With all of the other political news, let us not forget the stench of corruption in the SkyCity deal and imminent legislation. This is something that can more easily be fixed by defeating the deal than some of the other hot political issues. It is a conscience vote for MPs and should be defeatable in parliament.
You have to ask yourself how much internal political pressure there was in parliament for David Carter to make it a conscience vote. The foul corruption around the whole deal and the weird posturing by both SkyCity and it’s advocates inside the government should be enough to kill it. However the money and patronage floating around about the gaming industry is rather notorious for corrupting politicians – both left and right.
So the SkyCity deal still needs some urgent attention from members of the public interested in getting a submission to the select committee. All submissions on the Bill are due to the select committee by Thursday 22 August, so that is next week for members of the public to put something in have their say.
The Greens released a submission and lobbying kit on the NZICC Bill earlier this month, which contains some useful information to people wanting to make a submission on the Bill. The comparison of job stats from comparable convention centres in Australia makes the estimated jobs and economic benefit to Auckland and wider economy look like pure bullshit.
The legal concessions that the government is proposing to make to SkyCity are extraordinarily lucrative and make little economic sense for Auckland. Especially in view of the way that National government inexplicably and against their own official’s advice ignored all alternatives in their rush to concede these concessions to SkyCity. As the Greens kit says:-
The tendering process that awarded SkyCity the deal has been heavily criticised by our
Auditor-General. Auckland Council refused to support the project and voted
against it.There were four other legitimate interests in this project – The Edge Aotea Centre, Ngāti
Whātua who wanted to extend the successful Vector Area space, Infratil in Wynard
Quarter, and ASB showgrounds. The Auditor-General was very concerned with how they
were unfairly treated in this tendering process.SkyCity is not really paying for this centre – they are paying for a change to our gambling
laws, and the community is paying for the centre through gambling.
There are also a pile of posts about it here.
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