West Auckland's licensing trusts election: Why it's so different this year

Tuesday, 20 August 2019

  ANALYSIS: The battle for West Auckland's alcohol monopoly has never been this hotly contested.

A total of 34 candidates have put their names forward for election to the Waitākere and Portage Licensing Trusts – collectively known as the Trusts.

Only the Trusts can be granted certain types of alcohol licences in West Auckland, meaning they have a legal monopoly on pubs and bottle stores.

This isn't the largest contingent of challengers ever. In the 2016 elections, 37 people contested the 17 positions on the Trusts.

**READ MORE:

* West Auckland action group announces election line-up to 'challenge the status quo'

* Group close to forcing referendum over West Auckland alcohol monopoly

* Fighting the big guy: West Aucklander's battle to end booze monopoly

* Candidates in the running for West Auckland's alcohol trust board**

But this year's election will be the Davids challenging the Goliaths – the latter being the current, elected members who have been on the board for years, some more than 20 years. Most of them are politicians.

All but two of the current 17 elected members of the two trusts are running for re-election. 

The Davids are the members of a community group called the West Auckland Licensing Trusts Action Group (WALTAG), a group that has been pushing for a referendum, challenging the monopoly of liquor sales in this part of Auckland.

They're ready for a battle.

The Trusts have always had their fair share of opposition, but this time around they face a community group that is gaining support by the minute.

West Auckland's Portage and Waitākere Trusts are among the last four of what was once a national network of licensing trusts, given a legal monopoly on running pubs and bottle stores in the area.

Seven people are elected into the Waitākere Trust and 10 into the Portage Trust. These people meet twice a month to decide how and where gaming machines are placed and where alcohol can be sold at Trust-run outlets, and where grants from funds raised through those activities go.

Elected members are paid $280 per meeting while the president of each trust is paid $30,000 annually.

In the past four decades, the elected few have chosen to maintain an iron grip on everything from alcohol prices and sales at Trust-run outlets, to how The Trusts' profit have filtered down into the community.

There was a chance for a public referendum in 2003 to get rid of the Trusts model, driven by supermarket chains who wanted to sell alcohol sales in their stores.

However, this failed and the Trusts model continued for another decade.

Nick Smale's WALTAG team is confident West Aucklanders have had enough of not being able to purchase alcohol from their local supermarket or have a wider choice of where to grab a beer with mates.

West Aucklanders are ready for a change, he says. 

But the Trusts chief executive Simon Wickham has always maintained they have a huge amount of support in West Auckland. 

Waitākere Licensing Trust president Linda Cooper says the Trusts election is critical because it is a community-owned business, a social enterprise, where residents get the opportunity to choose who will govern the business.

'It's important that people think carefully about electing people who will support the business being profitable and giving back over many years.'

There have always been one or two people opposing the trust model but this time, there is a more organised push to elect people who want West Auckland to change, she says.

'We live in a democracy where anyone of good character can stand for election no matter what their views.'

According to Auckland Council's 2019 election handbook, there are 185,432 eligible voters in West Auckland, across nine wards. 

In the 2016 elections, only about 112,000 votes were cast from 183,252 eligible voters.

West Aucklanders have until October 12 to finally have their say and put this debate to rest for the next term.