Top 5 Issues

1. Rates
   
   John Banks is the only Mayor in New Zealand with a track record of keeping rates at or under consumer/council inflation. In 2009, the John Banks led Auckland City Council delivered an overall rates rise of only 1.9%, and in 2010, continued the record of fiscal prudence with an overall rates rise of 1.95%.
   
   Fiscal prudence doesn’t mean skimping on investing in the community. Because John Banks has sought and won efficiencies in council operations, funds could be made available to invest back into capital works.
   
   As Mayor of Auckland Council, John Banks will ensure water prices reflect the need to provide you with a world class water supply, as well as environmental improvements related to separation of stormwater and similar, but not to include extra dividends to fund non-water activities. John won’t force water reticulation onto those communities that prize their rural/provincial character and don’t want this.
   
   John Banks has a positive record on water pricing in previous years, having reduced by almost half the project cost of water price rises in Auckland City after the City Vision-Labour 2004-2007 council term, also ensuring that regional savings in water were taking place before the supercity transition took place, saving around millions in borrowing costs for Watercare that won’t be passed onto consumers.
   
   John Banks also commits to protecting the family silver. He will not privatise the strategic assets of Auckland Council – rather, he commits to growing them and making them deliver benefits for the people of Auckland. Instead, John Banks sees the efficiencies and savings from a single council as the mechanism by which we can afford more quality assets for our city while keeping rates and water prices affordable.
   
   John Banks also wants to offer Aucklanders the opportunity to invest in their city via infrastructure bonds. He knows many Aucklanders and New Zealanders would love to patriotically invest in secure and highly regarded council bond investments. Many people have been badly burned in the past by finance and investment firms that have mishandled their funds and made speculative investments which have soured. Funding growth in New Zealand, particularly in the new Auckland Council, will be a healthy alternative to risky investments for many New Zealanders. It’s also a positive way in which the new council can grow domestic investment markets, instead of relying solely on overseas owned banks for funding capital works. It also ensures the council has a fiscally prudent spread of debt to fund its activities.
2. John Banks strongly supports the Auckland police meeting the new requirements of supercity policing by reorganising themselves to best deliver law and order services to Aucklanders. He will work with the NZ Police to ensure that they have a structure which will meet local board requirements and enables them to deploy law and order services as they are most urgently needed. For example, under the single city structure, the police will need to consider how they most effectively respond to liquor licensing, civil defence, road policing, crime prevention, community safety, planning, graffiti and family violence.
   
   One of the great successes of the current Auckland City term has been the introduction of CCTV in some mainstreet areas, with a reduction in crime of around 25% in the Newmarket Business Association district. The success was so notable, that the John Banks led council has extended a further $500,000 towards funding CCTV and other appropriate safety and anti-crime assets across mainstreets.
   
   John Banks will push for the rollout of CCTV across Greater Auckland for those mainstreet areas where they believe it will help. John will encourage the use of municipal WIFI to help extend CCTV at low cost to mainstreets, and ensure that CCTV is properly co-ordinated with the police for maximum effectiveness.
   
   Monitoring the CCTV system for Newmarket
   Continue graffiti program that places additional emphasis on catching and prosecuting graffiti vandals through civil courts. Since John Banks has been Mayor, the prosecution of graffiti vandals has increased due to the use of civil prosecutions, where it is often easier and faster to successfully prosecute.
   
   Consider anti-littering by-laws to discourage spontaneous littering. Nothing annoys Aucklanders more than gratuituous abuse of our environments through littering and dumping. John will seek advice on whether the new supercity can bring in by-laws and processes to more effectively deal with the dumping of commercial waste like tyres, as well as the incidents of casual littering in park and mainstreet areas.
   
   John will promote safer and more enjoyable taxi services as a part of encouraging tourism, improving services for Aucklanders, as well as ensuring protection and respect for our taxi driver.
   
