A Committee for the Far North?

As Chairman of Auckland District Health Board, I was recently approached by members of the Committee for Auckland, an organization that I knew little about. They wanted to work with the health sector to institute a program of direct intervention for a small number of very expensive problem members of the community.

This work was based on research entitled “Million Dollar Murray,” where a detailed study of one of life’s derelicts had noted that over a four year period this guy had run up a bill of around a million dollars for costs met by the taxpayer to cover his many arrests, court appearances, referrals to hospital emergency wards, drug and alcohol counselling, emergency accommodation grants, various benefits and so on.

The program looks promising and no doubt some form of follow up integrating health with this committee will take place. It was, however the general work of this Committee for Auckland that really got my attention and forced me to think about whether there was merit in such a group up here.

The Committee is made up of leading Aucklanders covering the main business groups, universities, poly-techs and mayors. They haven’t allowed democracy to mess things up, and members cover a wide range of leadership roles. They don’t meet as a hopelessly large talk-fest but utilise the skills they have around a chosen set of tasks all leading to making Auckland a better city.

The handouts that they gave me were clear, simple and very powerful tools analysing the strengths and weaknesses of our largest city. In one very powerful graph they have demonstrated that Auckland actually contributes $4billion of revenue more to the government that it receives back in services, giving strong support to calls for more spend on roading and transport.

They have looked at similar cities and what should be expected as economic measures and this has lead them to identify projects and opportunities. They have lead pressure on the disparate Auckland councils to unite and do something about urban design access to the harbour-side.

Surely we could do with such a group providing accurate defendable information to move the Far North up the economic stakes of our nation. Any takers?