troughing

So far we have seen that Leigh Auton, despite a salary of around $450,000, and a paid board position with the Ngapuhi Asset Holding Company Limited, charge up expenses for one organisation onto another. He also doesn’t much like dipping into his own pockets for things like birthday shouts. No, he much prefers dipping into the ratepayers pockets for things like that.

Another thing that Leigh Auton seems to like is rugby. League or Union it matters not. For league he bills up charges for that board position to his council credit card and for union he enjoys season tickets for the Counties-Manukau Steelers paid for by the ratepayers.

Leigh Auton charges up his rugby seats to the ratepayer

Don’t you just love the excuse explanation on the robustly audited accounts?

While we are talking about these “robust audit processes” that we constantly hear about from Leigh Auton and Len Brown, I have reviewed every single page of Leigh Auton’s expenses and not once is there any query about a single expense. No hand written notes, no notations about missing tax invoices, nothing about the missing sign off as required by the Council’s policies. Not a single mention or follow up on un-approved expenses, and no approval signatures on half a dozen or so pages.

If these are the “robust audit processes” that Len Brown has presided over along with his loyal group of apologist councillors then the man is unfit to run a bath much less the affairs of the local bowling club, to think he wants to run New Zealand’s largest city. Hell he can’t even remember to take his own credit cards with him to the dairy, yet somehow always seems to have a council credit card ready. His CEO is no better.

Between these two they have fleeced the ratepayers of Manukau for nickels and dimes and all the time justified it with righteous indignation that they have “robust audit processes”.

Between the two of then they have creamed over $1.8 million of ratepayers money for their salaries and also charged up newspapers, insect repellent, rugby tickets, carparking, endless dinners and coffee. The larceny upon the ratepayers pockets must end.

On the weekend the SST published some aspects of the expenses of Leigh Auton, the patsy CEO of Len brown’s Manukau City Council.

This morning a courier package arrived with a copy of the documents for me.

I’ve had a quick go through and noticed something that the SST seems to have missed. It was the date that rung a bell.

Leigh Auton and Len Brown Birthday Lunch

I thought, now that’s interesting and so flicked through a few more documens and found;

Leigh Auton and Len Brown birthday party?

Well now, there’s a coincidence. Surely not, two years in a row, a birthday lunch on the 1st of October. Now who could possibly have a birthday on the 1st of October?

What is so galling about these amounts isn’t so much the total, it is the gall of two men who between them pull in over $600,000 per annum and think nothing of charging a birthday shout to the ratepayers. Quite how a birthday shout constitutes council business is beyond me. But then there seems to be a cozy little circle of approval of expenses between Len Brown, Leigh Auton and the Finance Director. They are all scratching each others back.

Flicking through the expenses of Leigh Auton it is astounding that someone on more than $450,000 per annum charges essentially chump change to his council credit card, for things like parking for a couple of hours. Worse still is flagrant disregard for council policy and for the LGOIMA by redacting the details of the expenses. Not even elected officials it seems can get hold of the details of the exact spending. Clearly transparency isn’t something either Len Brown or Leigh Auton believe in.

I wonder perhaps what he thinks his salary is for, because every conceivable expense that can be chalked up to the council is, there is no swings and roundabouts, it is all swings for Len Brown and Leigh Auton as they trough it up on the ratepayers.

There is page after page after page of “entitlements”. The justification for many is pathetic and tenuous at best. Thank the lord that Leigh Auton won’t be getting any job in the new Super City.

Of course I expect Len Brown to announce that Leigh Auton was doing all this “for the love of the people”.

Len Brown’s tame lickspittle CEO Leigh Auton has shown himself to be a greedy little piggy at the rate-payers trough, just like his boss. Now we know why Leigh Auton has been running interference for Looney Len, they’re as bad as each other.

Manukau City Council chief executive Leigh Auton’s spending habits are contained in 129 pages of material covering the period June 2008 to April 20 this year, obtained by the Sunday Star-Times under the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act.

During that time South Auckland ratepayers have spent more than $5000 wining and dining Auton and his guests, nearly $10,000 on hotels, more than $1000 on taxis, more than $5000 on various airline and professional memberships and concert tickets, and $137.78 for having his council-owned Mazda washed and polished.

Auton is paid $412,079 a year. His council Visa bill for the period was $26,724.57 and included trips to some of Auckland’s best restaurants – such as $541.50 at Cin Cin in June 2008, and $717 six days later at Parnell’s Tribeca. It also included $911.04 for a newspaper delivered to his home.

Lord knows why the CEO of Manukau City needs to get his car groomed at Auckland Airport or newspapers delivered on the rate-payer is beyond me, especially when the same guy is paid more than $4oo,ooo per annum. Why is it the more the get the more they take?

I spied this in the inbox tonight.

