David Whitburn

Last Tuesday the 10th of August 2010 I had the sincere pleasure of introducing two of Auckland’s finest sons, in the Honourable John Banks Mayor of Auckland City and Len Brown Mayor of Manukau City, to the stage for the Auckland Property Investors’ Association August Keynote Meeting – the Super City Mayoral Debate.  With Len Brown (29.6%) ever so slightly edging out John Banks (28.7%) in the latest NZ Herald – Digipoll Mayoral Survey, and Andrew Williams the North Shore City Mayor only polling a very distant 3rd at just below 4%, we have a two horse race for the battle to become the first Lord Mayor of a United Auckland.

We had 15 minutes from each of the mayoral candidates, before structured questions from the APIA Board were asked by debate facilitator Andrew King (NZPIF Vice President, best-selling author and a previous APIA President), and then we had questions from our audience of some 270 – 300 people.

The topics were broad and included questions on transport, rates, planning rules, charging water to tenants like all other utilities (telephones, broadband, power, gas, Sky TV etc).  With rates being the second or third biggest expense to most property investors in light of depreciation claims being slashed earlier this year by the Inland Revenue and Government, this is very topical.  The last thing we want to see is big rate rises for property investors.

Len Brown

Len Brown talked of a need for a unified Auckland and that our city needs a Mayor that is a builder and a uniter.  His aspiration was to build the most liveable city in the world.  It would be a place to invest that invests on all great outcomes:

• environmental sustainability and a commitment to be an ecocity
• a powerhouse of an economy
• diverse social communities

The key is to build the city on inclusiveness and on communities, fairness especially in rate setting, and that Auckland needs to regain its “mojo” (eg not building the waterfront stadium and the Queens Wharf issues for the Rugby World Cup 2011 headquartered in Auckland).

John Banks

John Banks gave a strong presentation and his answers to questions gave a strong indication that he has issues with the Auckland Regional Council, and it spending massive amounts of money on legal fees, and building a united Auckland based on:

• opportunity
• security
• prosperity

Banksie wants to make Auckland an even better place to invest your money, make a dollar, pay your taxes and pass on a legacy to your kids.  Banks also rightly said that we would be competiting with cities not nations in the future, particularly our Australian counterparts in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.

Minor skirmishes

Skirmishes in the debate included Len Brown questioning the issuance of over 40,000 fines for vehicles driving in bus lanes in John Banks’ Auckland City, and John Banks trumping Len Brown’s assertion that it is appropriate to have this meeting in the under the shade of Maugakiekie (One Tree Hill) and just down the road (Puriri Drive) of the statute of Sir John Logan Campbell, the founding father of Auckland, by emphatically saying “I wear the robes Sir John Logan Campbell wore”.  There were a few very minor altercations in this debate, but the mayors were of course very well behaved and both spoke excellently and would be fine leaders of the magnificent city that is Auckland.

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