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🚨🚨 APOLOGY 🚨🚨
Green Councillor demands we set the record straight

In the last edition of Taxpayer Update James told you about Greater Wellington Regional Green Councillor Thomas Nash who led the local government bemoaning criticism of Prime Minister Christopher Luxon's speech to local councils where the PM told them to "get back to basics" and stop wasting ratepayer money.

According to Nash, the PM was totally out of line and in fact councils are doing a good job with ratepayer money... (seriously, what planet is this guy on?!).

As revealed by your humble Taxpayers' Union (and also covered in Stuff's The Post here <[link removed]>) the problem for Nash is that his own Council isn't practising what he preaches. Nash is the Council's Transport Committee Chairman but:

In just two years, Cr Nash and his gang have spent more than $200,000 jet-setting around the world. In fact, the Greater Wellington Council is so generous with the business class travel, it appears to spend more than every other Regional Council combined.

Las Vegas, Spain, Germany. You name the place and they were there spending ratepayers' money, but the undisputed pièce de résistance was a $900-a-night stay in London's glamorous Hyatt Regency.

While ratepayers might be having sleepless nights, no such fears for Councillor Thomas "no fat to be trimmed" Nash who we assume sleeps like a log. Perhaps wrapped up in the Hyatt Regency's Egyptian cotton in those super-king-sized beds...

Councillor Nash hit the roof. In fact he even threatened to call in the lawyers!

His issue? Not that we criticised the hypocrisy of his comments, or even the sky high flights and international travel spending our research team unearthed.

Rather Nash is furious with the suggestion that he personally stayed at the Churchill Hyatt Regency in London and/or enjoyed the luxury of those ratepayer funded Egyptian cotton sheets.



Here at the Taxpayers' Union we strive for accuracy and where we get it wrong, we're happy to make corrections and put it right.

We take Councillor Nash's word that the pleasure of staying at London's $900-a-night glamorous Hyatt Regency was in fact reserved for his colleague: Regional Council Chair, Daran Ponter. Per Councillor Nash's insistence, we hereby apologise for the assumption (and that he missed out). 

Wellington City "no fat to be trimmed" Council's new pedalling palace ✨🚴🏰✨

Speaking of Wellington, a few weeks ago Wellington ratepayers were up in arms over an $84,000 bike rack, which had less than three bikes using it per week.

But in what is surely an emotional support effort to make Auckland ratepayers feel slightly less aggrieved with the costs of the "Super City", Wellington has done one better!

It turns out that an $84,000 bike rack is perhaps an absolute bargain.

A new bike rack has been discovered! It was recently constructed opposite the Council's office (which, ironically has an existing bike rack right outside – weird they didn't see it).

This new bike rack cost ratepayers a staggering $563,000. <[link removed]>



When the story broke, the office was pondering "Does it come with a red carpet, heated floors or perhaps a bike wash?" After all, for that cost, they could have built a house!

So we sent young Alex up the road to take a look:

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Wellington's Mayor, Tory Whanau, says "there's no fat to trim" they've searched high and low to find every saving they can for Ratepayers <[link removed]>. If only she'd literally looked out her window to the street below. 🤦

And according to the Rates Dashboard, Wellington City Council is upping rates by 17% this year. <[link removed]> While Tory Whanau might not consider it high, it's getting hard to argue that council taxes are out of control when [checks notes]the lRD are now saying rates are unjustifiably high! 🤯

Even the IRD knows you're paying too much council tax! 💰💰💰

How many times have you heard council officials claim that rates are jumping because they've been kept artificially low for years.We all know this isn't exactly true, but mayors and councillors need some excuse for this year's latest crop of double-digit council taxrates hikes. <[link removed]>

Now a study from the IRD shows New Zealand's rates are not just higher than the OECD average, they're nearly two times what citizens in other developed countries pay! <[link removed]>

On average the rates burden in OECD countries – loosely meaning developed countries – is about 1.0 percent of GDP. In New Zealand, it's a whopping 1.9 percent of everything the country produces.



We've been banging the drum for years that bureaucratic bloat, mission creep, and wasteful spending are why our councils can't keep the books black, and here's the proof. Who saw that coming from the IRD of all places?

Speaking of the IRD, we've been doing some digging into the IRD's pandemic cost of living payments.

Just what do bureaucrats have to do to get their marching orders? 🤔

The cost of living payments during the pandemic came to a cost of $570 million. The least we can expect when the Government's sloshing around that kind of cash is some attempt to make sure it ends up where it's needed.

RNZ scooped a month ago that less than 14 percent of the 80,000 payments to people who were ineligible, had been recovered <[link removed]>. Rather than trying to get the money back, the IRD has just been asking very nicely if people would consider give back the cash they took without being entitled to.

When a stuff up costs tens of millions, naturally we assumed that someone, anyone even partially responsible, would be fired.

