Wellington City Council votes to sell its airport shares, Tory Whanau says it will avoid further cuts

Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has gained a significant win with the city council voting to sell its airport shares.

Another Budget Day of a different kind unfolded today – Wellington City Council decided on its 10-year budget formally known as the Long Term Plan.

The big controversial decision on the agenda was whether to sell the council’s 34 per cent share in Wellington International Airport, worth $278 million.

The council’s usual voting blocs were cast aside to form an unlikely alliance.

Those who voted to sell the airport shares were Whanau, with councillors Tim Brown, Diane Calvert, John Apanowicz, Laurie Foon, Sarah Free, Tony Randle, Nicola Young. Mana Whena representatives Liz Kelly and Holden Hohaia also voted in favour.

Those who voted against selling were councillors Nureddin Abdurahman, Ray Chung, Rebecca Matthews, Ben McNulty, Teri O’Neill, Iona Pannett, Geordie Rodgers and Nīkau Wi Neera.

Whanau said the proceeds of the sale will be transferred into a new green perpetual investment fund.

“By transferring our minority holding in airport shares, we will be able to mitigate our large insurance gap and save ourselves from having to cut potentially hundreds of millions from our capital expenditure”, Whanau said.

“To me, the choice was either sell our shares in one asset, to create a better more resilient asset, or make such big cuts to our core services that our city would essentially be running on bare bones.”

Unions Wellington co-convenor Sabina Rizos-Shaw said the decision was devastating.

“It’s galling to see the mayor and deputy mayor rebuke high-profile Greens, and the party’s manifesto, to push through an unpopular, economically dubious agenda.”

The council also agreed to a record $1.8 billion to fix the city’s ageing and increasingly leaky pipes. Over the next 10 years, one in every four dollars of the council’s capital expenditure will be on three waters.

Wellingtonians, with residents in towns across the country, are fiercely scrutinising what their councils are spending money on amid record rates hikes.

Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has said he expects councils to prioritise the essential services ratepayers expect and critical infrastructure over nice-to-haves.

Today’s decision in Wellington equates to a provisional 17 per cent rate increase. This does not include a 1.6 per cent levy to build a new sludge facility.

The Long Term Plan will be rubber-stamped at a full council meeting at the end of June.

Georgina Campbell is a Wellington-based reporter who has a particular interest in local government, transport, and seismic issues. She joined the Herald in 2019 after working as a broadcast journalist.