Stadium co-governance

Oliver Lewis over at BusinessDesk had a look through Treasury documents on the Christchurch Stadium.

Treasury suggested a Council-led approach, both to reduce the fiscal risks to the Crown, and to avoid the challenges of a co-governance approach with Council.

As for a co-led approach (like the city rail link project in Auckland, with the council and the crown both holding shares of City Rail Link Ltd), the Treasury recommended against it, especially if the council had a majority shareholding in the jointly held special purpose vehicle.  

The crown would be assuming risk, officials said, but may not have sufficient influence. 

"Experience working with council to date indicates that a co-governance approach is likely to continue to be challenging and could result in time delays and cost overruns,” the briefing said. 

Later in the year, following meetings between Woods and council officials, the Treasury was tasked with providing advice on two options: a collaborative approach between the council and crown delivered via an autonomous vehicle, or a locally-led option. 

In an October 2019 briefing, the Treasury again affirmed its preference for local leadership on the project and referred obliquely to potential relationship issues should ministers opt for the co-led approach.

There may be some parallels to water.

Under the Three Waters proposal, the Crown takes on enormous backstop risk. They're effectively guaranteeing debt issued by the new entities. 

Treasury warned that Crown-Council co-governance over a stadium may be fraught. 

“For this approach to succeed, crown and council would need to reach alignment on the investment objectives, prioritisation of time, cost and quality, and the best path forward for the project,” officials said. 

“This has not been achieved to date and has proved challenging.”

I'm not sure why co-governance in waters would prove simpler.