Brian Rudman: Annual windfall should benefit all

Illustration / Peter Bromhead

Pressing for the winding up of energy trust simply to build more roads likely to alienate many Aucklanders

If the campaign to transfer ownership of the Auckland Energy Consumer Trust into the hands of Auckland Council fails, we have one man to blame - Employers and Manufacturers Association boss Kim Campbell. Put a muzzle on that man.

Like a bull in a china shop, he's stumbled into this delicate scenario before the campaign has even started and demanded the trust be wound up, the shares be sold, along with those of the council-owned airport and port. Why? "Because we want to get roads built in Auckland."

He was speaking on the eve of a private meeting of business groups and transport lobbyists he'd organised to plan a public relations campaign to persuade the majority of Aucklanders that transferring the assets of the AECT was a good thing. What a fiasco.

Personally, I support the trust being wound up and the $2.1 billion Vector shareholding going to Auckland Council. But not if the shares are then going to be sold and the money squandered on more bitumen.

Back in 2012, I argued that the 312,000 households in the old Auckland, Manukau and Papakura council areas, myself included, should forgo our annual $312 handout, and the $99.84 million that was shared between us that year be returned to the Auckland community as a whole. I proposed the annual windfall be spent on landmark projects such as a park on the Tank Farm or a grand building on Queens Wharf.

A month ago, Auckland councillor Christine Fletcher revived the theme, and I was quick to support her. Adding to my list of possible projects, I suggested the City Rail Link (CRL), repairs to St James Theatre and new regional park purchases.

The quick background is that, in 1993, the Government declared community owned power companies ideologically impure, privatised them, and gave customers the choice of personal shares, which they could then sell, or continued community ownership through a trust. The trust's main task was to pay an annual dividend to the occupant of each physical address within the distribution area. If you left the property, the handout went to the incoming occupant.

Auckland, Manukau and Papakura customers voted to form a trust which, the legislation declared, would retain ownership until 2073, at which time it would pass to Auckland Council.

With rates inexorably rising, and traffic increasingly jamming, it's increasingly obvious that Auckland as a region needs the income from this community owned asset now, not in 2073. The stumbling block is to persuade the 316,000 current beneficiaries to forgo their annual handout for the common good.

Blurting out, like Mr Campbell did, that he wants to sell the shares so his mates who met with him on Wednesday afternoon from the Chamber of Commerce, the Auckland Business Forum and New Zealand Council for Infrastructure Development can build more roads is not the way to win our hearts and minds. Well not mine anyway. Especially when he wants to sell off the port company and airport shares as well.

New Zealanders don't support the privatisation of public assets. In the 2013 referendum on asset sales, 67 per cent of New Zealanders opposed the sale of even 49 per cent of publicly owned electricity generators. In parts of Manukau, the opposition reached 85 per cent.

In Auckland there's also growing support for the CRL. For this campaign to succeed, the business community has to convince a suspicious public that they're more than petrolheads seeking a quick fix. They had their work cut out before Mr Campbell's outburst. New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has already painted it as a raid on low-income pensioners and beneficiaries by a strange mix of "neoliberal" privatisers and "socialist" Auckland Council big spenders.

Labour's energy spokesman Stuart Nash has jumped on the bandwagon, calling the proposed sale both "underhand" and "a disgrace". Adding to the confusion, the five trustees, who get $343,000 in fees, have hired public relations consultant and right-wing commentator Matthew Hooton to defend the status quo.

The issue seems clear. Without unacceptable increases in rates, Auckland Council lacks money to pay for vital infrastructure improvements. It's not necessary to sell Vector shares to realise value. The annual $100 million-plus dividend stream could be used to service the extra borrowings available against this new asset.