Brian Rudman: Stadium snippets emerge from behind the Chinese walls

It's all very non-PC these days, and probably against the Human Rights Act as well, to even voice the words "pillow talk" in the context of married couples taking their work worries home.

Every modern home, it seems, is now equipped with a Chinese wailing wall behind which the anguished spouse must retreat to scream out their woes in splendid isolation.

For all that, I can't help thinking that if retired Cabinet minister Michael Bassett values his warm cup of bedtime cocoa, he must surely have tested his latest Dominion Post column on wife Judith, before pushing the send button on his keyboard.

Mrs Bassett is an Auckland regional councillor and, as chairwoman of Auckland Regional Holdings, titular owner of Ports of Auckland, and the column is about the parlous effect the Government's desire for a waterfront stadium will have on the port company's operations.

The feisty Dr Bassett is even more scathing than I have been about the proposal, comparing Prime Minister Helen Clark to the "crazy Roman Emperor Caligula" with her "autocratic impulse ... to erect a stadium in the centre of New Zealand's busiest port".

But it's his apparent insights into the effect the proposed stadium would have on port operations, with the snippets of detail about the project, that really caught my attention.

Until now, all we've had to go on is rumour, and second and third-hand whispers, with extraordinarily restrained and muted public reactions from the port company and the ARC. Indeed, ARC chairman Mike Lee was almost supportive, saying a couple of weeks ago that a waterfront stadium was "conceptually ... a very exciting idea", though adding that the port company had statutory obligations to operate a port in a certain manner, and "we would have to listen very, very carefully to its advice".

Even port company chief executive Geoff Vazey has been polite, in public anyway, declaring "if there was some way of continuing to handle the trade for the good of the country, which will be in their [Government's] interests as well, and accommodate a stadium, certainly that option gets looked at".

In stark contrast, Mrs Bassett's husband has lobbed a grenade or three from his side of the Chinese wall roundly rubbishing the project, claiming "ministers seem set to spoil Auckland's waterfront, seriously disadvantage the port that is directly or indirectly responsible for 20 per cent of the jobs in the region, and embark on a project that can't be finished in time for the World Cup unless every skilled worker in the Auckland region is diverted to its construction".

Referring to Sports Minister Trevor Mallard's desire for a waterfront circus, Dr Bassett claims "the difficulties of his chosen site were carefully explained to him. Experts say that piling alone on the unstable landfill will take 18 months and cost a minimum of $100 million".

There's also a swipe at Mr Mallard's belief "that since the waterfront is in public ownership as part of the port, the Bledisloe Wharf site can be snatched without cost as a kind of Christmas present from Auckland Regional Council. Reducing its assets and mucking up the port from which ARC's subsidiary ARH extracts revenue for public transport appear to be mere bagatelles".

Time will tell how accurate Dr Bassett's view from his side of the Chinese wall is. And maybe leave us in awe at his powers of telepathy.

Meanwhile, further along the waterfront, the Hobson Community Board, after more than three years of scrapping, has anointed a dogleg of Parnell roadway, left nameless by the motorway redevelopment, a new title. Well almost. Earlier this week, the board agreed to a compromise name - Shipwright Lane, to put behind them years of scrapping over whether it should honour former councillor Harold Goodman or boat builder Henry Niccol or 101 other options.

But it's not quite over. Now it has to return to be rubber-stamped by Auckland City's transport committee, which is chaired by Richard Simpson, who has been battling for the Niccol name. Just under two years ago, at this very committee, Mr Simpson ditched the community board's last choice and substituted his favourite. Could history repeat itself?

Perhaps not. At this week's board meeting, Mr Simpson seemed happy with a consolation prize - a resolution calling for a plaque commemorating Henry Niccol instead.