Simon Wilson is an award-winning senior writer covering politics, the climate crisis, transport, housing, urban design and social issues, with a focus on Auckland. He joined the Herald in 2018.
OPINION
The Government is rethinking how transport in Auckland should be run. Minister for Auckland Simeon Brownrevealed this at a breakfast meeting yesterday, hinting that direct control by the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) in Wellington may be on the cards.
That won’t please Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown one little bit.
It was quite a morning, with the city’s business and civic leaders assembled for the launch of the second annual State of the City report. Mayor Brown was the warm-up act and he seized the moment.
“My management style,” he said, “is to keep up the floggings until morale improves.”
Okay, it’s funny. But how funny? When council executive Pam Ford rose to make her own speech, she said it was “slightly challenging to be publicly flogged”, but somehow found the grace to thank the mayor for his leadership.
Ford is a top staffer at the council’s economic development agency Tātaki Auckland Unlimited, which has already been severely defunded. She has to work with most of the people who were in the room, despite the mayor inviting them to laugh at her.
The report says Auckland is slipping behind comparable cities like Dublin and Vancouver. Among the problems it identified: declining prosperity, high house prices, transport and other infrastructure deficits, and a lack of commitment to innovation and emissions reduction.
Many cities, the report says, now have long-term infrastructure plans that work because they are non-partisan. Infrastructure, in other words, is too important to become mired in political points-scoring. Auckland does not have this.
The mayor filled his speech with claims about how well he was doing as mayor. He attacked his predecessor and made several references to how well he gets on with Minister Brown.
But he isn’t going to help the mayor take over AT. He said the Government “pays for most of Auckland’s transport anyway”, and “while there needs to be more democracy and more accountability, I don’t think shifting responsibility from one part of council to another is the answer”.
“Nor,” he added, “do I think it’s right to be shouting in the wind.”
I asked him afterwards if he intended to fold AT, not into council as the mayor wants, but into central government?
“No, no,” he said. But then he revealed he has officials working on new plans for running transport in Auckland. The implication seemed clear: NZTA could take over. I’ve since asked the minister’s office if this is wrong and they have declined to say.
The officials will be reporting to him within weeks.
This is an enormous challenge for the mayor. While he boasts about flogging public servants, the Government may be about to strip the council of its largest function: running the city’s transport networks.
Auckland Minister Simeon Brown (left), Mayor Wayne Brown and Prime Minister Christopher Luxon. Photo / Michael Craig
Three things were clear from the politicians’ speeches. One: both of them think they are already providing the leadership we need.
Two: you can forget about your namby-pamby, non-partisan long-term planning. They’re going to trash their political opponents and their plans every time they can.
And three: the Browns don’t agree on much at all. Related: the minister is not really listening to the mayor.
Sarah Sinclair made the main speech in reply. She’s the chairwoman and a partner at law firm MinterEllisonRuddWatts and is also a director of the Infrastructure Commission.
Sinclair was polite but very firm. She backed up the call for better leadership, adding that she wasn’t talking just about political leadership.
The report’s account of the city’s falling performance, she said, was a challenge they had to respond to. “Collectively, what are we up for? Are we prepared to do what it takes?”
It was easy for business and civic leaders to chat among themselves. But now they had to be “loud and public”.
In her view, there were four priorities: strong governance and financial accountability, more housing, a guaranteed pipeline of infrastructure projects and clarity about the value of housing density.
Bring it on, she said. She lives in a city-ring suburb and believes it should have more apartment blocks. “If I want a view that will never be obstructed, I’ll move to Kumeu.”
“Loud and public,” she said again.
Chairwoman of the MinterEllisonRuddWatts partnership Sarah Sinclair.
Brown is sending a clear sign he wants a second term as mayor. The election is still 14 months away and he won’t be making any announcements yet. But he’s already in campaign mode.
And once again he’s positioning himself as an aggrieved outsider, even though he’s been in charge for nearly two years.
To be clear, Brown is not wrong that AT needs reform, nor that there are too many cones. But what’s he doing about these things?
Road cones are useful to the mayor: everyone hates them, so populist tub-thumping about them is an easy way to score points.
In March 2023 he produced a “four-point” plan to deal with them. In July 2023 he “declared war” on them. Why are there still so many cones?
If he wanted to, Brown could set up a Cones Squad: get a couple of trucks to go round cleaning up all the abandoned cones. And pass a bylaw, so they can fine the companies that abandon those cones or leave them out longer than needed.
There you are, Mr Mayor: that’s two ideas you can have for free.
Or would you rather complain about the problem than fix it?
It’s true this won’t solve the main cones issue, but it will make a difference.
The main issue concerns temporary traffic management plans, which are expensive and excessively disruptive, although they are also important for the safety of road users and construction workers.
Cone frivolity aside, what is the mayor doing about the substantial issue of construction disruption?
Construction is a constant in successful cities, and will be in Auckland, but the disruption can turn retailers into roadkill. So a successful city needs a serious, comprehensive plan to minimise the harm.
Construction will remain a constant in Auckland, but the disruption has to be managed better. Photo / Jason Oxenham
Auckland does not have this. The CRL has a Targeted Hardship Fund and a Small Business Support Programme and the council has staff dedicated to helping retailers, but it’s not enough.
If retailers don’t thrive the city dies. If the entertainment and hospitality sectors don’t thrive, the city dies.
Managing disruption isn’t easy. It’s obvious compensation packages are needed and disruption should be contained and limited in time and space.
But there’s much more to it than that. It’s also obvious the city centre needs to draw people in with a big programme of special events. As Heart of the City’s Viv Beck says often, events are the key to success.
Why don’t they create an ongoing city-centre carnival? Build gantries to make it fun to manoeuvre around the construction sites. Fill the empty shops with pop-ups. Now that we have those wonderful wide footpaths, find a hundred different ways to use them.
We don’t need a mayor who rants about road cones. We need a mayor with the political skills to make the city thrive. Especially in its front window and its economic heart: the central city.
A mayor who can get everyone together and inspire them with a vision and a splendid plan.
The State of the City report is diplomatic and jargonistic in its language, but that’s its message. If Brown does want to get re-elected, he would form that task force now: this year.
There you are, Mr Mayor, another idea you can have for free.
By the way, that joke about flogging until morale improves: you do know why it’s funny, right? Morale will never improve unless the flogging stops.
As for the Brown and Brown show, have you worked out yet who’s really getting flogged?
