 The RCR shop has great gift ideas from great-looking teas, hoodies, caps, tote bags, bumper stickers and more. The RCR shop is now open at www.realitycheck.radio.com forward slash shop. George Wood is the former mayor of North Shore City. He's also been an Auckland councillor and is now on a local board. George has forgotten more about local body politics than others have learned, and this promises to be very interesting. He joins me on the line now. Welcome to the crunch George. Pleasure to have you here. Haven't spoken to you for a long time, so it's good to have you on the show. Thank you. Thank you. What's going on at Auckland Council? Well, quite frankly, it's a pretty turbulent and for me, it's somewhat confusing as to trying to get to the bottom of things. But at the moment, everybody's saying that the council's strapped for cash. And I think the mayor coming out in the last few days and saying that the CRL, the Central Rail Link, is going to cost them $160 million per annum from when it gets going on in 2026. So the ratepayers will be up for that figure, minus $40 million in revenue. So it's a pretty daunting task, that Central Rail Link. And I think that's probably the cornerstone of the fact that we've overspent money, but that project has just been the icing on the cake that has really sunk the Auckland Council. This was predicted really wasn't it by a lot of local body politicians who said that this was going to be a white elephant, that it was going to add huge costs. I mean, the numbers are staggering $220 million a year to operate it with revenue of $40 million coming off that. That's what Bernard Osmond wrote in the Herald, $220 million a year to operate once it opens in 2026, less the $40 million of the revenue that they'll get from it. Yes, but the ratepayers are in hawk for $220 million and that's after the $40 million of revenues being taken out. So it's a daunting task and a daunting problem that the ratepayers of Auckland are going to have to get over. On the surface of it, this looks like there's no business case. Like if you've got costs of $220 million and revenue of just $40 million, you're never going to get ahead. I mean, the interest costs on the loans alone are $160 million per annum. Yes, well, you know, that was always said. And I remember Dick Quacks, who was on the council with me for the first six years that I was there, always used to say to the mayor, this is going to be a $6 billion project, Mr. Mayor. And he'd say, you're a naysayers Quacks. There won't be anything like that. Don't worry. Don't worry. Well, the chickens have come home to roost and poor old Wayne Brown has now settled with that. And it's siphoned all the funds from other areas of council because that level of debt that the council's looking down the barrel of is a colossal imposition. This all comes back to Lynn Brown's mayoralty, doesn't it? Yes, I mean, who would ever have started a project of this magnitude without having a sign off from the government of the day as to what they were going to contribute. And even I think Winston Peters, he was saying he would put in something like 75% of the cost of the project. That was back in after the project started. And the project got underway before any government sign off had been authorised. And Lynn started negotiating with precinct properties that bought the big building opposite the Britomart rail station at the bottom of Queen Street, so that he could then wanted to put the two tunnels under that property that precinct have now built and finished and then run it up Elbert Street. And he started, he got precinct to sign up to put the tunnels under that building. And then he started the cut and cover up Elbert Street. And that was going for quite some time before John Key came to the party and agreed to put in 50%. And that 50% came from Phil Goff and Phil Twyford back at the 2011 general election when Goff was the leader of the opposition standing for the prime minister's position. He put up this offer of 50-50 split between Auckland Council and the government in Wellington. And I actually sneaked along to his meeting just to hear what he was going to offer and that's what he offered. And then in the following election 2014, I actually confronted one of the others in the government. And he confirmed that they were still sticking to that 50-50 split. So it was obvious that the cost of the thing was a lot less at that stage. It was about 2.4 billion and obviously it's just kept rising and it's now up to 5.4. So it's a great impediment for Auckland at the present time. So you're saying what's it like at the council every day when you're talking about anything, the issue of we've got no money keeps coming up. You know, I look back on that time and it seemed to me that Len Brown's plan was to get it started and then it will force the government into having to cough up with it along the way. But there was never seemed to be any cost-benefit analysis done that was based on reality. I mean, if you've got 40 million revenue and costs of 220 million, it doesn't make sense. I can't make sense of it, but it's too late. The decisions are made and they're locked in and Aucklanders are now going to be facing, you know, double-digit rates increases when every