The problem with advocates taking public cases on behalf of their clients is that they are utterly reliant upon their clients' misinformation. And so former Act MP Stephen Franks has fallen into a classic trap - publicly bemoaning the potential fate of a group that can properly be characterised as corporate vandals and vultures.

The asset at contention - or rather the liability - is the Port of Wanganui. So rundown and ramshackle that both the Department of Conservation and a Kensington Swan-commissioned report highlight serious safety dangers.

That it was the direct responsibility of Mr Franks' clients to remedy these defects and deficiencies seemed to elude his pen earlier this week.

The history of Wanganui's port is a chronicle of decline. From being a bustling entranceway into the central North Island - and servicing New Zealand's fifth largest city - the port now services very little. There are major issues around the state of the infrastructure and this extends to the lack of adequate dredging to assist those companies and vessels that are using the harbour and river entranceway.

The port's history is also the history of local government. Run by a separately elected harbour board and independent of commercial and council governance. But with the reorganisation of local government in the late-1980s, harbour boards were disestablished and their assets transferred to the new local or regional authorities.

No-one wanted Wanganui's port so it was vested with the new Wanganui District Council. Who didn't really want it either.

So they approached three of the larger port users, suggested that they run the port and the accompanying harbour endowment, and that they would lease the asset to them. Ocean Terminals Limited (OTL) came into being and signed a perpetual lease - a lease so bad, so incomplete and so contradictory that the lawyer that put it together must have been drunk, incompetent, or both. Yeah, but the council of the time still signed it off. And so things serenely sailed. However, OTL couldn't make a go of it either and sold the lease in early 2004 to Colin Cashmore and his new company, River City Port Ltd, for $1 million. One million dollars.

River City Port (RCP) had great plans and excited both the council and the community with a vision for the port. Unfortunately, the vision turned out to have no detail and no money.

It quickly became apparent that RCP wanted the harbour endowment income - around $650,000 a year - and then to do as little as possible. It particularly evaded its lessee responsibilities to upkeep the existing infrastructure. And it refused to co-operate with the lessor, the council, in letting us know what they were doing at the port.

Worse was to follow. Locked in an argument with the council as to the respective obligations of the parties, RCP then decided to use innocent third parties to advance their agenda.

They expressly refused to allow a Wanganui company to aggregate its business on harbour land, and so save 140 jobs. They are blocking an additional investment of $10 million. Why they have blocked both jobs and investment, they refuse to explain.

As a result, my council has unanimously resolved that we are neither dealing with reasonable people nor a reasonable company. We had entered into negotiations to purchase the lease from them and were met with suggestions that they would sell - but at some point between $9 million and $14 million. This for a lease that they had purchased for a fraction of that price only five years ago.

Council has also unanimously resolved that we cannot afford - particularly as a go-ahead community - to have River City Port Ltd essentially extort their position for personal advantage. But neither have we been unreasonable. We are prepared to offer $1.5 million as compensation for the foregone lease - a 50% return on their original investment. Not a bad return in the current market.

Because we want to make Wanganui Port work. We want to work with our local iwi - and private investors - in developing the port, its assets and its land for the benefit of all Wanganui citizens. And not for the very few.

We are prepared to create new investment and fund new ventures. We are prepared to save jobs and create them. We have created a unique partnership with local iwi, to that effect. And it is all contained in the Wanganui District Council (Port and Harbour) Bill, introduced into Parliament by our outstanding local MP Chester Borrows.

Sometimes capitalism presents an unacceptable face. That much was evident in the financial industry in the United States prior to the recession. But it also presents itself in smaller places too. The Wanganui Port was one of those - its neglect created by a mix of public sector indifference and private sector greed.

What we are saying in Wanganui is that harbour endowments should not be paid to rapacious companies so that they can pocket the profits and not meet their legal obligations. And that some assets - like our port and harbour - belong to all.

Those sentiments meet and merge in our local bill. And, like the anti gang insignia legislation that is proving so effective, this bill will also improve the lot of our citizens and community.