Big changes looming at MOTAT

One of the area's biggest tourist attractions could lose its statutory independence, as it fights to deal with an increasingly precarious financial situation.

Auckland Council's Value for Money Committee will decide on Thursday whether to back a plan that would strip the Museum of Transport and Technology of its independence and fold it into the council body that runs the Zoo, the Art Gallery and the Maritime Museum.

Under the proposal, MOTAT would become a business unit inside Tātaki Auckland Unlimited. Council staff, who recommend the change, concede it would likely mean repealing the Museum of Transport and Technology Act 2000, the statute that has governed the Western Springs institution since it was passed by Parliament.

Members are not being asked to sign it off this week. The recommendation is that they agree "in principle," with any merger still subject to due diligence, a business case and further approvals. But it is this vote that sets the direction, and it comes before the public has been asked what it thinks.

Council already carries most of MOTAT's costs. It provides about $20 million a year, roughly 86 per cent of the museum's revenue, through a statutory levy it has limited power to direct. The museum can seek up to $35 million under that formula, an open-ended liability the report makes clear council would like to close off. Staff frame the merger as better value for money. It can equally be read as council taking control of a body it funds but cannot steer.

The museum draws around 270,000 visitors a year and relies on 123 staff and 200 volunteers. Repeal would also remove the power of the 150-member MOTAT Society to appoint four of the museum's ten board members. The board chairs of both organisations have signed a joint letter of support, and council staff say the MOTAT Society backs the plan.

If approved, due diligence runs to late October, with integration targeted for 1 July 2027.