politician always promises 3% or less. Yeah, well, that is the issue. I mean, Len knew that he was short on information as to what the project was overall going to cost. And it was a more audacious project at that stage because he also had a deep down in the earth rail station at the top of Simon Street. And then he had the station down at Mount Eden, which has now been changed and that station at Mount Eden has taken over from what he was going to have at Simon Street. So he cut that out. He cut that whole station out. And then he also cut out, I think it was $600 million that he was going to spend to buy more rolling stock, electric rolling stock, so that when it opened, he would have enough rolling stock to keep it going. So the whole project, that project has cost Aucklanders and New Zealanders a huge amount of money because as well as the CRL, there's been all the money that's been spent on the rolling stock and also the upgrade of the tracks right across Auckland. So no, I would say that there would be very few understanding what the total cost of that project has cost altogether. But when you look at it, okay, it goes to South Auckland and there's a lot of people that live in those suburbs in South Auckland. It goes out to West Auckland, but it winds out around New Lynn, then it goes to Fruitvale and Sunnyvale and these places that people have never heard of. And it eventually gets to Henderson and then gets up to Swanson out in the West. And then in the meantime, you've got all those people that live in places like Massey, the new area of Whanuapai, and they're miles away from that train line. And then they are clamouring for a busway that will take them from Massey through to the Auckland City Centre. Which is what people on the North Shore have is a busway. Now you were involved in the early days of the busway. That's actually a successful public infrastructure project, isn't it? Yeah, look, I pushed that project very hard and it was in Helen Clark's, when Helen Clark was government, it was in place. Mark Goshi was the Minister of Transport and he came to the party with the funding for that particular project. And so we had signed up with the government well before the project started, as opposed to what's happened with the CRL. And, you know, Lynn used to always put that back in my face saying, George, you've got your busway over there. We deserve something like, we deserve decent transport in South Auckland and West Auckland. But the figures that he's talking about are huge compared to what we were talking about on the North Shore. We did it on the smell of an oily rag. They've spent megabucks on the CRL project. Yeah, I mean, that bus, I mean, I don't use public transport. I'm one of these people who believes that public transport is for other people to use, but that's just my facetious way of dealing with things. I mean, at the moment, there's evidence that I do take public transport because they've got my picture plastered all over the back of buses at the moment that are running around, which I think is hugely funny. But that busway and the extension now out to Otiha Valley has removed all of that, all those buses and, you know, also emergency vehicles can use the busway off the motorway. You've also got all of the, you know, if you look at the car parks that are associated with each of those bus stations, they're always chocker. So it's a classic case of infrastructure that was well thought out, well planned, and has been embraced by the ratepayers as a convenient way for them to get into the city. Why didn't we do that with south of the bridge? Why did we build this rail system, which every time it rains, the trains stop? Any time there's a blockage, the trains stop with buses and things like that. If there's a blockage, you can go around the blockage, but you can't do that with trains. It just seems illogical. And then we've got this addiction to rail out to the airport as well that they want to do. And that's just ridiculous. I'm just glad that the current government has knocked that on the head because that was stupidity extraordinaire. Well, yeah, I mean, unfortunately Auckland as a city never took on commuter rail like they've done in Sydney, London, Paris, you know, big cities overseas. And we're now running freight trains on the same lines that the metro trains run on. And if a freight train breaks down, it causes all mayhem for the metro passengers because the trains can't get up the line. And then what do they do when that happens? They put on buses. What if we just build buses in the first place? Well, that's been one of the problems with the system is that buses have had to be substituted for trains. And I bet they do it again over the Christmas holidays, which is what they do many weekends and over the holidays because the whole thing has never been thought out and put in place properly. You know, and what the cost of it is for the ratepayers will be a very interesting outcome of the whole thing, I think. I mean, you were a councillor at the start of the Super City, obviously previously you'd been the mayor of North Shore City. Do you think the Auckland Council, the new Super City has delivered on the promises that the politicians made about it? And probably not at this stage. And