Manurewa Local Board deputy chairman Matt Winiata. Photo / File
Manurewa Local Board deputy chairman Matt Winiata. Photo / File
A South Auckland leader was today reduced to tears trying to explain the human cost of community funding cuts in Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown’s proposed budget.
Manurewa Local Board deputy chairman Matt Winiata was halfway through a presentation against community funding cuts in the budget when he broke down and started crying at a council workshop.
Not long after the workshop for the 21 local boards to provide feedback on the budget, Brown backed away from what many people were calling “austerity” measures, saying he had listened to public feedback and the views of elected representatives and would be “significantly softening” funding cuts to services.
Sir John Walker launched the John Walker Find Your Dreams Foundation programme for secondary school sport in 2008 at his old school, Manurewa High School. Photo / NZ Herald
What sparked “the adrenalin dump”, Winiata later told the Herald, was the prospect of losing $180,000 for the “John Walker Find Your Field of Dreams” programme that provides swimming lessons and other life experiences for 60,000 poor children across South Auckland.
That is less than the price of a cup of coffee for each child, he said.
Under a proposed cut of $3 million to regional contestable grants, Winiata said there would be no funding for the programme.
One councillor at the workshop said Winiata became so emotional he had to stop and fellow board members stepped forward to comfort him, some with handkerchiefs out to dab away tears.
“This raw emotion brought home to all the seriousness of the impacts of this budget on ordinary people,” the councillor said.
Winiata said as well as the John Walker programme, set up in 2008, the local board stood to lose funding for a Christmas parade, Santa parade, Anzac Day, Armistice Day, Movies in the Park, a community jazz concert at Nathan Homestead and a bilingual hīkoi.
The annual free series of Movies in Parks kicks off this weekend at Tahaki Reserve in Mt Eden. Photo / Supplied
“These are very strong community-based initiatives that our community has enjoyed over the last few years, which have all been wiped out,” he said.
Also on the chopping block is $20,000 for a “kai for kids” programme at Clendon Library, said the first-term politician, who has lived all his life in Manurewa.
Jazz at Nathan Homestead is under threat from budget cuts.
Another issue that was deeply upsetting Winiata today was the “asset-based” funding model for local boards that leaves the Manurewa Local Board receiving half as much as the next-poorest board or, as he describes it, “at the bottom of the barrel”.
In a media statement issued late this afternoon, Brown said programmes that will receive funding in his final mayoral budget proposal include the Citizens Advice Bureau, homelessness initiatives, the Southern Initiative, regional grants and funding for regional events, arts and culture.
The budget hole, which has increased from $295m to $325m, plus $50m for storm-related events, would still include some cuts to regional services, he said, but should not come at the expense of services highly valued by communities.
Brown said he would continue working with the Government on achieving greater alignment in the provision of social services and modernising legislation relating to funding regional arts and culture.
