While it may appear Wayne Brown is leaving no stone unturned in his epic search for savings, golf enthusiasts like me can rest assured the vast tracts of manicured grass on which we play are safe from budgetary scrutiny.

Dear Auckland ratepayers,

As you’ll know, the council is currently consulting on its proposed budget plans for 2023/24.

This is a fairly crucial budget, not only because it’s Wayne “Fix It” Brown’s first as mayor, but more significantly because it aims to fundamentally reshape the services council delivers. 

I write as someone who helped out with Efeso Collins’ mayoral campaign, so you might say this is just sour grapes. But this is not a dig at our city’s newly elected leader – rather I’m more interested in the blinkered way our council’s money mandarins frame what can and can’t be cut.

But before I continue, can I start by saying thank you, given I’m one of a small, privileged group who is able to enjoy relatively exclusive access to the $2.9 billion worth of land that’s either owned or managed by council for golf. It’s strangely comforting knowing that my weird addiction for hitting a small white ball into a tin-lined cup around manicured fields is so favoured by our city’s decision makers that it continues to avoid any kind of budgetary scrutiny from bureaucratic number crunchers. 

Obviously, my tongue is firmly lodged in my cheek, as the contradiction is not lost on me that these vast tracts of land totalling around 535 hectares are preserved for a stereotypically wealthy set of older male Aucklanders, while a raft of services, programmes and facilities that serve a far wider and more diverse cross-section of our society is about to be slashed.

And I must admit I wasn’t really aware of the scale of my privilege, which is why I thought it was worth bringing to attention. But this figure of $2.9 billion is hardly a secret. In fact, it was while researching a small local story for a community magazine my wife and I run that I stumbled on a 2022 report by council officials to the Māngere-Ōtāhuhu Local Board, outlining the need for a rethink in how these golf courses are managed.

Along with stating that the land golf courses currently occupy is worth the deficit-crushing number of $2.9b, it also outlined that golf is played by only around 100,000 Aucklanders and that many courses’ leases are up for renewal soon. 

Ironically, the story I was researching was about plans to upgrade a park for Māngere. This large, grassy expanse is creatively named Centre Park, given its proximity to the rest of the suburb, and while it has a smallish playground, the fields lack bike paths, basketball courts, exercise facilities and picnic tables that would turn this sleepy, “under-utilised” (according to council’s own reports) space into a hive of activity. Unfortunately, there’s currently no money to do these changes, so the local board has done the next best thing which is create a detailed masterplan in the hope that the millions needed to progress things materialises in future budgets. 

But as the city’s soon-to-be-jumping-ship chief executive Jim Stabback says, “council’s facing some significant financial challenges”, so it’s understandable that money for a park that serves only roughly 80,000 people can’t be a priority. And yet, a slightly higher number of Aucklanders continue to get exclusive use of 535 hectares for golf. 

But it’s not just community parks that council can’t fund. Along with proposed cuts to library hours, arts programmes, youth employment skills training and community-run initiatives that reduce the impact of climate change, there are also plans to cut funding to humble but indispensable Citizen Advice Bureaus. 

My understanding is that the savings from shutting down CABs could be in the region of $2 million, while the cost of paying out redundancies to the many of its long-suffering staff could push into the hundreds of thousands. The trade-off seems negligible unless there are also plans in the pipeline to sell the buildings many of these CABs operate from – but that’s just me utilising some creative thinking.

It would be easy to lay the blame at the feet of the new mayor and his fellow councillors, but it strikes me that council officials have had plenty of time to scope out the potential returns of selling some golf courses, or at the very least, rezone these clubs so they pay rates at a level that reflects the value of their land. 

I’m well aware that writing such a column could see me blacklisted from these 13 council-managed courses, but given there are a further 25 privately owned courses in Auckland, my addiction should be able to continue unabated.

Given all this, it would be appropriate to give the Auckland mayor the final word and even though it’s from a response to my esteemed friend Sam Brooks, it still applies. 

“Don’t fucking come and talk to me, write a submission.”