MAYORAL PROFILE - John Robson

John Robson has an intense self-belief in his ability to put the Tauranga City Council to rights.
He has little sensitivity when it comes to pulling punches and confesses that people struggle with him to the point of asking, "What is he on?"
Behind a disarming lack of political niceties, there is a lot of heat in his unrelenting quest for change.
"Second-rate leadership."
That is how Mr Robson, a retired management consultant of Bethlehem, sums up his No1 issue for the council.
Like Prime Minister John Key, he traces his roots back to a state house upbringing - in Wanganui, which he spells without an "h" on his website.
If elected, he pledges to take the minimum wage and donate the rest of his salary to charity.
Mr Robson rails against the idea that Tauranga's rapid growth was responsible for the council's high debt, because other cities had also experienced high growth without striking the same debt issues.
Tauranga's pitfall had been in trying to build a city on the back of residential development, he said. Mr Robson said that at the last election he correctly predicted that if the wheels fell off residential development, it would end in disaster.
"I said I am the biggest brain in the room and the biggest pain in the room."
Mr Robson was dismayed by the suggestion from a city economic agency that Tauranga would be the third largest city in New Zealand in 10 years, once Auckland had amalgamated.
"It is not true."
The biggest would still be Auckland, Christchurch, Wellington and Hamilton and, in 20 years, the gap between Hamilton and Tauranga would have increased not decreased, he said.
"You don't deliver wealth by building on a myth ... we need to grow the wealth of the city.
"People are too comfortable about the status quo - they are in denial."
Tauranga's problem was that it had spent more than it earned for too long. He said $100 million of the council's current debt was effectively unrecovered subsidies paid to residential property developers.
What would have happened if those subsidies had been paid to attract businesses to Tauranga, he asked.
It would have brought in more of the ambitious 20 to 30-year-olds that were badly missing, he said.
Mr Robson said the former government's 2007 Shand Report had sheeted home the revenue consequences of councils going soft and borrowing. The council's financial woes had been compounded by underestimating the cost of capital projects while gathering less revenue.
Mr Robson said the council's Standard and Poors credit rating was not good and was below those of Auckland, Hamilton, Christchurch and Dunedin. It also had its 10-year plan tagged by the Audit Office.
He accused the council of misleading last year when it said that its rates were low compared with similar sized cities. On an apples-with-apples basis, Tauranga's rates were now somewhere in the middle, although the actual rate of the increases was out of line with similar-sized cities.
Mr Robson said there was no conspiracy behind what had happened, it was simply councillors doing their best in a complex environment. The council needed more brains and backbone.
"They are out of their depth - it is kind of sad."
JOHN ROBSON
Favourite food: Snapper.
Least favourite food: Brussels sprouts.
Favourite sport: Tennis.
Best life decision: When he was dropped at night on a lonely road leading to an Israeli kibbutz and realising that being an individual, insignificant in the Universe, was empowering.
Worst life decision: Missed opportunities to say either thank you or sorry.
Pet hate: Hypocrisy and people with closed minds.
What I like about Tauranga: We were not tied to where we would live and we freely chose Tauranga.