Today’s Stadium Updates
It was inevitable – there is a stadium for sale on Trade Me – it looks suspiciously like an inverted Beehive!
The anti-waterfront lobby meeting saw many unusual coalitions. Hide and Locke opposed in unions, and John Minto and rugby supporters also united in opposition. Bill Hodge from Auckland University highlighted that the legislation planned by the Government to allow the stadium to be built will have to over-ride not just the Resource Management Act but also the Local Government Act, the Public Finance Act and commitments given in other acts in relation to the Treaty of Waitangi.
The Herald has the latest City Council count as eight in favour, six against and six undecided.
And Brian Rudman predicts the stadium would morph into an albatross of debt.
UPDATE: Not PC has an excellent summary of all the speakers at the anti-waterfront meeting. This is again one of the reasons I love blogs – you can get much more detail of what happened at an event, because there are no artificial limits on story size.
November 20th, 2006 at 10:20 am
Having to overide so many Acts makes me wonder where democracy ends and dictatorship starts.
November 20th, 2006 at 10:36 am
Hodge seemed to be saying in effect, that the amount of legislation over ride was extraordinary, beyond anything that Muldoon had ridden roughshod over, and that it was way beyond the normal expediting of favoured projects through the RMA.
He said there were at least four ‘big block’ Acts plus others that would need to be compromised in some way, including the Companies Act in that the directors of the port company may have to take legal action to discharge their fiduciary reponsibilities.
The whole thing smacks of old fashioned stalinist type grandiosity and heavy handed arrogance about due process and the rule of law. The fruitcake version of ‘transformation’ and ‘sustainability’
November 20th, 2006 at 10:40 am
This government doesn’t think it’s bound by the Public Finance Act anyway.
Chances are that the Public Finance Act has already been breached by the deal with Fletcher Construction to build the stadium platform, which was a mere $119,950,000 past the limit for going to tender.
It was pretty short-sighted to limit their retrospective legislation to Vote Parliamentary Service. Now they’re going to have to it all again for Vote Bread and Circuses.
November 20th, 2006 at 10:40 am
We should be looking at solving the Eden park issue, permanently, by putting an 8-lane motorway through to Eden park and building a car park building outside.
November 20th, 2006 at 11:00 am
Meeting in Devonport on the stadium at 7pm tonight, should be interesting.
November 20th, 2006 at 11:00 am
With all the comments I am hearing about over size stadiums in Melbourne and Canada (the Owe stadium) I’m wondering if any stadium is a good idea. National icons, like LOTR and America’s cup come of themselves. You cannot manufacture one and Mallard certainly doesn’t represent someone capable of creating one. If it was Colin Meads getting up there and putting his gumboots in the harbour, then yeah, let’s do it, but its not.
The biggest, best and most used ‘stadium’ is the one beamed via satellite to 10,000 of homes live. That’s the reality.
November 20th, 2006 at 11:02 am
Is there a more ignorant breed than the “Auckland City counsellor” – the stupid pricks want a waterfront stadium but only if it is on the Bledisloe wharf or further east. Everyone including Mallard have discounted the option but they still want it. They are like petulant children and this is getting very embarrassing – even for us jafas !!
November 20th, 2006 at 11:09 am
The government cannot pass one jot of legislation. That is the job of the House of Representatives – and with MMP and the numbers in the House, passing this legislation is not a given.
November 20th, 2006 at 11:15 am
There is disagreement between councillor Cathy Casey and the Herald as to who is undecided and who isn’t (she suggests eight who are undecided), and the Bledisloe Wharf non-option seems to have created even more confusion (two councillors are only “in favour” if the bedpan can be moved to Bledisloe, which has already been ruled out by both Geoff Vazey and Mallard.)
I posted Cathy Casey’s list of who is still undecided in my own report of yesterday’s anti-waterfront meeting.
November 20th, 2006 at 12:09 pm
Haha. Just eluding to the humour of the whole thing, someone also put one of the icebergs seen off the coast of the South Island on trade me, now removed though.
November 20th, 2006 at 1:39 pm
The government cannot pass one jot of legislation
I beg to differ. They’ve proved themselves very adept and ramming everything else though. Why not bypassing umpteen statutes this time?
They rely on the absentee-vote of Field and none of the coalition poodles dares to withhold from Helen what Helen wants. It’s FPP a best, or totalitarianism as worst.
November 20th, 2006 at 2:10 pm
We are meant to be hosting the rugby world cup. I personally would rather the entire world didn’t just think it was a big mistake because a bunch of sooks with their heads in the past would rather look at thousands of containers from the top of Mt Eden, and stingy town planners wouldn’t pay what is needed.
This stadium WILL make money. Nothing is more certain. It will bring incredible foot traffic to the waterfront. It will sell out repeatedly in fantastic games of rugby. It will become a venue of choice for untold other things than rugby. It will totally envigorate the downtown area, make meaningful our rail investment and stimulate the bus and ferry companies.
As a visual issue, tastes differ. I personally love gigantic public works. It makes me feel like I’m not in a country town. I used to live near the MCG in Melbourne and I truly admired the colosseum-like beauty of it. I admired it even more from the inside, where the combined roar of a hundred thousand voices getting bitter on the All Blacks made me thoroughly appreciate live sport in a way that Eden Park never could. The rowdy foot traffic some evenings served only to remind me how much Victorians love ‘footy’.
Nature’s great, but there’s more than enough of that in NZ for those who can’t accept that Auckland is actually a city, that the waterfront is entirely manmade anyway, and that NZers love rugby more than they love being hippies.
November 20th, 2006 at 2:11 pm
Every other endeavour in this country needs to have detailed economic analysis, cost benefit analysis, cash flow analysis, debt repayment analysis, resource mangement analysis, health and safety analysis and endless analysis paralysis.
Suddenly a stadium at guesstimate of $500M +/- 30% just whistles through.
Play two games in 2011, then lets look at how the long term debt and operating costs are to be met. I thought the article by Professor McDermott in SST spoke volumes about straightforward economic planning and analysis.
The pity is that the Eden Park team who originally had somewhat more modest and affordable plans, saw the “Golden Eagle” was about to poop so upped their ante!
By the way, what happened to Labour’s Electoral debt and dear old Taito Phillip. They’re off the front page and the biggest electoral bribe of all time is now on the front.
November 20th, 2006 at 2:15 pm
This stadium WILL make money. Nothing is more certain.
Ben, if you are that certain then you won’t mind offering up you all your current and future worldy possessions as security against the risk of financial failure. Your assets are safe right? Nothing is more certain!
November 20th, 2006 at 2:24 pm
Ben, it seems an awful lot of stadia have real trouble in making money, Sydney’s “Stadium Australia” being just one example.
The main stadium for the London Olympics is going to be temporary and leave behind a smaller 15,000 seat venue I understand – sounds like a much more sensible way of doing things.Can’t we just chuck up some good temporary stands at Eden Park and pull them down post the cup?
And, what will happen if the ABs don’t make the final game in 2011? Who will be sitting in Mallard’s dead duck then? Because it won’t be full of excited NZers.
November 20th, 2006 at 2:37 pm
By the way, what happened to Labour’s Electoral debt and dear old Taito Phillip. They’re off the front page and the biggest electoral bribe of all time is now on the front
Substitute bribe for rort and you’re closer. Labour needs a large, complex and open-ended contract on which vast sums of public money can be sloshed around. Most of it would be used for the stadium I’m sure.
November 20th, 2006 at 2:50 pm
Peter – thanks a bunch for your excellent summary! I am especially concerned to read about the “reduced scale” drawings that have been paraded as an accurate represntation of the stadium, and the need to extend further out into the harbour. However, my single most overriding objection is still the time factor – given the scale of the project to build the “platform”, the likelihood of completion and commissioning by September 2011 isn’t positive. The risk is just too great.
November 20th, 2006 at 3:10 pm
Andrew, I’d be about as happy making that bet as you would be betting the same amount against it. Which shows how silly the ‘how much do you want to bet?’ arguments are. Would you bet your life that if you roll a dice you won’t get a 1? Why not? there’s a 5 out of 6 chance you’ll win, pretty good odds. The fact that I won’t play financial russian roulette means nothing. I’m definitely prepared to stump up my share of this stadium, if I’m offered my share of the profits.
Mikeybill, Sydney actually does have too many stadiums. Auckland does not. The proposal is not as huge as Stadium Australia, and it’s not being built for a one-time event like the Olympic games. Rugby happens in NZ a lot more often than massive athletics events happen in Sydney.
But a huge amount of the money I was talking about is not purely the stadium itself, but also the flow on benefits. Much the same argument as went into the initial waterfront development for the America’s cup. I’m sure there were thousands of old hippies who were bitter on losing the beauty of Freeman’s bay and the accompanying fish markets and trawler docks, but I personally think what’s there now is good for Auckland.
My only real concern with the stadium is whether it really can be made that quickly.
November 20th, 2006 at 3:35 pm
Ben, you’re the one who made the rather emphatic claim about the viability of the stadium. I didn’t ask for a ‘bet’ as you have rather mischievously claimed, but I did test the strength of your conviction and secured the outcome that I was expecting.
