ACIL confused about their role in Port of Auckland dispute

The release of an intern­al email today shows that ACIL is con­fused about their role in the Port of Auck­land dis­pute, says the Mari­time Uni­on.

Mari­time Uni­on of New Zea­l­and Nation­al Pres­id­ent Garry Parsloe says des­pite lec­tur­ing Auck­land Coun­cil­lors on the dif­fer­ence between man­age­ment and gov­ernance, ACIL CEO Gary Swift, the head of a sup­posedly Coun­cil Con­trolled Organ­isa­tion was shown to be com­pletely involved in man­aging the Port Company’s polit­ic­al and com­mu­nic­a­tion strategy.

Mr Swift’s prot­est­a­tions of what was appro­pri­ate and not appro­pri­ate for ACIL seemed to be under­mined by the clear involve­ment he per­son­ally had in the dis­pute.

In an email to a POAL com­mu­nic­a­tions staff mem­ber, which was read to the Coun­cil, Mr Swift clearly dir­ec­ted her work.

In the email he wrote “It is crit­ic­al that we keep all the key play­ers well informed and that the politi­cians are con­fid­ent that the dis­pute is being over­seen not only by the POAL board but also by ACIL. The last thing we need is polit­ic­al inter­fer­ence. If they sense that ACIL is not on top of what’s hap­pen­ing they may inter­fere and it may not go the way we want (the vote 12 to 9 was not a strong endorse­ment of our pos­i­tion).”

In response to ques­tions at today’s Auck­land Coun­cil Account­ab­il­ity and Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee meet­ing, Mr Swift was unable to provide Coun­cil­lors with inform­a­tion on the costs of the long­stand­ing Ports of Auck­land dis­pute.

Coun­cil­lors raised con­cerns about the costs of the dis­pute includ­ing the wide­spread use of PR and indus­tri­al rela­tions con­sult­ants and extens­ive leg­al costs.

Mr Swift said that know­ing such costs was inap­pro­pri­ate at a gov­ernance level, but that ACIL had not seen any­thing in the quarterly reports of POAL to war­rant their con­cern.

Mr Parsloe says it is astound­ing that POAL, wholly owned by ACIL on behalf of the people of Auck­land, has not been sub­ject to a thor­ough ana­lys­is of the costs of the long stand­ing dis­pute.

The ACIL State­ment of Intent spe­cific­ally makes them “account­able for the prudent gov­ernance and man­age­ment” of the invest­ments they hold on behalf of the Auck­land Coun­cil.

Mr Parsloe says if ACIL are not will­ing to ask the ques­tions, who is hold­ing the Port Com­pany account­able to the people of Auck­land?

As Coun­cil­lor Mike Lee said, If you don’t know the cost – you can­’t count it, you can­’t meas­ure it, you can­’t man­age or gov­ern it.

Mr Parsloe says the facts of the mat­ter are the con­tents of Mr Swift’s email shows that ACIL does not have the “hands off” role in this dis­pute they claim to have.

He says the email also shows Mr Swift’s com­plete con­tempt for the elec­ted rep­res­ent­at­ives of the people of Auck­land, who should be requir­ing account­ab­il­ity in what is a mat­ter of sig­ni­fic­ant pub­lic interest.