with these debts that we're now being faced with, I would say that it's finally balanced as to whether we are going to see the outcomes which the Royal Commission indicated that Auckland could see if it was done properly. And that's the problem is that we got in there. The mayor and his supporters saw that there was a lot of funds there. There was a lot of projects that they hadn't seen in the areas that they wanted to see development happening. So we had a lot of projects built in places on the whim of the mayor, which cost millions and millions of dollars. And coupled with the Royal Project and other projects of that ilk, this is really putting the pressure on the council and the ratepayers. And I think it's a major impediment that people are now having to deal with, and they're going to be dealing with it for many years to come. I mean, the Royal Commission said to us, and Rodney Hyde was the minister who implemented it, told us that there was going to be significant savings through economies of scale in a whole range of areas where we would have a third less staff than the previous individual cities combined. We now have more staff. We've got none of the savings and we've got rates increases on rates increases on rates increases. And we've had a succession of mayors who have promised the earth and delivered very little. What are we going to do to actually solve this? And is Wayne Brown the guy that's going to fix it? I mean, he's told us he's Mr. Fixit. Is he capable of fixing this or is it just too much of a problem and we need to start again somehow? Well, I think Wayne is in a bit of an invidious situation because you saw it the last year when he was doing his annual plan. He wanted to sell all the airport shares and unfortunately, it never happened because the councillors wouldn't support him. And I think that that's the problem that Wayne is facing at the present time. He doesn't have the support of his councillors. And if you don't have that support, it puts you in a very difficult situation. And you know, Wayne, I don't think Wayne actually probably appreciated the gravity of the situation that he was going to be getting himself into. And he's now there and it's very difficult to try and sell assets. He's talking about more airport shares, but he's also talking about selling the business down at the Port of Auckland. And they're also trying to sell every bit of land they can put their hands on at the moment, trying to balance the books. So that's council land that they own and they've been doing it since Len Brown's days. But it just seems that the pressures come on stronger now than it was previously. There's a lot of systemic problems from an outsider looking in at Auckland Council. And you know, I look at the processes that everybody there is an annual budget, then there's a 10 year budget process. And it seems like the 10 year budget process happens every year. Can you explain that a little bit? No, the 10 year budget is the plan as to how Auckland's going to spend its funding or money over the next 10 years. But the plan is updated every three years. So it's being updated at the present time so that it can start the next 10 years next year. And so that's what Wayne Brown is doing right now. And then in the intervening years between establishing the new long-term 10 year plan, they do a kind of just a mini catch up of any expenditure they want to add to the budget. And that goes for the next year, two and yes. In the intervening period, it's that mini budget that happens, but everything must be put into that budget that's going to be spent for that spending to happen over the next 10 years. So things like development levies, all projects have to be in there because the council take development levies from people that are developing land, building houses, changing your place. You've got to pay a levy to the council for capital costs. And all those capital costs must be in that 10 year budget. So those being counters are able to put down what the rate of the rate increase for the next 10 years will be. And that's how you can say it's going to be 7.5% in the year coming up. Then 3.5% and then 8% in the third year. And then they'll redo another budget. But people can't live in a world where you're paying, is it about 19% over three years? And we've been paying increased rates or targeted rates. Phil Goff bought in the way of saying that he wasn't putting the rates up more than a certain figure by bringing in targeted rates like the water quality targeted rate, the targeted rate for looking after natural resources out in the bush, and then the rubbish targeted rates. And all those targeted rates, they don't get included in that percentage increase. So there's a bit of a myth there. It's a flimflam, isn't it? It's actually a fraud on the ratepayers. Well, it is a fraud in what they say they're going to do and how it ends up. So people believe that it's going to be say 7.5% if what Wayne Brown's proposed at this stage comes to pass. But there could be other increases that will happen as well. And rubbish disposal is one where there are a number of different rates in order to make up or to balance the books with that activity of council. And you would know that you have a rubbish collection