A crisis of accountability with ACIL and Ports of Auckland

The Mar­itime Union says there is a cri­sis in account­abil­i­ty with Auck­land assets such as Ports of Auck­land.

Mar­itime Union of New Zealand Nation­al Pres­i­dent Gar­ry Parsloe says ACIL CEO Gary Swift was effec­tive­ly bury­ing infor­ma­tion about the Ports of Auck­land dis­pute and giv­ing Auck­land coun­cil­lors the brush off.

Labour MP Darien Fen­ton today joined with Auck­land coun­cil­lors in express­ing her seri­ous con­cern that Auck­land ratepay­ers are not being giv­en the full facts about the amount of pub­lic mon­ey spent by Coun­cil com­pa­nies dur­ing the Ports of Auck­land dis­pute on con­sul­tants, adver­tis­ing, pub­lic rela­tions and sim­i­lar pay­outs.

Sev­er­al Auck­land coun­cil­lors yes­ter­day expressed their seri­ous con­cern and were open­ly crit­i­cal about the sit­u­a­tion to ACIL CEO Gary Swift at a meet­ing of Auck­land Coun­cil’s Per­for­mance and Account­abil­i­ty Com­mit­tee.

This has now result­ed in one Coun­cil­lor seek­ing infor­ma­tion from ACIL with an offi­cial infor­ma­tion request under LGOMIA.

Despite direct involve­ment in the dis­pute, revealed in an email to POAL com­mu­ni­ca­tions staff, Mr Swift told coun­cil­lors at yes­ter­day’s meet­ing he did not have any knowl­edge of the costs of the dis­pute and such knowl­edge was inap­pro­pri­ate at a gov­er­nance lev­el.

Mr Parsloe says Mr Swift can’t be involved in the dis­pute when he feels like it, and then not involved the next day.

He says the Ports of Auck­land was not the prop­er­ty of the POAL man­age­ment or board, or the ACIL man­age­ment or board, but the prop­er­ty of Auck­lan­ders.

“These man­agers and board mem­bers are respon­si­ble and account­able to the own­ers – the peo­ple of Auck­land – through their elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives, who have a right to straight answers and some basic respect.”

While the ACIL State­ment of Intent specif­i­cal­ly makes it clear they are “account­able for the pru­dent gov­er­nance and man­age­ment” of the invest­ments they hold on behalf of the Auck­land Coun­cil, there appears to be no mech­a­nism to test that account­abil­i­ty in a cri­sis sit­u­a­tion, says Mr Parsloe.

The Mar­itime Union sup­ports Ms Fen­ton’s pri­vate mem­bers bill, the Local Gov­ern­ment (Coun­cil Con­trolled Organ­i­sa­tion) Amend­ment Bill, due to have its first read­ing next week.

The bill would open ports to offi­cial infor­ma­tion requests they are cur­rent­ly exclud­ed from.