Letters: ‘Super-city’ experiment in Auckland ‘a decade-long disaster’; nicotine addiction; and failing services

A reader argues: "Auckland Council mirrors the pitfalls of corporations: it’s siloed, inward-focused, inefficient and lacks innovation". Photo / Alex Burton

The “super-city” political experiment in Auckland is a decade-long disaster. Despite being sold benefits of increased efficiency, productivity and effectiveness, the reality paints a different picture. This is the City of Snails. Rates have skyrocketed since its inception yet try to find a ratepayer who feels they’ve received notably improved services or value in return.

The notion smaller councils couldn’t effectively collaborate on major infrastructure projects was disingenuous. The true hindrance wasn’t intra-leadership or local government partnerships but rather the Government’s reluctance to contribute to larger infrastructure funding, stalling progress. It remains an unresolved partisan football field.

Auckland Council mirrors the pitfalls of corporations: it’s siloed, inward-focused, inefficient and lacks innovation. Investments in “glory projects” aimed at justifying branch managerial roles often result in wasteful endeavours, like frivolous signage and excessive road bumps. Sub-contractors are have had a decade-long financial Christmas.

Empty diesel buses symbolise the absence of innovative solutions. The regional petrol tax failed to alleviate congestion and the tunnel project remains an endless sink of funds without a clear completion date. Moreover, the loss of accessible local staff has eroded service quality and institutional knowledge.

Smart thinking would have given us a new bus model. This could include outsourcing unpopular or time-dependent routes to private minivans or on-demand apps to better match commuter needs. With higher rates we got broken management, fewer services, a congested and less safe city.

Auckland’s future is driven using a rearview mirror to miss a sinkhole.

Russell Hoban, Ponsonby.

Addiction is the great robber

Mike Hosking’s opinion piece (NZ Herald, December 7) was wrong on two counts.

Firstly, was his line that “smoking is your choice”. With a bit of reflection he would have realised that the great robber of choice is addiction. If 80-90 per cent of smokers want to quit, but can’t, then a law to denicotinise cigarettes will help them gain that freedom of choice. It will also save a pack-a-day smoker up to $300 a week – far more than the miserly tax cuts that National will be giving to squeezed low-income families.

Secondly, Hosking said that the Smokefree 2025 goal of less than 5 per cent smoking prevalence in all groups was never achievable. If the current law passed by Labour in 2022 was introduced when National set the Smokefree goal in 2011, New Zealand would be well past that goal by now.

None of the coalition parties campaigned on repealing the Smokefree law so this blatant sell-out to the tobacco industry was a complete surprise. Repealing the Smokefree law is anti-freedom of choice, anti-democratic, and anti-health.

Professor Boyd Swinburn, Co-chair Health Coalition Aotearoa, Westmere.

Why so many airport issues?

Auckland Airport seems to have almost a crisis or delay one after another to the point now where they must be running out of excuses. It’s easy in many such cases to blame Covid but actually, it was during that time that the airport could have and should have given its operations the complete once over and ironed out any potential problems. There was plenty of time and no flight operations so why now are there so many issues?

Paul Beck, West Harbour.

Should we be worried?

America does not seem to worry about it’s Pisa results and it is still the wealthiest and most powerful country in the world. New Zealand ranks higher than America, but we worry.

Keith Duggan, Browns Bay.

Question Time fiasco

It might be time to scrap Question Time in Parliament which has turned into a total, fiasco, a circus and a disgrace and is a complete waste of the time and money of taxpayers and ratepayers. Surely our politicians’ time would be better spent jointly, co-operatively focusing in a bipartisan manner, solely on solving our critical, ever worsening economic, financial, education, housing, health, defence, social and infrastructure problems etc. Given the critical stress levels, at this time, of all voters this is the very least we can demand and expect of all our politicians.

Bruce Tubb, Devonport.

Another Vietnam?

Last week’s US Senate vote denying more funding for the war in Ukraine, and similar grumblings about its cost in Europe, hints at this conflict tipping the way of the Vietnam War, the Afghan war triggered by 9/11 and the Iraq war begun in 2003.

In each of these previous conflicts the US and its various allies possessed overwhelming firepower but their opponents possessed time. “They can’t wait us out”, was proclaimed by Western leaders at various stages in all of these cases, but that is exactly what their adversaries did. Although Russia’s firepower is obviously more equal than those of the antagonists in the earlier conflicts, a similar strategy of prolonged attrition may prove just as successful for Putin.

Time was the opponent’s ally because for them the conflict outcome was existential while for the West each conflict became a costly strategic distraction. Losing in Ukraine, with its implications of having a large potential Nato member only 500km from Moscow, may mean more to Russia than the strategic loss of Ukraine to the West.

Peter Jansen, Mission Bay.