Last week I wrote about the serious threat to the people of Christchurch
with the council proposal to sell the city’s assets to make up a projected
budget shortfall of $1.2 billion.
Opinion polls consistently show three quarters of Christchurch residents
are opposed to asset sales so the mayor and council along with local MP
and government minister Gerry Brownlee have led a scaremongering campaign to frighten citizens with massive rate increases unless these prime assets are sold.
So what figures are these elected representatives using to back up their
position?
Early last year KordaMentha provided an independent report on the
council’s financial position after newly elected mayor and former Labour
cabinet minister Lianne Dalziel said she wanted to “open the books” on the
council’s true financial position.
KordaMentha said the council could get through the earthquake rebuild
without radical financial measures. Yes there were financial risks and the
council would need to take on more debt but with the sort of prudent
financial management citizens should expect from their local council the
city would get through fine.
Brownlee poured scorn on the report and a second review – this time by
well-known right-wing merchant bankers Cameron Partners – was sought.
The Cameron report gave Brownlee just what he was after – a projected council budget shortfall of $1.2billion. Since then the mayor and Labour
councillors have allowed themselves to be railroaded and last December
voted in principle to privatise a huge chunk of the city’s assets. But a closer look at the Cameron report shows only $106 million of credible debt – the rest is pure speculation – designed more to scare than illuminate.
Vile
So who are Cameron partners?
Rob Cameron who started the firm in 1995 has a long grubby career of dodgy
dealings – the most despicable being the billion dollar rip-off of
taxpayers in the 1990 sale of Telecom. Cameron advised Fay Richwhite on
buying Telecom and then played the other side as adviser to the government
on selling Telecom. Here’s how Cameron Partners tell his story…
“Prior to Cameron Partners, Rob headed the Corporate Finance Division of Fay Richwhite. A highlight of his time there was leading Fay Richwhite’s involvement with Telecom New Zealand where Rob advised the purchasing consortium in the privatisation of Telecom in 1989, which saw Fay Richwhite also take an ownership stake. Rob then led the New Zealand team
advising on Telecom’s IPO in 1990 – at the time the largest public
offering ever in the New Zealand market and the first integrated global offering of shares in a New Zealand company.”
What Cameron doesn’t say is that Telecom was sold for $4.25 billion in
1990 and in the following decade made it’s private buyers over $12 billion
in profit – most of which went overseas to the US firms, Bell Atlantic and
Ameritech, which were the majority shareholders. At the end of that first
decade they sold Telecom for $12 billion. The size of this taxpayer
rip-off is eye watering.
In any self-respecting country Cameron and all those involved would be
serving long prison sentences but here he is again – a nasty blast from
the past – preparing the ground for Christchurch ratepayers to be ripped
off just as he did for New Zealand taxpayers 25 years ago.
Rust never sleeps and neither does the cold-hearted drive for unearned
wealth under capitalism.
What is it about ‘mayoralty’ that turns moderately able Labour-leaning people into liabilities for the people who voted them in?!
Fran Wilde. Len Brown. Lianne Dalziell.
It’s no good asking ‘why’. It’s the chains and the pomp and the mantle, and they turn to solid conservative stodge. The Peter Principle proves itself once again.
And the wee fellow has persuaded the citizens that selling the family silver is the only way – which is a lie, as usual. Setting the scene for this next rip-off.
Is there an effective group of citizens countering this? A barrage of emails to local MPs of any persuasion? Letters to the Editor?
Thanks, John, for giving this air.
It’s a pity tar and feathers have gone out of fashion…
Comments are closed.