for recyclables or papers and cans and that kind of stuff. Then you have another one these days for Kitchen Waste, which goes all the way to Reparoa to be processed. And then you have another one for Solid Waste. And despite the fact you also have to put a tag on your rubbish bin when it goes out. But that doesn't cover all the costs. So in the past, there's been a situation where there's been competition in that rubbish collection business. There's been companies like Enviro Waste, Waste Management, other companies have been going around and they've been competing against the council. And the council found themselves very vulnerable over that. So now they've decided that they'll charge those funds with another increase on your rates so that it'll eliminate those private contractors or rubbish collectors because everyone will have to pay a rate and no one's going to pay a rate and then go and get a private contractor. So Enviro Waste, they're pulling out, I think it's by about April next year because they obviously realised that the council's going to make it impossible for them to compete in the rubbish marketplace. So that kind of thing is where the poor person out there in the territories is getting knocked all the time for more money from the council. Rubbish has always been a bugbear for me. When I lived in Whangapurah, we didn't have any council rubbish collection. We had to pay for our own bins to be collected. And then when I moved into the North Shore area, I had to buy tags for rubbish. But when I was a kid and living in Epsom and places like that, whenever I paid for rubbish, the council came and collected it and they'd say still collect it. And there's this disparity between south of the bridge rubbish collection and north of the bridge rubbish collection where people north of the bridge have to pay extra to have their rubbish taken away when everybody else south of the bridge gets their rubbish taken away anyway. No, it's not like that. You pay it in your rates in the old Auckland council area. We didn't pay it here. We didn't pay it here when we had to pay a tag or buy a bin or buy a bag from the supermarket. So it was probably there was some equalization there. But then in South Auckland, in the old Manukau area, they even dished out big plastic bags and they could put out as many bags as they wished. So there wasn't any unified or uniform system of collection of rubbish across Auckland. And what they've been trying to do is trying to find ways to kind of unify the system so that everybody gets the same deal. But it's proven to be beyond their capabilities to do it because it was such a big difference. And also Auckland and Manukau had that busy where they sorted out the recyclables. Yeah, the recyclables out at only hunger. And that had a big difference, made it different out there. So we never had that on the North Shore, but each area seemed to work reasonably well. But after 12 or 13 years, they still haven't cracked it as to how they're going to make it more equitable in each of the areas. Difficult. I mean, there's all these pressures that are coming on the budget. And if I look back at the Lynn Brown years, there's a couple of white elephants that stand out from his marotty. The first one is, of course, the central rail loop, which is enormous costs. But the other one is this fanciful canoe centre that he wanted built at Manukau. And every time I drive past there, I sort of crane my neck and look over from the motorway to see if I can see even one person canoeing around that place. And I'm yet to see anybody in it. How are these projects established, funded, on what basis, what sort of cost-benefit ratio is there? Or is it just, you know, build it in the outcome mentality, which then fails abjectly? It seems ridiculous. And we're now paying the costs of 13 years of these boondoggles. Well, you know, Lynn obviously promised a number of organisations and people funds when he was campaigning against John Banks back in 2010. And the kind of projects were the Auckland Theatre Company. They were building a building down in the Winyard Quarter, which has been built next to the ASB building down there, a beautiful theatre. I think it was $10 million he promised they'd put into that. And that came to pass. There was the Whitewater Canoeing Centre out at the Manukau Centre. He obviously put that. I think Dick Quacks used to say it was $40 million. And Dick was hot to try it on that. And Lynn still went ahead and did it. And then there were others, you've got me thinking now, but there were others that he had... I remember he came back once and said that he was going to put I think it was $3 million into the Anglican Church at the top of Parnell. And he got us all to go up there and they gave us a look around and showed us what a great project it was. I didn't support it because it was another thing that he just wanted to do it on an ad hoc basis. And you can't make fish a fowl of one and fowl of another, which was the way he kind of wanted to operate, unfortunately. And the CRL has really shown that he made some major mistakes, I think. That whitewater rafting thing, that was a sock to one of his donors in reality who coincidentally happened to run a company that sold concrete. And of