The Minister has been caught out trying to mislead Aucklanders about whether the Government has done those costings and only acknowledged there were none, when ordered by the Speaker in the House today.
Yesterday I asked Mr Hide whether the Government had costed its Super City proposals, as outlined in its Making Auckland Greater booklet, and he answered ‘yes’.
Today when I asked what those costing were, Mr Hide danced on the head of a pin as he tried to evade the question, until he was finally ordered by the Speaker to come clean.
This was as I suspected yesterday when I wrote “How Hyde is wasting my taxes on an uncosted project”. So Rodney Hide has spent my money as a tax-payer on PR to make me accept a project that he has not figured out what it will cost me as a rate-payer. That really really sucks. If something is presented to the voters of this country as a proposal, especially one that the legislation is being prepared now to be pushed through under urgency, then it should be properly costed. To do otherwise is to have a seriously incompetent minister – so why are we paying his wages?
Perhaps Rodney should stop trying to push this ‘proposal’ through parliament and wait until it becomes a ‘plan’, with some detail and at least some ideas of the costs. Rodney should definitely explain what all of the rush is for, because that appears to be what is causing these embarrassments to the government. First Key admitting that there would be little consulation with Aucklanders with the proposal, and now Rodney admitting that he has no idea what money he is going to make Auckland rate-payers to fork out.
Embarrassingly, Twyford dug out some other statements by Hide that now turn out to also be false.
Rodney Hide is promoting himself as the Minister for Ratepayers and said recently ‘it’s a good test for a planned spend-up to get the agreement of those who are paying for it.’
He’s clearly not following his own advice and nor is he demonstrating the transparency he claims to champion.
Aucklanders are being asked to swallow the Government’s Super City plan, the least Rodney Hide can do is tell them how much it’s going to cost.
Exactly! It seems like he couldn’t care less about the rate-payers of Auckland.
All I can say to Phil is “Good hunting”, and how about putting links into your statements?
Update: The link to the debate is here. It is very clear that Rodney was attempting to avoid answering it, with a lot of obstruction on his part, but the relevant section is
Hon RODNEY HIDE: The Government actually does not have the cost of implementation, but it is minuscule compared with the cost of $2 billion—
Followed by more diversions. Audio at here (mp3) – question starts at 55:25. Thanks gobsmacked and Felix.
The key factor is that he is pushing a proposal into legislation when he has no idea about the costs. Since the costs are borne by the rate-payers of Auckland, it appears that the usual treasury checks have not been followed.
Update: My apologies about the inadvertent association of the target on Rodney Hide with the events in Napier today. I hadn’t heard the news at the time I wrote and published the post. My heartfelt commiserations to the police and their families. However I will leave the target on this bumbling minister… Ok all the wingnuts are PC now. I changed the picture and showed the real guy inside. Thanks mike.
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