Len's 12 2day monthly $1.1million dinner parties

So Len Brown has agreed to spending $1.1million on this Consensus Building Group made up of the usual Auckland mafia - Guy Salmon, Michael Barnett, Tony Garnier, the property council, the Automobile Association, Gary Taylor and 12 other token appointments who will meet for 12 2 day monthly meetings plus dinners.

I love the plus dinners bit. I don't wish to be cynical but how will they manage to

A) come up with a funding solution that doesn't force poor people off the roads for a middle class motorway cleansing by road tolling

and B) convince central Government of it?

Answer? It's not.

Gerry Brownlee has been as quick as a Facebook stalker to jump Len and tell him his million dollar dinner party plan ain't gonna work by pouring cold water on any alternative funding ideas they come up with that involve the only funding mechanisms the dinner party clubs have been told to use.

Brownlee 1
Brown 0

Here's the problem for Len. He won. National had Rodney Hide ram through the Super City annexation through Parliament under urgency for one purpose and one purpose only, to ease and speed the sale of Auckland's Assets.

The ridiculously named 'Council Controlled Organizations' were stacked with right wing appointees to quietly work on 'asset rationalization' far from public and SuperCity Council scrutiny.

Government is managing to herd all options towards SuperCity asset sales by killing off their ability to borrow and by killing off their ability to raise revenue. The Governments answer to Auckland's under invested public transport woes is the exact same failed right wing dogma they are pursuing at a national level, privatize assets.

The problem for Len is his utter lack of resources to properly fund a Mayor's office that has the political vision to provide strategies and tactics to avoid being painted into a corner. He's responsible for almost a 3rd of the country's population, yet gets a pathetic $3.2million to run his office. That's $3 per person he's supposed to be responsible for.

The insult to that injury is even at that pathetic level of funding, baby faced right wing assassin Cameron Brewer had the audacity to bitch about it.

Len is very good at bringing people to the table, but this is a fight, not a meeting of minds. Len has got to stop being the weak nice guy and actually throw some punches at the Government or else come election time he'll be perceived to have stood for nothing more than siding with the Ports over their disgusting bullyboy tactics against the union.

FACEBOOK TWITTER