course, the whitewater center needed a lot of concrete. It didn't seem to ever make sense. And yet it was pushed very, very hard. It was lobbied for. It was heroic, the business case for it. And I remember looking into it at the time and saying, my word, what on earth is going on here? But now we've got the costs of it. Yeah, look, I don't know. I haven't had any to do with that since I left the governing body over in the city. But I don't know if we put any money into that. But I do know that things like Eden Park, they were trying to build a stadium out there for the Rugby World Cup in 2011. And Aline was very supportive of Eden Park. And I think the council put in, they put in quite a lot of money into that, which I think may be still on their books at the present time. So, you know, and that's a stadium very costly, especially Eden Park, which isn't owned by the council. It's a standalone trust. But the council, Auckland Council, especially, have been very generous to them. And now we are looking down the gun of what they're going to do at North Harbour Stadium because they say that North Harbour Stadium is costing them too much and can't be sustained into the future. So, yeah, there's a bit of unfairness, I think, on occasions. Yeah, and the stadium is a huge, wide elephant. They almost never make money. And yet we're hearing now proposals of another stadium being proposed down the waterfront. Yeah, well, that's... How many billions is that going to cost? Yeah, I think that may be more of a private activity. But, you know, Mount Smart needs a lot of work done to it, I understand, because it's been there for a long time. It was built for the... Commonwealth Games. The Commonwealth Games, yeah. Yeah, so it's been there for a long time and it needs a lot of really major work done on it to bring it up to scratch. So that's one stadium that we've got. Eden Park's the other, which, you know, it's never getting crowds to its capacity for rugby matches at these days. So they are really concentrating on the concerts out there and all the best of them if they can do it, yeah. They just need Helen Clark to die and then they'll have all the problems, with all the protests stopped. She seems to be the architect of all of those. Well, there's other people out there as well, though, but I think they may have been worn down to some extent. I mean, they got their consent to have concerts, which is a breakthrough for Eden Park. Yeah, and yeah. So I would support them if they can make it work and do it lawfully, you know, with a resource consent, which is what they've got now. I mean, I guess they've got to make the best of what they've got. They've got a stadium. What can we use stadiums for? Well, they're good for football matches. They're good for concerts. They're good for, you know, events with large numbers. But Eden Park isn't exactly a prime location for... No. With ready parking that's available, unlike, you know, the stadium at Albany. You know, that's a much more conducive stadium for large concerts, et cetera. Yeah, well, it just seems that they haven't had the opportunities at Albany. And, you know, when you look at the stadium at Waikato Stadium in Hamilton, that was kind of modeled. They came to Auckland when I was the mayor and looked at North Harbour because they wanted a similar stadium in Hamilton. And, you know, they've been very successful. And when you see the crowds that turn up there for rugby games, they've obviously got a better way of doing it there than we've got in Auckland because rugby just can't get the crowds along at the moment. Yeah, well, maybe that's because of what I call Pussified it. We've made it for soft, you know, it's all soft people, you know, that have, you know, strong tackles and that and anymore. And you've got all the referees jumping in and the, you know, the video refs stopping the game. And it's not exactly fun to watch rugby anymore. Yeah, except, you know, except Hamilton and Christchurch, Dunedin, they get reasonable crowds. Yeah, yeah. Bungie, you could argue there's nothing else to do in Hamilton or Christchurch at night. Well, it's also getting to Eden Park. It's not the easiest, is it? No. Yeah, it's not easy in Auckland at the moment. Yeah, there's been a few problems in relation to transport. So I think Auckland Transport have made major improvements here. I think they've got a long way to go. I mean, I live in Takapuna now and the carnage that happens around here as a result of Auckland Transport, you know, with the half-million-dollar pedestrian crossings, the 30-kilometre-an-hour zones, the ripping up of Hearstmere Road to put him a cycleway. All of this nonsense and it's just killed off, you know, all of these business areas around here. And, you know, your enjoyment of life because it's being sucked out of you by road cones and, you know, all of these extra things that are happening on the road all around you. And there's no evidence to support that they're stopping anything and toward anyway. Yeah, but Cam, I mean, I represent you on the Eden Park Takapuna Local Board. We, you know, I don't think Takapuna in this area is too bad and it's always an area that people wish to come to and put down their roots. I think it's reasonable and, you know, in Auckland Council studies they do or surveys, it always comes out pretty high up in the list of where people are reasonably satisfied with the way things go on here. So, you know, I agree and it gets up my nose that cycle lane through Hearstmere Road in Takapuna. And you wouldn't believe it, but when I was on the board a few years ago that came up, Auckland Transport brought it to us and we voted against having that cycle lane through Takapuna. And I think it's been a major negative factor in Hearstmere Road because who wants to go to Hearstmere Road and you go to walk across the road and you don't look to your right as to whether there's any cyclists coming. Next thing, a cyclist right on top of here. So that happens. I have to stop you there, George. There's never a cyclist on that. So you're perfectly safe to walk across the road. It's, you know, you're never going to be in danger of being hit by a cyclist, you know, in a month of Sundays. No, you come down. I'll come down to the leaf and loaf one day and have a talk to the guy there and have a cup of tea. And I think you'd hear that they do come through there, but he also gets guys on electric scooters and even motor bikes go through. So it's not good for people that are down there shopping with their kids and all of a sudden you've got a bike coming down on you. Yeah. But let's talk about Takapuna or the North Shore Ward. What is it with the voters in North Shore Ward that they keep retaining Chris Derby and Richard Hills a couple of lefty Wombles who want to spend moonbeams on cycleways and anything else that's remotely green or Womble-like and they keep getting voted in. It staggers me that someone like you can't actually get across the line when you used to be the mayor in North Shore. Well, I did get across the line to start with in the first two terms. I beat Derby in the first election in 2010. I actually topped the poll in that election and there was quite a raft of good candidates, but I agree. And I think I put it down to the fact that they've got name recognition. People don't care too much about voting in local government elections. But you get a lot of people who are of their persuasion voting and that's how they get a reasonable number of votes. Richard Hills is a Labour Party member and his signs that he puts up around here during the election are always blue. Same with Chris Derby. Always blue. They're dishonest and they're hoodwinking the people into thinking that they are conservatives or in actual fact they're complete lefty Wombles. And they're as much part of the problem in the city with expenditure as anybody else because they're always on the side of these big spending projects. Derby and Hills were pushing for that cycle bridge across the harbour. Yes, I agree with you there, but they've got great name recognition. They've been there for a while and they're pretty hard campaigners. As you say, they use an off blue colour for their signs. They actually are very clever at corraling the social media in the right places. They're on the Herald website with their stuff and I think that because they've done it for the last three years together and they've been successful I think that it's that name recognition is their biggest factor that gives them an edge over other people. With North Shore and the Northcote Ward in national hands you would think that somebody from the right, centre right would be able to crack it as opposed to what we've had in the last number of elections. That's a perennial problem that I've always had a beef with the National Party not involving themselves in local body elections and allowing all of these disparate groups to form all around the place rather than having the Labour Party has their candidates, the Green Party has their candidates. Sometimes they call it city vision but you're under no illusions as to what they are and yet citizens and rape has or whatever they call themselves now never seem to get their act together and seem to be still stuck in the old pre-2010 city boundaries of Auckland and don't get a cohesive ticket across the entire city and I think that would solve part of that problem but I think somebody needs to grab the President of the National Party and the Board and start banging some heads together because they're just unwilling to involve themselves in any sort of political campaigning in a coherent manner across the city. Yeah okay, you take the two wards north of the Harbour Bridge I mean Sayers and Rodney he's home in Hose, he's done very well up there keeping that seat Walker and Watson I don't think they're aligned with centre-right and then you've got these other two here but the centre-right have put up people against Wayne Walker and John Watson they didn't do any good and the same happened here so yeah I think it probably is going to take the National Party to do what the Labour Party do and align themselves with the city vision is aligned to the Labour Party and the Green Party they do very well and I think something over here has to happen and it's long overdue but the National Party don't seem to want to get involved Watson and Wayne Walker have become conservatives which is kind of interesting if you look at their history they're kind of like green type guys but have become