Mayor accused of cronyism in CCO picks

Auckland Mayor Len Brown. Photo / Dean Purcell

Auckland Mayor Len Brown was last night accused of "cronyism" in presenting to councillors an allegedly hand-picked list of candidates for the boards of council-controlled organisations.

They include former Labour Party president Mike Williams, two businesspeople who helped with Mr Brown's mayoral campaign, former Manukau City chief executive Lee Auton and former Manukau deputy mayor Gary Troup.

Jami-Lee Ross, co-leader of the minority right-wing Citizens and Ratepayers team on the council, said Mr Brown had presented an appointments subcommittee yesterday with a "take it or leave it" list of 12 candidates for positions on six boards.

Recruitment specialists produced a shortlist of candidates, which was whittled down by Mr Brown and council chief executive Doug McKay.

But Mr Ross said the mayor should have included councillors in the process, as happened in previous councils.

"It does appear as a little bit of cronyism going on and without knowing who the other potential people could have been, because Mayor Brown has excluded councillors from the process, I cannot tell you whether these are the best people of the group."

Mr Brown said it had been necessary to act with urgency in filling vacancies on the CCOs and he knew many "high calibre people" in Auckland whom he called his friends.

"If you excluded all of them from consideration for CCO director roles, there would be very few qualified people left for any of these jobs."

He said the directors selected came from a range of business, community and political backgrounds.

A spokesman said the mayor had told a closed subcommittee meeting that the council faced an "imperfect" situation given a need to act quickly".

"That won't be the situation in the future," the spokesman said.

He said councillors would be more involved in future appointments and in performance reviews of CCO directors.

The mayor's office has confirmed that two of the new appointees, Pacific Trust chief executive Richard Jeffery and Pacific business leader Pauline Winter, were members of Mr Brown's election campaign team.

Councillors yesterday approved them as directors of the Auckland tourism, events and economic development and Auckland Council investments CCOs respectfully, for which they will be paid $35,000 a year.

Mr Williams, whom Local Government Minister Rodney Hide passed over when making 29 earlier appointments of mostly businesspeople to the CCOs, won a seat on Auckland Transport.

He was a director of that organisation's predecessor, the Auckland Regional Transport Authority, and will receive $52,500 a year.

Other controversial appointments are Mr Auton, who gained a cheque for $171,700 and a park named after him when he retired in October, and Mr Troup.

They are joining the property and regional facilities CCO boards respectively, on $35,000 a year.

Mr Williams said that although he and Mr Brown were Labour Party members and had known each other for years, he had not worked on or donated to his election campaign.

Although the Government had asked him to resign from boards of various state-controlled organisations after winning the 2008 election - including the Transport Agency - he said he had always been "pretty non-partisan" on transport business.

NEW DIRECTORS

Waterfront Development Agency

Evan Davies - managing director of Todd Property Group managing director, former SkyCity chief executive.

Christine Caughey - Transport Agency board member and former Action Hobson member of Auckland City Council.

Auckland Council Property

Neil Barr - property developer, chair of Rodney Economic Development Trust.

Leigh Auton - retired Manukau City chief executive.

Regional Facilities Auckland

John Robertson - chair of the Electricity and Gas Complaints Commission and former chair of Auckland Mayoral Forum.

John Avery - former chairman of Hesketh Henry law firm

Gary Troup - sports marketer, events manager, ex-Manukau deputy mayor.

Auckland Transport

Mike Williams - chief executive of the Stellar Trust anti-drug charity, former Labour Party president.

Auckland Council Investments

Brian Corban - former chairman of Genesis Energy and of TVNZ.

Pauline Winter - governance and planning consultant, and director of Pasifika Advancement at AUT University.

Auckland Tourism, Events and Economic Development

Franceska Banga - chief executive of New Zealand Venture Investment Fund and former Treasury director

Richard Jeffery - chief executive of TelstraClear Pacific Events Centre.