Auckland Port move: Lobby group not worried by slow fundraising
Tuesday, 3 December 2019
A public campaign promoting the relocation of Auckland's port says it has financial backing, despite a sluggish response to a fundraising campaign.
Waterfront 2029 has raised $1300 on a Givealittle page with a target of $250,000 in the week of its launch.
The social media campaign is led by the Stop Stealing Our Harbour group, which has opposed wharf extensions and other encroachments into the Waitematā Harbour.
The campaign has the endorsement of prominent figures such as businessman Sir Stephen Tindall and Sir Peter Blake's widow Pippa, Lady Blake.
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'We have been overwhelmed by public support, and by the messages from the good and great,' Michael Goldwater from Stop Stealing Our Harbour said.
Backers included 'concerned Aucklanders' in addition to the general public, he said.
'There is an enormous battle with vested interests ahead – we desperately need more financial support,' a post on the Waterfront 2029 Facebook page said.
'Even $100 can buy 5000 more Facebook ads, if you can only spare $10, that will at least buy 500.'
Goldwater described the $250,000 figure as a moving target.
The campaign's work could run beyond this month's decision by Cabinet on whether to further investigate the relocation of the Auckland Council-owned port, which has been recommended by a Government-funded working party.
The campaign hoped to promote 7.7 million advertisements through social media sites Facebook and Instagram.
Council-owned Ports of Auckland has clashed with the group on social media, calling Waterfront 2029 'a fake campaign group' and suggesting it was deleting unsupportive comments from its site.
'For the record, we aren't deleting comments unless they are abusive or appear to come from dubious accounts,' the group responded in a post.
Waterfront 2029 involves lobbyist Matthew Hooton and leading public relations company Pead PR. It launched with supportive comments from former prime ministers John Key and Helen Clark.
National party leader Simon Bridges said on Tuesday he was not opposed to the port move, but was not yet convinced.
'Show me the business case, give me a sense that there's something there that is real, that's been thought through,' he said.
A Cabinet sub-committee will on Wednesday consider the working group's final report, which Stuff has obtained, which recommends the three upper North Island port companies at Tauranga, Auckland and Northland be given one year to agree commercial terms for a move.
The still-confidential final report contains no information additional to the interim report released publicly in October, but is a more strongly-worded narrative of the group's view that the shift to Northland by 2034 makes economic and social sense.