Auckland Council salaries: 86 officials earn more than $250,000
Figures released by the Auckland Ratepayers' Alliance today say that 48 staff earn more than Mayor Phil Goff's salary of $296,000. Seven staff at the council earn more than Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, whose annual salary is $471,000, the alliance claims. The list collated publicly available information about the pay of staff earning over $250,000, Auckland Ratepayers' Alliance spokeswoman Jo Holmes said. The alliance says 71 per cent of those identified on the list are men, including all six of the staff who are paid more than $500,000. On the list are 24 Auckland Transport employees, 11 from Watercare, six from Regional Facilities Auckland, five from ATEED, and five from Panuku Development. In an April 17 letter Auckland Council chief executive Stephen Town told the lobby group its figures were inaccurate. The council agreed there was a degree of public interest in the value of senior roles and had earlier provided salary bands - without names - attributable to senior council and CCO roles. The council believed that response met public interest, transparency and accountability requirements. The ratepayer group published that letter itself to show it had attempted to check the accuracy of its information before publishing. Holmes said publishing today's "Town Hall Rich List" was "an exercise in transparency and accountability". "If someone is paid more than a government minister, ratepayers should at the very least know who they are and what they do." However Town said in the letter that despite the inaccuracies, the council would not be correcting or confirming the salary figures or the names of the people concerned as it would be an "unacceptable intrusion into their privacy". Town referred to a previous Ombudsman's decision in which a request for specific details about Christchurch City Council salaries was refused, on the basis that privacy issues outweighed the public interest in releasing the information. "We object to you targeting specific council group employees and pressuring them to release their personal information. We ask you to refrain from doing so and to make any further requests for information through the official and proper channels," Town wrote.
But the alliance told Town that it had collated the figures using publicly available information - it had then taken the extra step of emailing those concerned to ask them if they wished to correct or clarify any information. "We totally reject your assertion that the Rich List is an 'unacceptable intrusion into [the] privacy' of the individuals listed... These aren't frontline or lowly paid anonymous staff. "Without exception, those listed are in senior positions," the alliance said.
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Christmas Eve busiest shopping day of the year with more than 500,000 sales
Busiest shopping day of the year
Peak time 12 noon-1 pm - 563,303 transactions
Per second peak - 167 transactions
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Number of sales beats Black Friday, but lowest Christmas Eve in six years
Christmas Eve has been the busiest shopping day of the year with 9,745 sales a minute at its peak.
Payments company Worldline says noon to 1pm saw 563,303 sales recorded on its network, down by about 7 percent on a year ago.
The company's network covers about three-quarters of the electronic terminals in operation.
Worldline did not have a dollar value for spending, but the peak number of transactions was the lowest for the past six years and well shy of the record 679,436 in 2019, before the pandemic.
Earlier this month it noted rising sales in the first three weeks of the month, but they remained 1.3 percent lower than 2024, with most parts of the country trailing the previous year's spending.
Official data from Stats NZ to the end of November showed a small rise in spending on the previous month, to 1.6 percent higher for the year.
Retail spending has been subdued as households have remained cautious because of high prices and a slow benefit from lower interest rates, and as well as concerns about the soft labour market.
However, recent surveys have shown improving consumer sentiment with ANZ bank's monthly report showing confidence at its highest level in four years.
Boxing Day is traditionally the country's favourite shopping day, but with Black Friday spending also softer this year the amount going through retailers' terminals may also be down on a year ago.
Adding a dampener to consumer spending may be the recent rises in longer term fixed mortgage rates because of higher wholesale rates.
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Do you ever regift?
What’s your take on asking for a receipt if a gift doesn’t fit?
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79.1% Yes! It's better to regift what I don't need
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20.9% No. It's the thought and effort that matters
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