On 30 May this year a Wellington City Council committee voted by 10 votes to 8 to sell 34% of our shares worth about $278 million in the Wellington Airport to set up, they said, an insurance fund to help the city after a natural disaster (The Post, 31 May 2024, here).
The council has 16 voting members including the Mayor and 15 Councilors, plus two appointed Maori representatives (mana whenua) who can only vote on committees.
Those who voted for selling the airport shares were Mayor Tory Whanau (a Green Party member); seven Councilors John Apanowicz, Tim Brown, Diane Calvert, Laurie Foon (Green), Sarah Free, Tony Randle and Nicola Young; and the two Maori representatives, Holden Hohaia and Liz Kelly. Those who voted against selling were eight Councilors Nureddin Abdurahman (Labour), Ray Chung, Rebecca Matthews, Ben McNulty (Labour), Teri O’Neill, Iona Pannett, Geordie Rodgers and Nīkau Wi Neera (Green).
Hence the airport sale passed 10 votes to 8 due to the votes of the two unelected Maori representatives.
Councilor Wi Neera made an impassioned speech to keep the council’s 34% stake and read out the Green Party manifesto against selling assets, including the airport, saying “If this is the new direction of the party, I want no part in it”.
On 6 September it was reported in The Post (here) that Maori representative Holden Hohaia of Taranaki Whanui knew that his iwi is considering buying the shares when he had a deciding vote on the council committee agreeing to sell them. When the Council’s Long-term plan committee including the two Maori representatives had voted for the sale, 30 May, Hohaia emailed trustees that the committee vote passed 10 to 8. Hohaia did not declare a conflict of interest and he later said that was based on council legal advice.
(The other representative, Liz Kelly of Ngati Toa, has recently been chastened for making disparaging remarks about Filipino workers in New Zealand, here.)
On 26 June 2024, the sale of the airport was included in the Council’s ten year Long-term Plan which was agreed by a vote of 9 to 7 by the Long-term Plan Finance and Performance Committee. Those who voted in favour were Mayor Tory Whanau, and eight Councilors, John Apanowicz, Tim Brown, Laurie Foon, Sarah Free, Rebecca Matthews, Teri O’Neill, Iona Pannett and Geordie Rogers (here).
On 27 June Councilor Wi Neera attempted to table an amendment for an investigation to retain Council ownership of its airport shares, but Mayor Tory Whanau ruled out a vote on the amendment, saying a decision had already been made by the Long-term Plan Finance and Performance Committee.
In August three Councilors, Diane Calvert, Tony Randle and Nicola Young, who had voted to sell changed their minds and decided they did not want to sell because the Council was not meeting its commitment on investing the money (here and here).
On 9 September Councilor Nureddin Abdurahman tabled a notice of motion opposing the sale signed by him and eight other elected councilors, Diane Calvert, Ray Chung, Ben McNulty, Nīkau Wi Neera, Teri O'Neill, Iona Pannett, Tony Randle and Nicola Young. The decision would then go back to another vote of the whole council on 10 October. The council has 16 voting members and the sale could then only proceed if one of those nine switched sides (here).
On 18 September, Councilor Nīkau Wi Neera who
had been strongly opposed to the sale said he would change his vote
in favour of the airport share sale (The Post, 19 Sept, here). It is now expected the vote will be evenly split with eight for
and eight against, thereby invoking the vote of the Mayor, Tory Whanau, who is
in favour of the sale. Wi Neera’s change of mind means the sale will now likely
proceed.
Wi Neera said he changed his vote because stopping the sale “lead to the disenfranchisement of our mana whenua representatives”. He said he remained “utterly opposed” to the airport sale. But after talking with the Maori representatives 18 September he now planned to vote for it on 10 October because “I am committed to the constitutional document of our nation, and for Māori to have a voice at the decision making table”. “For this reason, I cannot support any notice of motion which would jeopardise our mana whenua partners’ rights to govern with us”.
So, the decision is not being made on what would be best for Wellington’s rate payers and the airport, but on the shifting ideologies and aspirations of a Maori councilor and two Maori representatives.
Finance Minister Nicola Willis called out the council’s “flip-flopping”, and Councillor Calvert subsequently called on Local Government Minister Simeon Brown to appoint an observer with a “facilitation mandate” to mediate the Wellington City Council (The Post, 19 Sept, here). Calvert was subsequently disparaged for it, including by the Mayor and a Victoria University expert in public and government law, which indicates there is substance to Calvert’s call.
In the face of financial difficulties and large rates increases, our Council has been doing some rather frivolous things. Apparently they have recently built a $180 Million convention centre; I don’t know where it is and nor do I care. There was a stoush about the Council buying land in Courtenay Place, which was somehow going to re-enliven the place so the suits have somewhere with vibrancy to get trashed on a Friday night. And of course there are the cycleways, the first of which is presently being built in Island Bay. On the bright side, even if we don’t need a cycleway, the guys are doing a nice job and the shops are looking café chic. It can be my Courtenay Place. A big ‘thank you’ from me to the exclusively Asian and Maori roadworkers.
Bean me up Tory.
As Plato observed, things come into being and things go out of being. In Wellington and New Zealand and perhaps the West generally, things like ‘the pipes’ are presently going out of being. Something to do with decadence, primitivism and indolence, I guess. It is particularly intriguing that they are pulling down the buildings around what was once the Wellington town square, including the modern ones.
Whatever – I’m loving it. The end times, I mean. Wellington is the bijou capital of a celebrated colonial country, and if our Council could stop fretting about the vibrancy and just sustain the crumbling infrastructure, creaking public transport and burgeoning waste disposal long enough to see me out, I would be ever so grateful.
If we have to sell the airport to the Maoris to sustain the twilight of the Dominion, so be it.
But let’s at least be honest with ourselves and accept that that is what we are doing.
Barrie Davis is a retired telecommunications engineer, holds a PhD in the psychology of Christian beliefs, and can often be found gnashing his teeth reading The Post outside Floyd’s cafe at Island Bay.
Sources
“Pipes, planes and passion: Wellington City
Council ticks off long-term plan,” The Post, Tom Hunt and Piers Fuller,
31 May 2024.
https://www.thepost.co.nz/nz-news/350295436/pipes-planes-and-passion-wellington-city-council-ticks-long-term-plan
“Māori rep voted to sell knowing iwi interested
in shares,” The Post, Tom Hunt, 6 September 2024.
https://www.thepost.co.nz/nz-news/350404651/maori-rep-voted-sell-knowing-iwi-interested-shares
“Make-or-break vote for sale of Wellington
Airport shares,” The Post, Tom Hunt, 16 September 2024.
https://www.pressreader.com/new-zealand/the-post-1022/20240916/281479281799848
“Councillor changing vote over airport share
sale,” The Post, Tom Hunt, 19 September 2024
https://www.pressreader.com/new-zealand/the-post-1022/20240919/281522231479033
“Wellington City councillor call for
Crown-appointed observer,” The Post, Tom Hunt, 19 September 2024.
https://www.thepost.co.nz/nz-news/350419878/wellington-city-councillor-call-crown-appointed-observer
“Wellington council iwi rep’s remarks about
migrant contractors ‘inappropriate’,” The Post, Andrea Vance, 19
September 2024.
https://www.thepost.co.nz/politics/350420653/wellington-council-iwi-reps-remarks-about-migrant-contractors-inappropriate
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