Tenderwatch - Don't do it Judith

I thought Barry Matthews was smarter than this. He obviously has been working too hard to have noticed the awful trouble ex-ministers and mayors have been getting themselves into with purchasing cards and transaction management systems.

He best have a re-think over this I feel. Quickly before Judith Collins finds out what he is up to.

A big heart felt thanks goes out to Matt McCarten for telling everyone just exactly how it is about our parliamentarians.

But politicians live in a parallel universe in which they see no hypocrisy in telling us to tighten our belts while gorging on the indefensible benefits they award themselves. Most New Zealanders who are paying for these swanky holidays have never had the opportunity to travel abroad and the expectation they foot the bill is beyond grotesque.

To avoid all this public exposure our MPs agreed they were willing to forgo some of their dodgy perks, such as personal air travel or tax free allowances for renting their own properties. It seems the price they are asking us to stump up is a minimum of $50,000 for the three-year term for a backbench MP, and almost twice as much for ministers.

How about get stuffed. Why should they get personal air travel and tax free allowances, no one else in New Zelaand does. Even a scum list MP these days is paid in the top 5% of all New Zealanders.

The NZ Herald estimates the suggested 10 per cent increase in their salary, in compensation for losing their travel, is three times more than the price of the perks under consideration.

Have they no shame? They should never have given themselves personal air travel or allowances for their mortgages. They should not only give them back but apologise for allowing themselves to get it in the first place.

There’s nowhere in the real world that a group of employees can set unjustifiable privileges then expect to be paid off to give them up.

The argument for MPs and former MPs to have generous overseas travel entitlements until their death is justified on the basis that it rewarded their long service on less than market remuneration. This is nonsense.

Complete nonsense. The farce is that the fox gets to set the rules in the hen-house. One glaring omission from all of these reviews about spending is that MPs still lobby to refuse the application of the best disinfectant we have, that of the Official Information Act to the goings on in Parliamentary Services.

Even better for our MPs, almost half of them don’t have to win their seats. And even when electorate MPs lose, they get to regain their jobs, via the party list.

Our MPs have a pretty cushy number, with little accountability compared to other countries.

In our country we now have a self-perpetuating political elite with a lifestyle and a sense of entitlement that is alien to the people they purport to represent. The idea that public service is a privilege, not a tenured career with unearned and immoral perks, doesn’t seem to occur to them.

Once, an MP’s salary was linked to a primary school principal’s rate. This was established to allow ordinary citizens to serve in parliament with a modest income linked to their constituents’ reality. The earlier parliamentarians who built our democratic institutions wouldn’t recognise the greedy, spoiled successors who now sit in their place.

So when our MPs consider their appropriations review report they might like to remember they are servants, not beneficiaries, of the people.

Matt alerts us to the biggest single problem of MMP, scum List MPs. Elected by the party, answerable to no-one but their own venality, they are a scourge upon the taxpayer. Scum List MPs should all be forced to live in Wellington. There is no other place that deserves them more. We could even convert Avalon Studios in to MP accommodation for them to live in. It would certainly be a hell of a lot cheaper than the present arrangements.

If one wants to look for an example of Matt’s described “self-perpetuating political elite with a lifestyle and sense of entitlement” then from National you need look no further than FIGJAM Power, allegedly National’s next leader if you listen to his bullshit, and from Labour the perfect example of the description is “Three Suits” Cosgrove, man who once famously sacked Corporate Cabs from ever picking him up again because they didn’t recognise him.

Len Brown has refused to follow his own council’s policy and thus far has refused my LGOIA request to tell who he ate with. He said that if Manukau residents demanded that he follow council rules then he would resign.These are just some of the emails I am receiving.

Cameron
Please include me as a concerned Manukau City resident who would like to see poor, sad, Len
fall on his sword if he fails to come up with the info.

Keep up the good work

Mellons Bay Resident

and

Hi Cameron,

You can add me to the list of Manukau residents wanting Len Brown to disclose or resign as per his promise.

Weymouth, Manukau

and

Hi,
As per the request in your post, I’m a Manukau City resident and I think Len Brown should be accountable for who was at that dinner.

and

Good morning Whale,

You can add my name to the list of Manukau residents who want Len to fess up who was at Volare with him.

and

Hi Cameron,

Can you please add me to the names of RATE payers that want to know who were at dinner with Lyin Brown

East Tamaki Ratepayer

They keep coming in. It is clear that Manukau ratepayers expect their Mayor to follow the rules. We want Len Brown to tell the truth but not with limits.

Yesterday I had lunch with Gooner and Cactus Kate at Daikoku on the North Shore. A good mate of mine is the manager there. Anyway Cactus and I went for a stroll down the Mayoral Stagger Path and we came across a bus shelter with a sign up for Looney Len Brown.