fiscally conservative and they're often against some of these big spending projects that you see in the voting of the councillors they're more aligned with Morris Williamson and Sharon Stewart and people like that then they are opposed to what those guys subscribe to so I mean I think there's a little bit of cohesiveness there but the one that's the head scratcher for me is Richard Hills and Chris Darby constantly getting elected around Takapuna and North Shore I just can't understand it and you're right it's to do with name recognition and that but goodness me somebody needs to do something about it but those guys are Wayne Brown I don't know what Wayne's politics are Wayne Walker No, Wayne Brown the mayor and he's taken Richard Hill and given him one of his all of council committees and he's got a pretty big job that they all say he's doing a great job now and then you got Chris Darby he's just appointed him to Auckland Transport He's exactly the worst person to appoint Auckland Transport Yeah, look I don't disagree with you on that I don't want to get into the I don't want to get into the personalities of these things No, you don't but I do Yeah No, so yeah like it seems to me that Auckland Council has terrible issues not just budget wise but a legacy of not actually delivering what the Royal Commission envisaged or indeed the politicians that promised us these amazing things and I don't know if there's any solution to fixing that other than maybe just splitting the city in two I don't know but what we've got now isn't working Well what they were trying to do was to join Demport-Tacapuna up with Klaipataki but they I don't know if they're pushing ahead with that at this stage maybe for the next election and making it one board and they'll probably go to other boards and do the same thing but that's not going to get you very far really As far as the centre-right are concerned you mentioned Sharon Stewart and Morris Williamson out there Daniel Newman Manny Rewa there's not a lot of other there's not a lot of others Darsley I don't know where she stands on some things she's CNR but she's she's really the deputy mayor now and she's pretty much a supporter of the mayor but I couldn't tell you where he stands either so it's very difficult going right across Auckland to find where CNR just haven't cut the mustard really unfortunately No and that's a serious systemic issue that exists within the centre-right in Auckland I mean Morris Williamson and Sharon Stewart they stayed as independents maybe that's what we should have done on the shore but anyway we didn't but to make a successful campaign and I probably won't do it again but you've got to you've got to work very hard at it you've got to you know this business of door-knocking it is something which you've got to be doing you've got to just do it and grin and bear it and get people to say they'll support you if you don't do that sending out brochures and just putting your name up ain't going to be enough it's really where the whole thing starts and finishes see that's where people like yourself who came up you've actually worked in a real job you used to have a cop you know what knocking on doors is all about we seem to be we seem to have lost the ordinary person standing for council is that maybe that's the reason why we've got these career politicians that never seem to give us any solutions because they haven't actually worked in the real world and also I think the offices of council look upon the elected representatives as just temporary they'll be here for the three years and a lot of them will be gone so don't worry about them too much and you don't get these days the colourful characters who do their own thing and stand up against what they're told as far as how they got to do this and do that I mean you find it very difficult to be given your writing instructions and don't forget these days if you do transgress the rules or you get yourself nose out of joint you'll end up with a code of conduct complain against you and that can be you know you say well so what but it's a black mark against you because everybody will know and they'll just put it around and you've got to try and get yourself out of it yeah yeah and I've suffered that and it's not very pleasant to get you to try and find a way of getting through it yeah yeah well you know I think we need more people like you George on the council or certainly on the local boards people who actually know their elbow to use a colloquial term because you know these career politicians aren't doing anything for us and they're making things worse and and you know we've just outlined today for the listeners huge boondoggles that have cost millions and millions of dollars and the people responsible for those things sailed off into the distance and there's no accountability because they're gone well it's interesting I was watching television the other night and they were talking about the homosexual law reform bill Norman Jones remember Norman Jones remember Gargle he got up and ripped into from an audience saying what he thought about the Fran Wilde's bill that she had before parliament he lost of course but he stood his ground and you need people that are prepared to put themselves on the line and make