Simon Flood resignation op-ed
Changes at the top of QAC and our Council might trigger the relationship reset needed to ensure councillors - not QAC and senior council staff - govern our airport.
QAC chair Simon Flood resigned last Tuesday, before his term expired, after several egregious QAC board oversteps.
New QLDC CEO James Stevenson-Wallace heard councillors’ resultant frustration during recent workshops. Where they pushed him and veteran staffer Meaghan Miller - the primary conduit between the two entities - for clarity, honesty, alignment with council’s strategic objectives and more rigorous governance of QAC.
Miller has for years stated the QAC-QLDC relationship relies on trust, confidence and integrity. Qualities rarely shown by QAC, as Protect Queenstown has pointed out repeatedly.
Some recent examples:
- Not telling councillors they’d signed an exclusive agreement to potentially lease valuable industrial zoned airport land for a private/public hospital. And Flood denying the same twice, despite councillors’ direct questions.
- Nor of their plans for a $36 million “industrial subdivision” on airport land.
- Giving three National Party MPs shovels at the runway sod-turning ceremony, but not Mayor John Glover.
It’s not a new pattern. In 2010, QAC’s board secretly sold 24.99% of itself to Auckland Airport, not telling councillors until one hour before their public announcement. That’s the last time QAC lost its board chair.
QAC persuaded the previous council to agree to its $250 million-plus Master Plan, despite providing only a 9-year demand forecast. That CEO’s gone. Recently, QAC announced a line of credit to $600 million.
QAC’s board has consistently ignored council’s strategic objectives in the Statement of Expectations that governs its operations.
The Local Government Act empowers QLDC to set strategic objectives, both financial and non-financial, for our Council Controlled Trading Organisation. QAC’s board must comply. Councillors have never exerted this control.
But the recent SOE workshop gave hope this could change, despite Miller’s pushback to “not throw the baby out with the bathwater”. Councillors made clear their LGA-mandated strategic direction must take precedence over QAC’s Companies Act profit drive.
They questioned Miller’s assertion QLDC had stepped away from constraining airport growth. Mayor John Glover: “What happens when ‘full’ occurs? This is a conversation the current relationship isn’t ready for.”
With much bigger, quieter planes, is the air noise boundary - currently council’s only lever - adequate to control flight and tourist numbers?
It is actually QLDC’s Long Term Plan, now being drafted, that is the critical governance document. This is council’s own strategic plan for the next decade. The Auditor General states this is where QAC’s purpose, activities, governance and objectives should be stipulated. Robust community consultation is mandated. This hasn’t happened.
This loss of vital councillor and community input to strategic decisions - like how many planes or tourists would be too much - is exacerbated by the previous council’s decision to set a three year SOE, out of sync with the LTP process.
Our councillors could insist QAC deliver its 20-year forecast in time to feed into LTP objectives, for full council-led consultation. And to then revisit the SOE, to ensure strategic alignment.
Will they do so at council’s November 12th meeting? And then, what about governance of the new Three Waters CCTO?
