In Len Brown, Auckland has a mayor who is a poster boy for venal self-serving politicians. In his own way no doubt Len is a decent kind of guy. He hardly deserves to be demonised. At a dinner party or chatting over the back yard fence Len would probably be delightful company. He means well. But as mayor of Auckland's largest city, he is a disaster.
Why so? Len is addicted to spending. He believes he has been elected to spend. He has a duty to spend. People need a vision, a grand vision of the future. Auckland needs to become one of the greatest, grandest cities of the world--in the top twenty, or top whatever. He knows that people love this stuff. He wants to deliver for them. He believes not only does it make him popular as a leader, but also it produces much better outcomes for the people. So, a win-win for all.
In Len's self-diagnosed image of a visionary he has adopted hook, line and sinker Kevin Costner's maxim: "If you build it, people will come". Someone has to think big. Someone has to get things moving. Someone has to conjure up a vision of the future that will make people excited about their lives, giving them hope.
When the little boy asks the emperor, How will you pay for it all, Len has no idea. Apart from the Costner maxim: if you build it, money will come. Take just one small example of Len's folly: swimming pools.
When Len was Mayor of Manukau City he adopted a policy of making all swimming pools free to the public. If they were free, people would use them more, enjoy the city more, be in better health as a result--visionary stuff. Now Len wants to do the same for all the swimming pools in Auckland. This from the NZ Herald:
Auckland Mayor Len Brown wants ratepayers to believe free entry to the city's 24 swimming pools will cost $5.5 million when it cost $6.7 million to provide free entry to six swimming pools when he was mayor of Manukau City. Mr Brown is relying on a study by the international consultancy KPMG, which arrived at the $5.5 million figure on the assumption that there would be no change in patronage and operating costs and increased revenue from things such as spas, saunas, icecreams and chips.Maukau's six "free" swimming pools cost the taxpayers $6.7m per annum. Auckland City's 24 "free" swimming pools will cost less, $5.5m. Build it, people will come. Len does not care about the costs; he has a magic wand. It will all work out some time in the future. What a shame Auckland does not have 50 swimming pools. If it did, making them all free would not cost a bean--it would make money! So runs Len's money calculator.
Len is a big spender of other people's money. He is able and willing to suspend disbelief when it comes to the "value" his spending will create. He is a poster boy for the typical politician of our generation. Someone else will always pay--in the future. He would mortgage our grandchildren, enslaving them to his largesse.
Let Len and his ilk have their way long enough and eventually we will run out of other people's money. Then it will be pay-back time. But by then, Len will be long gone, mouldering in his grave. Our grandchildren will shake their heads at the stupidity and folly of their grandparents and parents being gulled by idiotic "spend and hope" visionaries.
They will bitterly learn the truth that the borrower ends up being enslaved to the lender.
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