$500,000 not wasted

The Herald reports:

Auckland Council’s events agency Ateed committed half a million dollars to Duco Events to help fund boxer Joseph Parker’s world title fight – before looking at the event’s business case and backing out.

So they pledged $500,000 before even looking at the business case!

The event happened in Auckland without the $500,000, so Auckland got all the benefits from the event and all that happened is that there was not a $500,000 wealth transfer from ratepayers to Duco. It was classic wasteful corporate welfare.

ATEED needs hard headed executives who won’t pledge money at the mere mention of an event, but will take a long hard look at the business case and assess whether the event would happen without ratepayer funding.

The Auckland Council need to appoint directors of ATEED who will appoint executives like this.

The contract was drawn up by Duco after Ateed chief executive Brett O’Riley agreed to give the promotions company half a million dollars, before knowing if the event met council’s strict public funding rules.

Amazing.

It can be revealed that on the same day O’Riley emailed Auckland mayor Phil Goff and councillors, to say funding discussions with Duco were “at an early stage, I wanted to update you with what we know currently”, Duco was emailing O’Riley – thanking him for a phone call and “confirmation that ATEED is in for $500k.”

If I was Phil Goff I would not be happy.

Ateed also confirmed it had funded Parker’s previous fight, against Carlos Takam in Auckland on May 21.

Ateed refused to confirm how much money that deal was worth, saying “withholding the information is necessary to enable Ateed to carry out commercial activities without prejudice or disadvantage.”

Oh bullshit. Handing out wads of ratepayer money is not a commercial activity.