Letters to the Editor: DCC, Ardern and tourism

Otago Daily Times

a day ago

Today's Letters to the Editor from readers cover topics including open conversations about DCC funding, the carping about Jacinda Ardern's memoir, and visitor levies. Finance policy queried, the DCC offers answer
At a recent council meeting a significant change to the Dunedin City Council revenue and financing policy was pushed through the meeting, without public consultation and with little debate.
While it may have sounded like a technical adjustment, the implications are anything but minor and should be of public concern.
The change specifically allows more spending to be funded through debt, as in borrowing even more money. Debt can now be used to cover costs that many ratepayers would (rightly) expect to be paid from the annual (operational) budget, day-to-day costs dressed up as long-term investment, funded by loans and added to the debt.
Here is one problem I see with this, under the Local Government Act, changes to this policy that are considered significant (especially those with wide financial impact), and must go through public consultation. It's not just best practice, it is the law.
I have re-read the draft nine-year plan consultation document and there was no mention of this change. There was no staff report on the agenda, that I can find, that refers to this change. This change seems to have just materialised on the day.
The change affects the financial future of Dunedin. Whether you agree with the change or not we (the ratepayers) should have had a voice. Who is calling the shots here?
Now more than ever, we need open conversations about how DCC is funded, what is actually being built and spent and who is the beneficiary. We cannot afford to have major financial moves pushed through without reports, rigorous debate or consultation. Future Dunedin councillor candidate
[Sandy Graham, DCC chief executive replies: "I would not normally comment on a potential candidate's public claims, but it appears Ms Twemlow has misunderstood the situation and I think public clarification is necessary. The Dunedin City Council has an existing revenue and financing policy, which has been in place for some years. This policy already allows for debt to be used to fund operational expenditure, including grants (you can find reference to it on page 221 of our last 10-year plan 2021-24). The changes introduced by council during deliberations on the nine-year plan simply clarify the parameters under which debt can be used in this way. This responds directly to requests from the community for additional financial support for the performing arts sector, and council's request for staff to consider the best ways of delivering this support. It is not a significant change and does not require further consultation. Ms Twemlow is welcome to contact our finance team for further clarification should it be required.] Well done
Hats off to Duncan Connors for his fine and thoughtful article (Opinion ODT 10.6.25) on an assessment of the South Island in relation to the North Island.
I often think that we in the South are the poor cousins compared with the north when their needs appear to be listened to and dealt with much more quickly than we "down under".
Is the temptation by politicians to think that because voting power is predominantly in the north, they are given preference while we southerners have to go on bended knees? Dunedin hospital is a prime example.
Politicians need to realise that they are voted in to serve the common good and care for all the people. Santana Minerals plan
The piece by Jonathan West (Opinion ODT 9.6.25) brilliantly and clearly explained the effects of the proposed Bendigo to Ophir mine and what this will mean in the very heart of Central Otago. Short-term gain for long-term pain. Ignore the carping, memoir is a terrific read
Take no notice of the sniping directed at Jacinda Ardern's autobiography by a little posse of New Zealand journalists.
Political prejudice taints their judgement. This is a wonderful book, a completely different kind of political memoir.
Deeply personal, rich in anecdote, revealing, often very funny, it enchanted me as it has enchanted readers across the world.
It is a love story, to husband, daughter, mother, father. A thoroughly female account of power and the political life. (What other memoir of a public figure begins in a bathroom where the protagonist sits waiting for the red lines on a pregnancy test to appear?)
It is a devastating record of terrible historical events and the tumultuous business of being in charge, making decisions day by day, hour by hour.
It is compelling and beautifully, fluently written.
Ignore the carping chorus. Read it. It is fantastic. Tourism levy should not be for other things
So, the government chooses to use the funds from the international visitor levy to fund yet more visitors, in order to fund yet more levies.
Funds which were originally devised to offset the environmental damage and infrastructure shortfalls from the tourism overload which has weighed on a number of high-profile visitor areas, especially central Otago. What a rort.
Our Minister for the South Island says that "the levy fund allows ministers to invest the funding in a way which best suits the current economic conditions, which is growth". What an absolute perversion of what the fund was really intended to be used for.
In Central Otago we are already nearly 50% ahead of pre-Covid visitor numbers: prior to Covid tourism overload was reaching a point where significant local resentment was emerging as a result of environmental and infrastructure incapacity beginning to seriously impact on local quality of life, not to mention visitor experience.
Despite general consensus that we needed to use the Covid pause to engage in a reset and choose quality over quantity, virtually nothing has changed.
The QLDC mayor calls out for yet more growth, whilst Queenstown becomes disabled by transport gridlock, ever worsening affordable housing shortage, dysfunctional and inadequate sewerage provision, and environmental degradation in our rivers and the big lakes. The other main thing that this never-ending growth has produced in the region is a serious reduction in quality of life for the residents. No wonder the QLDC has ended up with a resident approval rating somewhere between 4% and 17% depending on which survey you choose to accept.
Yes, we need central government funds to cope with overtourism, but even if we do manage to get funding for such things it can only be effective if it is accompanied by a complete pause on growth so that we can get the shortfalls behind us.
[Abridged — length. Editor.]
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