On the weekend Len Brown said;

He said there was no requirement for him to disclose who he spent council money on.

“Transparency is not a perfect thing,” he added.

“Transparency doesn’t just happen in a perfect world. You have to measure that up against other significant principles and that’s what I’m doing and I will live or die on that.

“If people make a judgment and say, ‘we all agree you should tell everybody who you are seeing all the time’, then I’ll say, ‘that’s it – I am not the mayor any more’.

Len Brown lies again. Clause 5.1 of the council policy for use of the credit/purchase card specifically requires him to outline exactly who was in attendence at any meeting or otherwise that the card was used at. The card was used at Volare, it was paid for by the council, Len Brown and his lawyer wife say it was council business, therefore Len Brown is required to disclose who he was with.

He also states that if people make a judgment and say that he should tell who he is seeing then he will quit. Well this blogger takes Len Brown at his word, albeit that he is a proven liar. I have accordingly submitted a LGOIMA request asking precisely who was at that Volare dinner. So far it has been met with silence, it could hardly take a few minutes to jot down the names and respond.

If Len Brown doesn’t disclose the names by Friday, then he should resign, as he promised. If there are any other Manukau residents who feel the same, then drop me a line via the tipline and I’ll start a list of residents who think our Mayor should be accountable.

Pinko councillors Alf Filipaina and Efu Koka, both Brown lickspittles, are having a moan, along with closet pinkos Sir John Walker and the Deputy Trough-pig Mayor Gary Troup about the remuneration for Super-city Councillor positions.

SEVERAL senior Manukau local politicians are reconsidering whether they’ll stand for the new Auckland Council because of a salary widely condemned as “unfair” and an “insult”.

They say the $80,000 a year set by the Remuneration Authority means supercity councillors will be paid less than MPs for serving larger constituencies.

Manurewa councillor Sir John Walker says the salary’s “not on” for what will be a stressful, fulltime job overseeing a significant portion of the country’s economic assets.

Like many councillors he’d expected councillors to be paid on a par with the $131,000 paid to backbench MPs.

Paying $80,000 will get part-time councillors and is “an insult to the integrity of good people who want to do a damn good job”.

“If they’re going to pay peanuts, we’re going to get the same people that you don’t really want – regurgitating ex-ministers and mayors and people who’re getting on in life a bit.

“You want to be attracting younger people with a bit of nous.”

Sir John had been intending to run for the Auckland Council “but I don’t know if I want to now”.

“I think they’re going to turn a lot of people off who should have been there and won’t do it now.

“Why would you do it?”

That’s the question now being asked by Mangere councillor and 30-year police veteran Alf Filipaina.

The remuneration’s forced him to review his decision to run on the Labour ticket with councillor Efu Koka for the 156,000-population Manukau ward.

He asks: “Who in their right mind is going to leave a job that possibly pays more than what’s a fulltime job as a councillor?” Mr Filipaina says it isn’t just about the money.

“It’s about trying to pay the bills for me and my whanau, the same as everybody, and still working for the community if you’re successful.”

Whilst their argument has some merit, for these incompetent troughers even $80k is on the high side. It can’t be a bad thing if $80,000 is low enough to get Efu Koka to re-consider standing. Even at $80,000 it would be more money than he has ever earned before, and likely to be the best job he could get but for him it still isn’t enough. Silly me thinking that these guys represented the poor of Manukau.

John Banks has made a bit of an oops after it was revealed that his staff claimed for $438.80 in entertainment expenses. In stark contrast to Looney Len Brown though John Banks has told us who he was having lunch and coffee with.

The $438.80 claim covers four occasions – entertaining the United States Ambassador at Euro Restaurant on the waterfront for $215.50, catching up with arts patron James Wallace at Frasers cafe in Mt Eden ($23.80), discussing the Peter Blake memorial with businessman John Street at the Stamford Plaza Hotel ($44) and having lunch with Britomart developer Peter Cooper at the Northern Club ($155.50).

The onus is now on Mr Brown to come clean on who he dined with on the council card at Volare at a cost of $810.00. Come clean Looney Len.

I think Len Brown is on to something with this Jesus lark.

Jesus fed the multitude with just a few loaves and a few fish. Len only needed a small strip of plastic.

Jesus turned water in to wine, Len ordered both and just put it on the council credit card.

Or perhaps more accurately, Jesus turned water in to wine when the booze had run out, Len Brown just had a case sent up on urgent courier

But while we are talking about parallels, have you ever watched The Wire? Quite an interesting show, especially when Senator Clay takes the stand. In the fifth season the state’s attorney brings a case against a State Senator who is profoundly corrupt – takes bribes from drug dealers, other politicians etc and steals from his constituents.

Quite astonishing the similarities between Senator Clay and Len Brown and Winston Peters. I wonder of the makers of the show studied up in New Zealand