a stand on things yeah and it would help too if councils knew which end of a shovel to hold you know that's the problem is that they've never actually been on the tools they've never actually done anything with their hands they've never actually run businesses they've just sort of being consultants and then become politicians and now they're inflicting rates increases on us all I don't know what the solution is but maybe we need to just go back to the basics and have good honest people who are not making this a career and treating it as actually community service maybe that's the issue I think you're probably right there but finding those people is a difficulty and I'm working with a guy on the local board that we stood together and got elected and he's got his own business so he has to put his business activities aside to come to meetings but man he puts a different perspective on issues because he's got that business way of thinking and you know can say well what's the benefit cost ratio here we haven't done it but what are we going to get out of this we're putting this money in we've only got a very limited amount of money we can't do it because representatives are always wanting to please people and it's actually one of the interesting things when you get elected when I got elected first as the mayor of North Shore City I used to hate offending people but eventually you learn that you can't please everybody and there's going to be a lot of people you just have to say well I'm not going to help you I'm sorry I can't help you your idea is not the way I'm going to get on this and you know when people like you when you treat them actually quite often because you're honest with them and you tell them as it is and I always think that that's one of the the realities of being a politician that you have to learn learn it the hard way and you'll get there in the end yeah yeah I mean you have to learn to say no to people and be strong about it you know absolutely right but we don't seem to have anybody who is doing that I mean how on earth does Auckland Transport justify a half a million dollars for a pedestrian crossing I mean there's two of them within 50 meters of each other in Takapuna one on Hurstmeer Road and one on Anzac Street those raised ones half that's a million dollars in the space of you know 50 odd meters yeah why didn't anybody say no that's stupid it's the same with the Hurstmeer Road cycleway right you all said everybody said no but there it is and this is what staggers me is that who asked for these things because it wasn't me well they claim that it's going to stop deaths on the roads because they say that people if you hit by a car and the car is only doing 30k the chances of you dying as a result of that collision are very limited that's their theory but this is absurd I mean why don't they then say alright then let's make everybody drive around at 20km now and let's have a guy run in front with a little flag warning you that the car is coming because that's the level of absurdity that we're at now well we are it is something which these people have got ingrained into their cars and there's no way they're going to change and I think that Simeon Brown the new minister of transport he's going to have a huge imposition placed on him and he's got to try and make it work and I see him talking about the Auckland petrol tax the other day and the media kind of sense that he hasn't made a decision as to when it's going to be withdrawn but there's a lot of people that are looking at him to do it because people are hurting but it's just a symbolic kind of gesture if get rid of that 10 cents plus GST and it'll show that the government's doing something to try and help us in this time of high cost of living the reason that was put on was to fund the rail expansion which was now being cancelled so there's no actual rationale for that petrol tax to be there now it needs to go and it was a promise that they delivered and he needs to actually get on with it yeah well I don't know what the time frame is going to be but it didn't sound as if it was going to be tomorrow it's you know politicians are like George they're addicted to taxation once it's on it's very hard to take off that's what the quacksies always say it's never going to go no exactly on that no George look we've had a lovely chat and I don't know if we've solved any problems but we've certainly rattled a few cages thank you for your time and thank you for coming on the crunch okay all the best yeah thank you thanks well that certainly was interesting George thinks that many of the problems in Auckland council can be cheated home to large white elephant projects instigated by Lynn Brown namely the central rail loop which is going to cost Aucklanders $220 million a year to operate we're sorely missing people like George Woods at council level don't forget to send comments on George's interview to inbox at realitycheck.radio or text to 2057 right now free speech is under heavy attack on New Zealand and overseas with governments constantly devising new ways to enforce censorship to make sure you never miss the critical news and breaking stories you rely on join the RCR mailing list today get connected now at realitycheck.radio forward slash email