Desley Simpson
Auckland, September 21, 2021
Yesterday’s announcement (September 20, 2021) that Auckland will be moving to Level 3 at 11.59 pm tonight was some much-needed good news.
From tomorrow (September 22, 2021), many of our local businesses will be allowed to open under strict health and safety guidelines and with contactless pick-up and delivery.
I am fortunate that my ward, Orakei, is well known for its fantastic food and beverage providers (including some great Indian restaurants) and so I am looking forward to getting out and supporting locals as much as I can and encourage you to do the same.
It has been a very long five weeks for small Auckland business owners, and I am sure that they will welcome your support.
Vaccination important
We will remain in Level 3 for at least two weeks. The fastest way out is to ensure that Aucklanders are fully vaccinated. The vaccine rollout is such an important part of our ability to move beyond lockdowns, and of Auckland’s recovery.
Auckland has 1.4 million people over the age of 12, and this time last week only 37.7% were fully vaccinated and 35.6% had their first jab.
As a Gateway City, we remain very vulnerable to Covid and the Delta strain, in particular, so we need to see a significant increase in vaccination rates.
I am hoping for a big jump in the numbers when the next weekly update comes through.
I am fully vaccinated and support our aim in getting Auckland as close as possible to 90% fully or at least partially vaccinated in the next two weeks.
Many of the vaccination centres are taking walk-ins with short or no wait times, and many of our local pharmacies and GPs are also offering the vaccine. I urge you and those you know to get vaccinated as soon as you can.
Financial impact
As Chair of Auckland Council’s Finance and Performance Committee, I am also focused on where we are at financially with lockdown and Covid impacts.
As a City, even before Covid, we were facing some real challenges.
Responding to the pressures of ageing infrastructure, population growth, the challenges of climate change and the changing expectations of our community have always been an uphill battle. Regardless of this pandemic, these are realities we simply cannot ignore and require a lift in investment.
We adopted our 10-year Budget in June, setting out a record $31.8 billion of investment over the next decade. Our key challenge was the large and growing gap between the demand for investment in our assets and services, and our ability to fund that investment.
In the context of Covid, we also had to ensure that, should another lockdown occur, we had enough capacity to cope with that. We responded to the challenges of 2020 by raising our debt a little, saving a record amount of money, stopping some of the ‘nice to haves’, selling some of the assets we no longer needed, reducing staff numbers in some areas and generally, like everyone else, tightening our belt.
Prudent Budget
I said at the time that it was a budget prudent enough to ensure that if we stayed safe, we could recover well, and if we didn’t, we could weather that storm too. I still stand by that.
This lockdown will certainly have a significant impact on Council finances, and we are a long way short of where we would have been without Covid.
However, we learnt a lot from our Covid-based Emergency Budget last year and have worked hard to save money, prioritise spend and deliver more efficiently.
The longer we stay in lockdown, the bigger the challenge becomes, but a range of contingencies have been factored into our 10-year Budget to create some flexibility to be able to manage the impact.
I am committed to making sure that we recover as quickly as we can from the economic and financial impact of Covid-19, which will continue to be felt for some time.
We have a long way to go, but if we work together, we will get through this, and Auckland will be stronger as a result.
Desley Simpson is a second term Auckland Councillor representing the Orakei Ward. She chairs the Finance and Performance Committee, the Value for Money Committee and the Auckland Domain Committee.