   He will lobby government to increase the council’s ability to seek higher standards of service and cleanliness for taxis. It will consider restrictions of council taxi stands to only those operators who meet higher standards.Banks will work with police and the taxi industry to help improve taxi driver safety. He will also encourage “Auckland branding” for taxis to help make them more identifiable to tourists. He will also encourage taxi fleets to adopt cleaner emissions standards and enforce restrictions against taxi operators who fail emissions.
3. Transport
   
   
   John Banks has a public transport vision that would dramatically improve the focus on ferry connections and the wharves that service the Waitemata, East Coast Bays of the North, and Eastern Areas of Manukau. This underutilised public transport service could significantly improve the public transport options for many Auckland citizens, and with integrated ticketing, could assist people easily commute much further than just the ferry connection itself.
   John Banks has a vision for Auckland having one of the best ferry services anywhere in the southern hemisphere
   
   A John Banks led council would seek to expand Birkenhead Ferry services, provide services to Beachhaven, Takapuna, Browns Bay, and even as far as the Gulf Harbour. This would mean rebuilding a Takapuna Wharf, and fixing the run down ferry wharves at Stanley, and Devonport.
   John Banks would also seek to improve ferry connections along the Waitemata Harbour, including as far as West Harbour, a water taxi service for Tamaki to Half-Moon Bay, and improved services from Half-Moon Bay to Auckland CBD.
   
   John will also push for trialling of WIFI on ferries in order to provide a more compelling choice for people who want to use convenient public transport.
   
   An inner city loop and an airport link are two of the main planks of John Banks’ vision for Auckland rail service enhancements.
   
   The proposed inner city rail loop that breaks through the wall at the main CBD station at Britomart and loops back underground towards Karangahape Road would double the train throughput at Britomart and increase the level of service that is provided to the west of the CBD. The creation of a number of CBD and CBD fringe stations would provide greater choice and convenience to people who want to ditch the car and use a consumer-friendly rail service.
   An airport link should also be planned, including the ability for passenger check-in to occur at Britomart Station
   
   Integrated ticketing is on the way to Auckland, with expected delivery around the middle of next year. Once this service is bedded in, John will consider ways to expand the rail/ferry/bus ticketing to include council car parks and other ways to make public transport as easy to use as possible to commuters.
   John Banks will also continue to support the generalised improvements to rail already occurring around the region, including New Lynn, Grafton, Newmarket and Onehunga station upgrades, some of these now on line.
   
   The third Waitemata harbour crossing must include rail capability as well, which in time will provide regular rail services to the North Shore via the Northern Busway.
   
   John Banks will continue to advocate for strategic roading improvements around Auckland to assist with bus, commuter and commercial services traffic, including Penlink in Rodney, SH20 and the Western Ring Route in Auckland City and the west, plus a third harbour crossing, which is likely to be a tunnel from Wynyard Point to Northcote. This harbour crossing must include provision for rail, and the existing harbour bridge should become a arterial road rather than a state highway. Strategic bus routes like the Central Connector will also be promoted, possibly also as HOV lanes where appropriate.
   
   Banks will also advocate for strategic cycling improvements. This includes exploration of cycleways that would dramatically boost cycle patronage along key routes. As Mayor of Auckland City, John Banks has found funding for a CBD-Domain-Parnell cycleway, which would boost the cycleway access between the University of Auckland and a rail station which is anticipated to become one of its closest rail links.
   
   John will also promote safer and more enjoyable taxi services. He will encourage higher standards of service/cleanliness and safety for taxis, through lobbying central government but also by using tools like restrictions of council taxi stands to only those operators who meet higher standards. John will also work with police and the taxi industry to help improve driver safety. In some parts of Auckland, bus lanes could also operate as higher occupancy vehicle lanes (HOV). Taxis carrying fares should also be considered for inclusion into HOV lanes.
4. John Banks will continue to defend heritage and character areas through the city. As Mayor of Auckland Council, he will work with community groups, heritage societies and private property interests to ensure that sound heritage and character outcomes for Auckland are reached. For example, Mayor Banks used his influence to help promote a city-wide accord on heritage and character through the successful agreement on “Plan Change 163″, which ensured proper criteria was agreed on for heritage and character zones.
   
