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MIKE TANA IS UNDER FIRE OVER TRANSACTIONS ON HIS COUNCIL PETROL CARD
MIKE TANA IS UNDER FIRE OVER TRANSACTIONS ON HIS COUNCIL PETROL CARD

Local ElectionsOctober 8, 2019

Cheat sheet: The storm around the Porirua mayor’s spending

Staff Writer
MIKE TANA IS UNDER FIRE OVER TRANSACTIONS ON HIS COUNCIL PETROL CARD
MIKE TANA IS UNDER FIRE OVER TRANSACTIONS ON HIS COUNCIL PETROL CARD

In the final week of the local election campaign, Porirua mayor Mike Tana has been embroiled in yet another brouhaha around how he has spent public money. What’s the latest, and what will it mean for the race? 

The Spinoff local election coverage is entirely funded by The Spinoff Members. For more about becoming a member and supporting The Spinoff’s journalism, click here.

What’s all this then?

“Potentially unusual” transactions have come up on the petrol card of Porirua mayor Mike Tana, in the latest in a long string of episodes bringing his spending into question. The council’s chief executive Wendy Walker spoke to the office of the auditor-general about them, who passed it on to the council’s auditors. They closed the investigation after Mayor Tana didn’t provide the required information, and it could now get bumped up to police.

What does unusual transactions mean?

Potentially nothing, but if that’s the case an explanation could be easy to come by. The story was first broken by Stuff, who reported that it related to “a number of times” that Tana’s 60-litre mayoral car had been refilled in the space of two days, according to Tana himself. They didn’t necessarily correspond with travel to events in his diary, raising questions about what the car was used for, or even if the card was being used to fill another vehicle – Tana denies this.

Is that a lot of petrol to use?

It depends how much you’re driving, but Kiwiblog’s David Farrar crunched some rough numbers on that. Basically, he would’ve had to have travelled about 500kms to empty the tank. That would take you to Hamilton from Porirua, if you’re wondering. It’s not beyond the realm of possibility for a mayor to travel that much over a busy two days, particularly a mayor who is noted for getting out and about. But again, why is it then being sent up to the video referee?

How has it gone down with his colleagues?

Councillor and mayoral candidate ‘Ana Coffey sent an originally private email raising concerns, but an explanation hadn’t been forthcoming. Nothing came of it except a post on Mike Tana’s Facebook page saying that he hadn’t done anything wrong, and would cooperate fully. He also accused those bringing it up of “politicking” as the election drew near.

So Coffey released the letter publicly. In it, she hammered him for not providing the information to councillors, putting blameless staff in the gun, and “not being responsive to the seriousness of the situation”. It was an expression as well of the extreme frustration many councillors have come to feel with Tana, after repeatedly having to demand transparency around spending. It also doesn’t help that Porirua’s Council is hard up for money, along with many of the city’s residents.

This has happened before?

This has happened many times. There were cash withdrawals on a council credit card, which resulted in council staff removing the ability to withdraw cash on it. He voluntarily returned that card in the end. Some questioned expenses that were then reimbursed as well, but that isn’t cost-neutral for the council organisation, as there are costs involved both in looking into the expenses, and effectively loaning the money out. There have been many other incidents, and there are generally explanations, or at least admissions of “honest mistakes” from Tana. But Coffey says there’s a pattern of “gaslighting” in those explanations – expressions of honesty alongside accusations that he’s being set up. “I am bewildered that as a councillor who has a responsibility for the stewardship of public money, I am being accused of doing my job,” she said on Twitter.

What will it mean for the race? 

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It came out at an interesting time of the election period. As of October 7, only 15.8% of eligible voters had cast a ballot – 2.2% lower than at the same time in 2016. That could rise with more deliveries of the post, but it could well be that a lot of voters were still making up their mind when the story broke. It could be the last thing they read before filling out their ballot. If that’s the case, it will come down to whether or not they trust Tana’s explanation.

On the other hand, so many stories about Tana’s spending have been on the public record over the last three years. Voters may have already made up their minds long ago about the allegations. Either way, if they want to express a view on it, time is quickly running out.

The Spinoff local election coverage is entirely funded by The Spinoff Members. For more about becoming a member and supporting The Spinoff’s journalism, click here.

Keep going!
FinalPitchJohn

Local ElectionsOctober 8, 2019

John Tamihere: My final pitch to voters

Guest writer
FinalPitchJohn

We asked the two leading Auckland mayoral contenders to write a ‘final pitch’ to voters. This is what John Tamihere wrote. You can read Phil Goff’s pitch here. (Important note: if you’re voting by post, get your papers in the mail today, Tuesday. If you don’t have papers, or can’t get them in the mail today, you can still vote: read this.)

The Spinoff local election coverage is entirely funded by The Spinoff Members. For more about becoming a member and supporting The Spinoff’s journalism, click here.

It is always pleasing to be able to write on a platform that has consistently been in opposition to my candidacy, article after article after article. 

I make no apologies for being born and bred in working class west Auckland. And I make no apologies for being one of 12 children born to a labouring Māori father that left school at 12 to help feed his own whānau. 

My well-read and educated Pākehā mother ensured, from her strong Irish background that we were schooled at Catholic schools and practised that faith. She was a proud third generation Kiwi republican. Little did she know that her family would disown her for marrying a Māori and it was her faith that always came to her rescue in her most difficult moments. 

I was the first in my neighbourhood to go to university and graduate with a double law degree. I did not and would not ever turn my back on the community I was raised in and have always stayed out here in the service of the west Auckland community. 

I do not think act, speak or look like a number of The Spinoff’s employees, who always write me down because they will never be able to bridle me. 

This small back story helps shape who and what I am and why I am standing for mayor. 

A working class person of mixed origin has a right to aspire to higher office in this country without being told by The Spinoff or the ruling elite running the Labour Party that I have to go to the back of the bus because they have chosen Mr Goff to go to the front of it. To assert their total domination and power, they then rejected me as a member of the Labour Party, noting that my father had made me a member when I was eight years old when he was a member of the Labourers’ Union. 

Fifty-two years later, I made a decision to run for mayor of Auckland because I will not allow fellow humans to lay in the gutter of any city. We cannot normalise the abnormal and surrender to this conduct. My generation is responsible and it’s up to my generation to fix a number of things that we have done wrong. 

In housing, the market was never going to meet the demand for housing supply. The market always moves towards cartels and monopolies and we see it from petrol to banking to food electricity and construction. 

The narrative and the contest in Auckland will never be changed from Wellington ruled by the two old tribes. 

The undoubted power, population and leverage of Auckland will seize on devolution into the communities as opposed to centralisation from Wellington which we should have put to bed last century. 

No government can form unless it wins Auckland. No cabinet can be appointed unless is has a significant number of ministers from Auckland. 

Auckland is the total population of the South Island plus 50%. It generates 40% of the nation’s GDP. It is over one in three of the population of this country. It is the commercial and intellectual capital of the Pacific. It is the only globally scalable city in the country. 

We must now have a leader that asserts Auckland’s rights at this special moment in time, where we are too big not to have major infrastructure investment but too small to fund it from our ratepayer base. 

Aucklanders willingly paid for the rebuild of Christchurch. Aucklanders willingly paid for the rebuild of Kaikoura and the repairs to Wellington. The $3 billion Provincial Growth Fund is funded by Aucklanders, but we are not allowed to apply for one cent of that fund. 

The time has come for change and Auckland needs a champion, rather than a puppet to Wellington. 

The Spinoff local election coverage is entirely funded by The Spinoff Members. For more about becoming a member and supporting The Spinoff’s journalism, click here.