Taxes Lies and the Auckland City Council

The Auckland Council and its leader Phil Goff have introduced an 11.5 cent petrol tax a bed tax and want a toilet tax and rate rises of 2.5% or more, to pay for (supposedly) infrastructure and other things that Auckland desperately needs.

The Mayor gets $275k, the Deputy Mayor gets $154k and the 19 councilors get $107k per year approximately.

                                                          

Here is a rough breakdown of council payroll.

11,893- total staff numbers for Auckland Council and six CCOs
2322 - number of staff earning more than $100,000
194 - number of staff earning more than $200,000 (155 last year)
$853m - actual wages bill
$811m - budgeted wages bill
$18m - staff payments for errors in the Holidays Act
$11m - unbudgeted cost of redundancies

So I believe serious cuts need to be made here just for starters. It is interesting that they always find extra money for their pay rises. 

Phil Goff also feels that he needs to dictate what we, as rate paying Aucklanders should or should not get to see/hear.

In July 2018, Mayor Goff announced that the Auckland Council would not allow the so called far right Canadian activists Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux to use council premises on the grounds that they stirred up ethnic or religious tensions and promoted divisive views. Southern and Molyneux have drawn controversy in the past for their controversial views on feminism, gender, and Muslim immigration. The pair had booked the Bruce Mason Centre in Auckland's North Shore for a talk on 3 August 2018. While the Auckland Peace Action activist group and the Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand had objected to the planned talk.

Please note he took this decision upon himself, sighting Council Policy and of course everyone’s favourite, the popular Ethnic/Religious Card, you can also add a divisive view which in simple terms means a different viewpoint that may or may not upset others forcing them to be so outraged that they cannot control their emotions or behaviour. In other words a different viewpoint will cause some to become deranged.

The NZ Federation of Islam Association and the Auckland Peace Action activist group wanted the two speakers banned from NZ with the APA making threats of confrontation and blocking entry to any event that the speakers attend. Doesn’t that sum up stirring tensions?

Phil Goff is a politician and as we are all aware if they aren’t kissing babies they are stealing their lollipops.

Once again the Auckland Mayor and his council have pulled off the greatest con job since Eve told Adam an apple was good for his teeth.

Author

Steve Boddey