Tony Randle: Wellington City Councillor on the budget cuts, demolition of Begonia House

There are fears big Wellington City Council budget cuts don't go far enough. 

The council yesterday voted in a mammoth meeting to make hundreds of millions of dollars of savings by slashing projects like cycleway spending, and demolishing Begonia House in the Botanic Gardens. 

Councillor Tony Randle told Mike Hosking the projects Mayor Tory Whanau managed to save, like the Golden Mile redevelopment and climate initiatives, should have been cut too. 

He claims they add more spending to the budget and says they now won't be able to make enough savings. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Wellington's famed City Council got together yesterday made a few decisions.
Twenty one amendments close to four hundred million dollars worth
of savings were identified in a good old seven hour meeting.
The plan is now to have a new draft budget,
apparently finalized by December seventeen. Council of Tony Randall was there, Tony.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Morning, Good morning.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
Did the monitor make any difference the crowd monitor.

Speaker 3 (00:20):
No, he's sitting and monitoring, observing from the sidelines. But
we've had a meeting with him and you know, he's
given us a view and I think he's going to
be a plus to our council.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
Good the four hundred million dollars in all the decisions,
was that a direct response of a bloke sitting in
the corner because simming and sent him there? Or did
you finally wake up and get your back together?

Speaker 3 (00:40):
No, it was a result of us not selling the airport.
She is Look, they're going to sell the airport. She
is to replace the emergency fund that we need to
keep some extra money in side in cases of an earthquake
or something, and we didn't sell the shears. I'm not
into selling the silver to pay the groceries, and so
I changed my vote. So we had to make cuts to.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
Restore the emergency funding, and that's why we're doing the
long Term Plan amendment.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
Yeah that no, No, I get all of that. But
what I'm asking was those decisions that were made yesterday,
is that because you're in the gun and the whole
country is now looking at you as a bunch of
incompetence or were you going to do that anyway because
you had to because you weren't selling the shares.

Speaker 3 (01:18):
We had to and we took the advice of our officers.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
But you know, the problem we have in terms of
the decisions is most of the mayor's amendments to what
the officers recommended put money back in. And so I'm
really worried we haven't actually made the cuts.

Speaker 3 (01:31):
No, certainly not the money that you've talked about.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
Is the Golden Mile ever going to be a starter
in any way, shape or form. Was Torri going to
die in the ditch over that?

Speaker 3 (01:41):
I think both are correct.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
Actually Tory put her put the Golden Mile money back in,
so it's no longer subject to any consultation. She seems
determined to get it in and start being built without
the public having any say, and certainly before the election
that's coming up.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
So are things better or not really better, Tony?

Speaker 3 (02:03):
It depends what you mean by beta.

Speaker 1 (02:04):
I think working a little bit more lighter, a foot
bit more money saved, a little bit more fiscally you know.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
Successful. No, no, no, These counselors are determined to implement
green agenda sort of stuff. They are not listening to
the people. They're we're demolishing the Begonia House are kind,
we're looking at demolishing the city of Sea Bridge, the
Mere and the supporters seem determined to turn Wellington into
Copenhagen with more psycho ways, and in the meantime you're

(02:31):
destroying the real Wellington.

Speaker 1 (02:34):
Nicely, put go well Tony Randall, Wellington City councilor.

Speaker 2 (02:37):
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Speaker 1 (02:41):
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