Tauranga City Council has pulled off the Houdini deal of the century with the New Zealand Transport Agency getting rid of most of $63 million Route K debt created during the last 10 years. But is it real?

TCC and NZTA, which means Government, look to have done back-flips.

That was impossible yesterday, yesterday's plan is impossible today, amazing stuff. Yeah right, something doesn't smell right here.

Previously NZTA acted sensibly, protecting Tauranga ratepayers from the continued debt/spending spiral of TCC during the last decade.

It's much better TCC retain its debt. Now TCC's financial miscreants are rewarded for profligacy by floating to the surface without the debt millstone they created.

Watch this space, plans to spend will be unleashed on ratepayers with another mini-debt/spending splurge on more madcap wish list schemes: stadiums, gondolas, aqua-ducts, academies.

TCC's desperately off-loading Route K debt will be short-lived. Its a ‘Clayton's debt repayment'.

I Stevenson, Tauranga.