Minutes of Meeting of the Auckland 2020 Olympics Organising Committee, held on 1 April 2019

Present: R. Hide (Chairman), J. Gunn (Secretary), B. Tamaki (Treasurer), M. Hotchin, Hon C. Slater, R. Brooke 

Apologies: C. Weatherston, Sir J. Banks

The meeting was called to order at 3:30pm and the following business was discussed:

The committee members ratified the minutes of the previous meeting of 1 March 2019.

The Chairman notified the members that a former Olympian, Dick Quax, had agreed to carry the Olympic torch into the Sir John Banks Stadium during the opening ceremony. Mr Quax will carry the torch while driving his car to the stadium from his home two kilometres away. The Committee approved payment of Mr Quax’s mileage expenses.

The Treasurer indicated that there was a significant shortfall in funding, and that only some of the $20 billion budget required had been raised so far. Significant funds had been raised from the sale of Victoria Park and the Auckland Domain to property developers, and the subdivision and sale of Mt Eden were progressing well, with plans to build luxury townhouses along the rim of the crater attracting much public interest. The Treasurer then asked the Mayor, the Hon Mr Slater, if he had made any progress convincing his council of the need for rates rises to fund the event.

The Hon Mr Slater said that the previous year’s 1000% rates rise across the city had been unpopular, and the council were divided over the need for further rises. However, the Hon Mr Slater noted that rates rises over the last five years had reduced ratepayers to such levels of starvation and penury that they were likely to be too ill and frail to mount any serious opposition to further increases.

The Treasurer then passed the collection plate around the meeting table and asked members to put in as much as they could afford. $132.50 was contributed by the members, and the Treasurer and Chairman thanked them for their generosity.

The Chairman then discussed with the members a proposal to introduce a number of new sports to the Auckland games. The members unanimously agreed on the need for the Auckland games to be representative of Auckland and its culture, and they voted unanimously in favour of recommending the following sports to the International Olympics Committee:

• The Discuss: in this event a good idea is put forward and then talked about endlessly, without any progress being made for years on end.
• The Gift Horse: in which central government offers to pay for a major project and the contestants then bicker over the spoils.
• Fencing: the citizens of affluent East Auckland attempt to build a barrier between themselves and the “brown” suburbs nearby, in order to preserve house prices and school decile ratings.
• Basketcaseball: teams compete to see who can come up with the most harebrained, financially crippling “big idea” for Auckland.
• Below-the-belt Boxing: an uneven fight where one of the two fighters continues to land low blows while denying he is the source of the hits.
• Pushing Shit Uphill: A new weightlifting event where a deeply unpopular contestant attempts to convince the judges that he is not the same man who said and did all those terrible things last time.
• A number of new pool events, including Swimming with Sharks (where swimmers attempt to compete despite the fact that the Cit-Rats dominated council has just sold their pool to property developers), and Diving for Cover (contestants fail miserably then proceed to blame each other, the media, and the previous group of contestants).

The Chairman then asked the members to pass a motion thanking Sir John for his support and leadership over the last five years. The Chairman regretted that Sir John could not be present at the meeting, but passed on to the members the words of gratitude Sir John had expressed during the recent unveiling on North Head of a giant bronze statue dedicated to him. The Chairman regretted that the role of United Nations Secretary General had kept Sir John from attending today’s meeting.