So given the egg on the face of the tax man, we wanted to know how many officials paid the price, while the taxpayer picked up the bill.



Thanks to the Official Information Act, we can reveal that despite the armies of bureaucrats, audit teams, and investigators who came after you if you stuffed up your taxes, when the IRD make a stuff up, not only did no one get sacked, not a single person even got a slap on the wrist reprimanded. Not even one.

And the worst part? IRD tell us that no one was "deemed accountable".

So just how hard is it to be sacked in Wellington?

We say, that this sort of bureaucratic shoulder-shrugging where no one is ever to blame, no one cares how money is lost and no one appears to even consider it a good idea in ensuring it doesn't happen again is why our public services are so broken (and expensive).

The IRD are quite happy to pour money down the drain, but what about Watercare pouring money into the river?

Watercare's $20 million secret 🤫🤫🤫

The NZ Herald this week reported Watercare – Auckland's water provider – had signed up to pay $20 million dollars to Waikato-Tainui's governing council. <[link removed]> That's $1 million a year, for 20 years, on top $2 million a year already given to the co-governed Waikato River Trust for river clean-up.

And this terrible deal for ratepayers was kept away from the public by Watercare.



Sam from the Auckland Ratepayers' Alliance <[link removed]>, our sister group, summed it up perfectly in the NZ Herald: <[link removed]>

"Ratepayers deserve transparency on issues involving this sort of money, especially when the cost-to-benefit for such a transaction remains murky at best."

To add ratepayer insult to injury, Watercare bosses either wouldn't (or couldn't) provide an explanation for why these payments were kept secret. Either way, it's no way to build trust with the ratepayers who pay the bills.

If a freedom of information request hadn't stumbled across these payments, ratepayers would never have known about these sorts of "smoke-filled room" agreements.

I've asked the research team to look into the issue in more depth. Watercare were caught, but the question remains whether these sort of murky closed-door bargains (where iwi consent is traded for ratepayer cash) are happening elsewhere. We'll keep you posted...

Don't tell anyone but... being a diplomat's not such a bad life 🏫 ✈️

Ever stop to think about diplomats living the high life? It's a tough job for the families, sure, but nothing flash boarding schools and a few butlers won't sort out.

Just for the families of two positions – Trade Commissioners and Regional Directors – in the 2022/23 year, New Zealand Trade and Enterprise spent $1.4 million on private education costs, $150k on staff at their accommodation (i.e. diplomat's homes), and $200k for their private vehicles.

Not a bad life, all things considered.

MP's in Depth: Jamie Arbuckle 🎙️

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A few weeks back, Connor sat down with National Party MP Jamie Arbuckle <[link removed]> for this week's episode of Taxpayer Talk as part of our MPs in Depth series.

Jamie was elected on the New Zealand First list at the 2023 General Election, Jamie also remains a current Marlborough District Councillor, a role he has held for fourteen years. Jamie has a horticultural background and spent many of his early years in and around the fruit industry. In the podcast, Jamie discusses why he wanted to be an MP, what drew him to New Zealand First, and some of the areas of law he would like to see change in New Zealand.

Listen to the episode on our website <[link removed]> | Apple Podcasts <[link removed]> | Spotify <[link removed]> | iHeart Radio <[link removed]>

Thank you for your support.


Jordan Williams
Executive Director
New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union

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In the Media:


The Platform Taxpayers’ Union’s Alex Emes on TVNZ’s massive financial losses <[link removed]>

Newstalk ZB The Huddle: Do we think ‘dynamic pricing’ needs regulation? <[link removed]>

Crux Council boss Mike Theelan scrutinised in private workshop <[link removed]>

NZ Herald Watercare’s secret $20 million deal with iwi of ‘murky’ benefit to ratepayers <[link removed]>

Newstalk ZB Barry Soper: ZB senior political correspondent on the latest costly bike rack paid for by Wellington ratepayers <[link removed]> [3:20 – 5:18]

Newstalk ZB Barry Soper: ZB senior political correspondent on the latest costly bike rack paid for by Wellington ratepayers <[link removed]> [5:18 – 6:23]


Media Releases:

Kiwi households paying almost double in rates compared to OECD average <[link removed]>

McLiesh’s mask-slip demonstrates why next Treasury appointment is so vital <[link removed]>

Canterbury bridge blowing out $13.5 million budget with nothing to show for it <[link removed]>

Wellington Mayor making excuses for rates hikes <[link removed]>

Wellington City Council taking ratepayers for a ride with $563k bike rack <[link removed]>

South Taranaki proves Luxon right <[link removed]>

Metlink spends more than $1.3 million on seven toilets <[link removed]>

New Zealand Taxpayers' Union Inc. · 117 Lambton Quay, Level 4, Wellington 6011, New Zealand
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