   Ensure Urban Design oversight on transport CCO projects over a certain dollar value. Auckland Transport will have an important role to improve public transport outcomes in Auckland, but they will need to ensure that modern urban design practices are taken into account to ensure that their work represents places that people will use and enjoy.
   
   John Banks will promote the reduction of street clutter, and will promote the learnings from the Kingsland mainstreet area trial which saw a reduction in 70% of council street signage, which saves ratepayer money, makes it easier for people to move around (particularly those with disabilities), and provides a more attractive streetscape environment.
   
   John Banks will also promote a policy of improved pedestrianisation in our business and mainstreet areas. In addition to removal of street clutter, street upgrades in the future should take into account the fact that mainstreets exist first for people, and cars second. Shared spaces should be considered in the future for those mainstreet areas that desire increased people spaces for cafes, shopping and more. Traffic signalling should also reflect the new urban design practices of focus on pedestrians – when it comes to people concentrated spaces – cars should come second to the safety and amenity of people.
5. Infrastructure
   
   Auckland deserves world class fibre access, and this means in the first instance a vision of fibre-to-the-premises for businesses and consumers, where practical. John will advocate for Auckland’s fair share and early adoption of fibre through the government’s crown fibre policy, and assist fibre rollout by offering disused and/or current pipe and works infrastructure to assist for fibre ducting and trenching. This could also be done in co-ordination with Auckland Council works that involve streetscape works or where other efficiencies could be found.
   
   John Banks also understands the needs of top quality internet access for rural communities, and has already supported applications from rural parts of Greater Auckland like Great Barrier Island.
   
   Banks will push for Auckland WIFI rollout in Greater Auckland business mainstreets akin to the existing Auckland City WIFI network (a partnership with the private sector), that offers people free access to the Auckland council website and affordable access for the internet.
   
   Focus the expansion of Auckland Council WIFI around Greater Auckland to include important transport nodes like ferry terminals, bus and rail stations, and even on ferries themselves to ensure that this form of public transport becomes as attractive as possible to public transport users.
   
   A John Banks led council will also advocate for improving Auckland’s energy security which has often been put at risk due to a lack of redundancy in the power grid. John supports the NAaN initiative that will help resolve energy transmission security for Greater Auckland, especially the centre and north. John also supports energy efficiency initiatives, which includes more energy efficient buildings, self-sufficiency of electricity supply and renewable energy sources (which include solar, wind and hydro).
   
   John Banks will also seek to improve stormwater and sewage networks, and will seek to ensure Watercare reduces the risk of overflows at Auckland beaches. Under John Banks’s two terms as Mayor, significant work has been done to improve Auckland’s stormwater systems, including the undergrounding of the Hobson Bay pipeline, whose replacement system will practically end the possibility of any sewage overflows on a large part of the eastern beaches of Auckland City. Other work includes the Motions Creek catchment, which was completed in 2010.
   
   Tourism and visitor facilities like the Viaduct Events Centre (now under construction and planned for opening prior to the Rugby World Cup) will also be promoted and advanced. John will also seek to maintain tourist iSites across Greater Auckland, and support the work of Tourism Auckland and their new board in their goals for promoting Auckland as a tourist destination.
   
   John Banks has a vision that a national convention centre would be build in Auckland on its waterfront as a part of the masterplanned development of the Auckland waterfront. John’s vision is that this is ideally located on Bledisloe Wharf, when land is progressively released back to the Auckland public by the Ports of Auckland Ltd. A national convention centre would be a huge economic driver that would create jobs in accomodation, hospitality, tourism and more. Any such convention centre would require Government assistance for the bulk of the funding.

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