The Corporate Council?

On the morning of that meeting in June, I wrote in this column that SOI had failed to reflect the comments of Councillors, made at their meeting in March, that greater recognition should be given of “the community’s lack of enthusiasm for any form of expansion”. The QAC Board must have considered those comments and decided to ignore them, because they are not mentioned in the completed SOI.

The completed SOI states baldly that QAC is “a demand-driven … business” which must plan to “provide for increased levels of demand at both [Queenstown and Wanaka] airports over a 30- year horizon”. This will involve “a gradual, phased development at each airport to meet forecast natural demand from both residents and visitors”. The immediate plan for Queenstown is to expand the current terminal which will require “some expansion to the current noise and land boundaries”. (Noise boundaries restrict the number of aircraft movements into and out of the airport.)

So, in accordance with the Local Government legislation, the Council must either agree this ‘activity’, ‘intention’ and/or ‘objective’ (to use the statutory language) of its Council-Controlled Trading Organisation or require the Board to modify it/them in some specified particulars. Either step requires a formal resolution of the Council. This is not rocket science. It was spelt out in this column back in December last year, and reiterated to the Council at its meeting that month.

At this stage of the process it is not for the Council to seek “further discussions with QAC to seek further changes” to the SOI, but to formulate what matters the Council requires to be modified in the SOI. The Council must consult the Board on those matters before passing its resolution, but that necessarily implies the Council must do its homework first. Otherwise, QAC can reasonably ask: what is wrong with the SOI as drafted? What changes do you require to “reflect [the Council’s] and the community’s concerns and expected directions”? After all, we have told you we need to increase the number of aircraft movements in order to keep up with demand. Indeed, the Council acknowledged this before the SOI was completed: “The question of noise boundaries was discussed with you [QAC] at length and the board has made it clear that commercially some ongoing adjustment is required to meet ongoing changes in demand.”

The Councillors must front up and state what changes to the SOI they require to reflect the community’s concerns. This they should do, publicly, at their next meeting on 25 July. It is decidedly not a case of “following up with QAC”. That would be to continue to adopt corporate processes which inevitably blur the respective roles of the Council as shareholder and QAC as the CCTO, to the detriment of the community’s interests which the Council is supposed to represent. So far as the Community I represent is concerned, what is required is a clear recognition that QAC must manage its business within the existing noise boundaries governing Queenstown Airport. What the implications of that requirement would be for the business going forward are for the QAC Board to determine, but may include diverting airline demand to other South Island airports; and considering alternative locations for its business, whether at Wanaka Airport as currently proposed, or elsewhere in Central Otago.