on the only news anyone wants to talk about today.

I'm utterly uninterested in what Len Brown did in the (relative) privacy of the Ngati Whatua Room. Because it's not who he screws in private that worries me. What worries me is him screwing over Auckland ratepayers every day right out in the open.

How about we focus on that?

Posted with Blogsy

So, maybe you had no-one to vote for?

By the way: if you didn’t bother voting for mayors or councillors this election—even though you know that virtually all mayors and councillors both old and new regard your property as their business, and your pocket as their personal ATM machine—then maybe you should have done something about it?

You know, like standing yourself? Or supporting those who did, so more folk could hear what they had to say?

There were a few candidates across the country standing against that premise, and some of them polled well, and some few of them got elected. And I hope some of you do let me know how you did.

And I hope, too, that you build on what you got this election, build up your war chest, encourage others to stand with you, and stand again next time for the right to get our wallets back.

To me, the most exciting result was in the Auckland mayoralty. Not in the race between Tweedledum and Tweedledummer—between the re-elected mayor (who’s bankrupting the city to build monuments) and his opponent, (who wanted to bankrupt it building a second city)—but in the result for the fellow who came third. Stephen Berry. From Affordable Auckland.