My belief is that the stadium would be a lemon and on that basis I don’t want any of my money spent on it. I’m choosing to side with overseas experience and the wisdom of other financial analysis.
However if you have conducted some financial analysis that shows the stadium to return a healthy ROIC then I’m keen to hear it. Convince me of the viability and we can line up together with our cheque books.
November 20th, 2006 at 3:38 pm
…while Trev and Helen’s Forum is not really my favoured use of a billion or so dollars or even less (herceptin treatments anyone?), to all those grumbling about use of the waterfront- does anyone really think that the port company would give up this space for any other non-commercial use? Do you really like looking at the big red gate now? I don’t ever see many people staring out at the sea to rangitoto through the red iron bars anyway…
In the end though, I think that the cost to people in Auckland would be far greater than just the stadium build and operate costs- how much extra will that cheapo jap import car cost when it needs to be shipped to Auckland from Tauranga? How many more trucks on the road to ship all that extra freight? For a guvmint that wants to be ‘carbon neutral’ (nothing more than a slogan, I know) it is sure not doing the math very well….
Is it a ‘vision’ thing? Or are we all petty and small minded skinflints? Whichever the answer is, Trev has done a maaahvelous job on distracting the masses!
November 20th, 2006 at 3:59 pm
“This stadium WILL make money”…with that sort of conviction, which flies in the face of reality…bring back “the south sea bubble”
November 20th, 2006 at 5:02 pm
Andrew, you secured the extremely obvious point that I’m not prepared to bet my life savings on this. I don’t know anyone who would be on something like this, nor would I expect them to, or think it was a profound point in any way. I make this point because such reasoning is so common on this site that it actually does deserve a refutation at least once.
Your claims that it will be a lemon are every bit as unresearched. Of course my ‘nothing is more certain’ was hyperbole. There are many risks involved. There are also risks involved in *not* doing it, and I look forward to your sound financial analysis into why those risks are worthwhile.
I’m basing my views on the observation that NZers are nuts about rugby, we’re hosting the world cup here for everyone else who is nuts about rugby, and the waterfront proposal puts the stadium right in amongst a massive retail area, at the nexus of our bus, train and rail routes. Internationally televised events will depict Auckland’s most beautiful feature, it’s volcanic harbour, stimulating tourism. I don’t think genius is needed to understand that the financial impact is much wider than just ticket sales.
That I happen to like the look of the plans is purely an aesthetic thing, which I don’t expect everyone to agree with. Some people probably think containers are really beautiful, but I don’t see it.
But the really important question isn’t even whether the stadium will make a profit. It’s whether we as a city think the Rugby World Cup is a time for a venue for our favourite sport that isn’t a laughing stock, a pain in the arse for the residents that live near it, and a disincentive to attend for all the rugby fans.
November 20th, 2006 at 6:11 pm
>Andrew, you secured the extremely obvious >point that I’m not prepared to bet my life >savings on this. I don’t know anyone who
>would be on something like this, nor would I >expect them to, or think it was a profound >point in any way
So you dont mind betting other peoples money, but won’t put up your own?
Won’t be their life savings you say? Try not paying your tax bill, and see the IRD take your life savings before you can blink. In some cases in the past, taking your life as well as the savings…
Geoff
November 20th, 2006 at 8:49 pm
Geoffm, your wish to second Andrew’s irrelevant point with tangential asides shows only that the point did deserve some refutation after all.
I didn’t say I won’t put up my own money. I live in Auckland and pay rates, some of which would go into the stadium. I just said I wouldn’t bet my life savings on it, which was the challenge that, for some reason, Andrew and you seem to find profound, but just leaves me scratching my head. What does that have to do with my right to say what I think should be done with already existing public revenue, which already will be used for something, if not this stadium? Would you bet *your* life savings that the money spent elsewhere would make more money? Do it. Put your money where your mouth is, if you want to throw down such a silly gauntlet. I bet you $5 you don’t. What the hell, make it $10. I’ve already wasted that much writing this post.
Personally, I’m happy for some of the money that is already being taken of me to be spent that way.
November 21st, 2006 at 1:02 pm
Personally, I’m happy for some of the money that is already being taken of me to be spent that way.
Ahh – and now we derive the true mentality of the left supporters. The Govt already has their **** so far up my *ss it would be nice if they changed the angle to hit my prostate. As opposed to the Right which would like them to withdraw a little…
November 21st, 2006 at 4:31 pm
Eww. I can only imagine you’d have to have experienced that for real to even think of it.
But yes, I guess an awesome new rugby stadium could be seen as closer to my prostate in your disgusting analogy.