Wellington climate budget targeted in bid to lower rates rise
Friday, 6 March 2026
The Wellington City Council’s climate change budget is being seen as a loser after deputy mayor Ben McNulty released his 50 cost-saving plans for the city’s budget – which would result in a lowe rates increase.
Green initiatives were already expected to suffer in the 50 recommendations that come out today, before getting taken to council next week and going out for public consultation and eventual adoption in the next annual plan.
Council papers say that if all recommendations are adopted, this year’s rates increase will be 7.4% as opposed to the forecast 9.4%, which was itself down on earlier predictions.
McNulty previewed four of the 50 recommendations - with three media outlets being given different items.
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The Post was told about a rationalisation of traffic management, halving the council staff vehicle fleet, speeding up consents with an urban development office and hiking the cost for dumping contaminated soil.
But two other items are getting the four Green councillors up in arms.
It is proposed that $1.65 million be slashed from next year’s budget for climate change response, to focus on areas that delivered “demonstrable emission reductions” and a reduction in “some lower priority mitigation work and transport education initiatives”.
The council was also looking to increase the number of pay-per-ride electric scooters but charging operators more per ride. However, the council only charges 15 cents per ride now and is looking to increase that by about 60%.
The Greens say this is a 40% budget cut - the biggest in the 50 recommendations.
“We were pleased to see the mayor face down opposition from across the council table and include the commitment to Carbon Zero by 2050 in the triennium Plan,” said Green councillor Laurie Foon.
“Our actions are beginning to work – emissions dropped 5% last year ‒ but without continued support we put that progress at risk.” Fellow Greens Geordie Rogers, Jonny Osborne and Rebecca Matthews joined her condemnations.
In appointing McNulty as his deputy in October, newly elected mayor Andrew Little tasked the Takapū-Northern councillor with heading up his Revenue and Financial Review Working Group.
The group has effectively been asked to look under every rock and test every financial assumption to see where money can be saved or revenue increased.
McNulty did not believe the savings meant the last council was wasting money ‒ but signalled this would be an expectation the basics were done properly.
'We've got untreated sewage coming out at Moa Point. We have had, in my time in council, two major project, blowouts.
'Wellingtonians need to know that the council does those basic day-to-day operational things well.”
Council Planning and Finance Committee chairperson Diane Calvert said “considerable work” had been going on since December, when staff reduced this year’s planned rates rise from 12.7% to 9.4%, and the paper reflected that.
More cost cutting was still in the pipeline, especially as the council started locking in its 10-year plan later in the year.
“This is the beginning, not the end,” Calvert said.
Thirty-seven of the 50 recommendations were unanimously agreed to. The remaining had majority support, McNulty said.
Of those items previewed, traffic management, which can account for a significant portion of a project’s cost, has long been a gripe for Wellingtonians.
The McNulty plan is for councillors to establish a “risk appetite” for traffic management for staff to enact.
“They [currently] take the most conservative approach to risk possible, because if something goes wrong, they don't want to be held responsible. We want to say, as elected members, bring us the information so we can set you a clear, unified direction to help be appropriate, so traffic management is more appropriate.”
This could mean a notable reduction in traffic management.
The council would also ask staff to look at bringing traffic management in-house.
The council currently had a fleet of 69 vehicles ‒ a number that could be halved at least, saving up to $1.5m, he said.
Little campaigned on setting up an urban development office and this is included in the 50 recommendations.
“The urban development office gets us a chance to streamline how we do consenting, how we do a lot of different functions, and in doing that, we should be able to achieve savings,” McNulty said.
He conservatively put that saving at about $1m.
The reckoned about $800,000 could be made by hiking costs for dumping contaminated soil and asbestos at the tip, bringing Wellington fees in line with other councils.
McNulty said past budgets had been done with staff bringing ideas for cuts to elected members, but this was about elected members putting on “big boy pants” and coming up with cuts.
Everyone was expected to come up with potential cuts, he said.
The recommendations, effectively public on Friday, will go to a council meeting next week where a vote will be held to send them out for public consultation – starting a long process that ends with them being adopted in an annual plan midway through 2026.