DCC: Sorting THE MESS

Is it now time for a commissioner to be appointed to govern Dunedin? Russell Garbutt asks the question. (ODT)

### ODT Online Fri, 1 Aug 2014
Opinion
Council failing to govern Dunedin
By Russell Garbutt
There are a number of factors that point to the drastic action of appointing a commissioner to govern Dunedin as being the only solution to contain a council unable or unwilling to govern a city in accordance with the requirements of the Local Government Act. Such factors include the financial position Dunedin residents find themselves in. While Dunedin’s rate of growth is static, the population is made up of a significant number of transitory students at the city’s tertiary institutions and a significant number of residents who are elderly and have limited incomes. And yet this same population has a level of debt per ratepayer second only in the country behind Auckland, which is growing in size and ability to pay off debt. Most of this debt is directly due to the decision to fund a new rugby stadium that a previous council decided to progress, despite the lack of private construction funding. The truth behind this project will be revealed only by a full forensic audit of all matters connected to the stadium, but this council seems unwilling to learn what happened and even more unwilling to be able to take any action that may flow from such an independent audit.
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● Russell Garbutt, formerly from Dunedin, is a Clyde resident.

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Cr Calvert “fired a shot at Cr Benson-Pope, claiming he had access to answers – as a committee chairman – in ways some other councillors might not enjoy”. (ODT)

### ODT Online Fri, 1 Aug 2014
278 official requests to council for information
By Chris Morris
Two of Dunedin’s city councillors are helping flood Dunedin City Council staff with official information requests, as a third councillor questions the cost of providing so many answers. Figures released to the Otago Daily Times yesterday showed the council has received 278 official information requests since July 1 last year, more than in previous years. The requests included 34 sent by the city’s elected members, most of which had come from Crs Hilary Calvert and Lee Vandervis, it was confirmed.
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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

*Image: DCC YouTube screenshot reworked by whatifdunedin

Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) – CULPABLE #pokierorts

● The Trusts Charitable Foundation (TTCF Inc) ● The Trusts Community Foundation Ltd (TTCF Ltd) ● Otago Rugby Football Union (ORFU) ● Professional Rugby ● Centre of Excellence for Amateur Sport ● Harness Racing ● Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) ● Gambling Commission ● Pokies ● Rorts ● Organised Crime ● Serious Fraud ● Political Interference

### ODT Online Fri, 26 Oct 2012
Trust audit labelled ‘a white wash’
By Hamish McNeilly
[Whistleblower Martin Legge] says an Internal Affairs audit is a “whitewash” after it failed to act on his material involving the Otago Rugby Football Union, South Auckland bars and a pokie trust.[…]An audit of The Trusts Community Foundation Ltd (TTCFL) was released last week under the Official Information Act. Earlier this year, the ODT reported the union had bought three Auckland-based bars and entered a relationship with the pokies trust, then called The Trusts Charitable Foundation (TTCF).

“At each change of ownership, it was looked at, and there was no evidence of illegality, and we had no reason to not approve the changes,” the [DIA] audit noted.

Mr Legge alleges that relationship – concerning the ownership of the South Auckland bars known as the “Jokers Group” – resulted in the union receiving more than $6 million in pokie grants from the trust between 2005 and 2011.
The Internal Affairs audit, which covers the period April 1, 2010, to January 31 this year, noted “the Department has undertaken a number of separate investigations into ‘Jokers Group’ and its ownership company over the years”.

ORFU general manager Richard Kinley said he could not comment because the audit concerned an earlier administration, and he had not read the released audit.

The audit also examined three Jokers Group grants given to the ORFU from the trust totalling $379,767 in approved payments. They were found to be compliant.
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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Bad press for ORFU –NZ Herald

● The Trusts Charitable Foundation (TTCF Inc) ● The Trusts Community Foundation Ltd (TTCF Ltd) ● Otago Rugby Football Union (ORFU) ● Professional Rugby ● Centre of Excellence for Amateur Sport ● Harness Racing ● Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) ● Gambling Commission ● Pokies ● Rorts ● Organised Crime ● Serious Fraud ● Political Interference

### nzherald.co.nz 5:30 AM Wednesday Oct 24, 2012
Opinion
We’re relying on money poured through pokies
By Brian Rudman
The latest Pub Charity advertisement, promoting the $20,186,931 distributed to good causes over the past six months, has a certain similarity to the advertising blitzkrieg being conducted by the cigarette industry. Both try to distract us from the distinctly unpleasant underbellies of their respective industries.[…]Pub Charity chief executive Martin Cheer, in last Sunday’s advertisement[…]claimed that “charitable donations” that are “critical for causes from air rescue to opera” will be in jeopardy. He said Auckland Council was about to feed community groups and charitable organisations “a super size pile of bull about the future of charitable gaming machines in their territory” and that staff were using incorrect and misleading statistics to persuade community boards that “gaming machine funding is not that important or effective”. Mr Cheer’s comments are just a rehash of an earlier statement he issued in May, but they did draw my attention once more to where Pub Charities funds come from.

Two years ago, the former chief executive of the Community Gaming Association, Francis Wever, wrote to the Minister of Internal Affairs claiming that corrupt behaviour in his own industry was “all-pervasive and pernicious” with “endemic non-compliance”.

This year we read of how the Otago Rugby Union bought three South Auckland pubs then siphoned $5 million in pokie profits out of the areas – mainly Manurewa – to help prop up the failing Dunedin sporting body. What’s protecting the pokie industry from reform is that it props up respectable New Zealand.
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● Brian Rudman is a Herald columnist looking at Auckland and national issues.

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

DScene: Russell Garbutt seeks DIA file to Crown Law #pokierorts

● The Trusts Charitable Foundation (TTCF Inc) ● The Trusts Community Foundation Ltd (TTCF Ltd) ● Otago Rugby Football Union (ORFU) ● Professional Rugby ● Centre of Excellence for Amateur Sport ● Harness Racing ● Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) ● Gambling Commission ● Pokies ● Rorts ● Organised Crime ● Serious Fraud ● Political Interference

### DScene 3 Oct 2012 (page 3)
DIA says no wrongdoing
By Wilma McCorkindale
Dunedin man Russell Garbutt questions the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) investigations into alleged pokie rorts involving Otago sporting organisations. Garbutt, a former chairman of Sport Otago, said the DIA told him at a meeting in Wellington earlier this year it had a major investigation under way into an alleged series of complicated transactions allegedly directing pokie funds through an organisation called the Centre of Excellence for Amateur Sport.

“It is abundantly clear, in my view, the Centre of Excellence was operating for the ORFU,” Garbutt said.

Related pokie grants were administered by The Trusts Charitable Foundation. It has since been revealed the [Centre of Excellence] was applying for grants [funded] by pokies at certain Auckland bars on behalf of the Otago Rugby Football Union. It was also revealed the ORFU had interests in the bars.

“If the DIA is going to prosecute, it has to go to Crown Law. Crown Law is saying there’s insufficient evidence to prosecute. I’m saying let’s see the evidence, let’s see the file they produced to Crown Law, and see if [the DIA] produced all of the evidence that was supplied to them. What is the basis by which Crown Law says there is insufficient evidence?”
{continues} #bookmark

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr