Council

Yeah. So in both— and I don't know enough about the Building Heritage and Resilience Fund, sorry— but the external staff recruitment and the external leadership training, we have certainly stripped those costs in there right back, you know. And so I think really reflecting for external staff recruitment, there are some specialist roles across the organisation that we do require specialist, you know, recruitment agency support to actually fill. Although, you know, we have managed the budget right down given the current environment that we are operating in. So we probably couldn't find that kind of saving from those. But as I read this REC, it's not specific to those areas. Those are ideas, and we could certainly look to find the $29,000 elsewhere at our discretion through our budgets.

But the Built Heritage and Centre Fund, you can just take money?

Yeah, so perhaps my question has been answered. I actually couldn't remember whether we even still had a Building Heritage and Resilience Fund or whether it changed to an Earthquake Resilience Fund. But yeah, I think being specific like that is too narrow, so I'd be happier if it was just ad hoc. Discretion. Thank you. And it does raise for me also issues around some of our caregivers that we let in for free, up to 2 I think.

I want to actually start off thanking the Mayor and giving her quite a bit of credit in this. We've worked together on quite a few things. On this. But the main thing I really want to give her credit of is the reality is without her moving a middle ground option on Baconia House, I think the impulses of this table would have been to gold plate the entire thing. And that has saved ratepayers $9 million at least. So that is sometimes leadership is swallowing that, um, putting up something in the middle so that something worse doesn't come through. So we We could have wasted more money, but you know, we've thrown $320 million of heritage at the Town Hall, what's another $10 million on top of that? Look, with the waterfront fencing, I just want to thank me again, so securing that consultation and going out to the public, it's right to go to the public, and actually, if we went forward with that without a consultation, it will politicise the long-term viability of safety improvements, create a target. You do have to bring the public with you on some of these big changes, especially on an area with that level of sensitivity. And I'll have a very open mind to hearing what the public has to say, and also looking forward to the coronial results when they come through. The last thing really in here is I'll cast everyone's mind back to June. By a casting vote— and thank you to the Chair for that casting vote— we decided to allocate that if there were any savings from the Town Hall project that would flag them against water CapEx as in the first priority. Given now that we are putting $25 million to Wellington Water in this budget, it seems at least prudent to take that allocation and that it could potentially offset the splurge that we are putting on the Begonia House. So I think that's, you know, for me, I would much rather see that saving from the Town Hall help ramp up the half a kilometre of pipes that are being replaced in the year. I think that would be a more prudent use, but it seems that Councillors here are inclined to go for plants over pipes. So I'll leave it there. Thank you again on these changes. I think, you know, it reflects the will of this committee, albeit that we are throwing almost $50 million of spending back in for a single year. It will be interesting to see whether the auditor comes back with any qualification and what that might lead to as well. Cheers.

So I'm not going to relitigate everything because we've already been here before. So I just want to— a couple of points. So obviously a big thanks to staff. That has involved a lot of extra work for you because of the way we make political decisions. To the Chair and the Mayor, thank you very much for your guidance and your support through this process. It's helpful. So I'm going to talk about the waterfront fencing, and those of you who know me know me to be a very, very conservative person. So I just first of all want to start off by saying my heart, you know, really goes out to the families of the victims. Of people who have lost their lives on one of our most important public spaces. I just, I can't even imagine the pain. So thank you very much for turning up to the coronial inquiry and giving your perspective on this. So I will be supporting money to, just bearing in mind as we heard from Mr Roberts that it is about edge protection, it's not automatically all about fencing. I would obviously expect it would be targeted, you know, in the most unsafe places, and obviously would be done in an aesthetically beautiful way. We spend a lot of money on making this place good, but I am very comfortable with taking reasonable safety measures, and not just here, on our roads where we cause carnage as well, as another example where we need to be more safety conscious. You may find my perspective then on the City to Sea Bridge puzzling. I think that's ludicrous. It's not going to kill anyone unless the most catastrophic circumstances happen, in which case we've got much bigger issues. Whereas this, the access to the waterfront, is a real risk on a daily basis, including that super dodgy jumping plank. I do not know how that got through health and safety as well. So I'm not going to move an amendment today, but I am very interested in looking at whether we can move the money from the bridge, just the bridge, so it's still in the budget to go towards the fencing. So I'm just giving you early indication of that. I just want to also give a huge shout out to Matai Moana. I have supported Colonial Heritage today, or its descendant, it was built in 1960. So I will always counterbalance that with making sure that we protect Indigenous lands, Indigenous biodiversity. It's absolutely critical, and it will be a massive massive attraction for our city, our country, and hopefully would elevate again the role of mana whenua in looking after our land. So I think it's absolutely important if we are talking about foreign biodiversity, we always do more for indigenous biodiversity. And just the last— bikes, I'm not gonna move an amendment around that, that still bothers me. I don't agree with cuts. We still need to keep making progress there. And the last point I just wanted to make was around the water entity, which has been curiously non-contentious. I am deeply concerned about going into yet another entity, another entity which wants a direct relationship with the consumer. I think this is a disaster. I'm disappointed that the left— I know why you've done it, but I I'm disappointed that many people have come in behind this option. For once, Councillor Brown and I agree. I think we should be a standalone entity and that we be ultimately accountable. There are things that we have done well in the past, and maybe the Wellington Water experiment didn't work so well. So I think my concern is that there is a lot of focus on a whole lot of issues, but actually this water entity issue is probably the most important that won't get the attention it needs. So I hope people will submit on it and do have a really good think about the best way to do it. But, you know, my view is that water entities are public entities that are directly accountable to the people that they serve, and that's the direction that we need to be taking. Kia ora.