Wayne Brown, letter writer. But what's his game? Illustration / Paul Slater
OPINION:
ON SUNDAY, October 16, Auckland's new mayor Wayne Brown wrote a letter to the mobile phone companies. He told them "blackspots" and "dropped calls" were a "constant source of complaint" to him during the election campaign, and he wanted the problem fixed.
Getting things fixed, he reminded them, is what he was elected to do.
Later, he mentioned he'd become aware of the "substandard" service when walking on the Hopetoun bridge, near the central city, and noticed he had only one bar on his phone.
Never mind that the mayor has no authority over the phone companies. Never mind that New Zealand has 99.8 per cent mobile-phone coverage and very little of the remaining 0.2 per cent is in Auckland. Never mind that none of it is in the "CBD [and] along parts of the State Highway network", as he alleged in his letter.
There's an issue at Bethells Beach. But it is already being fixed, with funding from the Government, not the council.
Was this just Brown being grumpy? Or was something else going on?
Or might he be right? Mobile phones do sometimes drop out, even in the most populated places.
I asked Paul Brislen of the NZ Telecommunications Forum (TCF) to explain. He said, "Black spots are due to things like buildings, shadows from hills (we have a few of those) and even large numbers of customers all suddenly doing something at the same time. (Cellsites breathe, you see, so they expand and contract with use. Too many users and the sites shrink so gaps appear in the network.)
"You might be handing off between one cell site and the next and hit a shadow so your call drops.
"Your phone might have a moment: phones can connect to multiple network frequencies but, for random reasons, yours decides to lock onto one frequency range and you're in an area that uses another frequency range, so your phone decides not to connect."
Mobile phones give us enormous flexibility but, sadly, the connection technology is inferior to land lines. It's frustrating. But it's not caused by corporate incompetence or a wilful failure to serve.
If a telco could provide 100 per cent mobile reliability, why wouldn't they do it? It's a competitive industry.
So, one week into the job, was Wayne Brown already shouting at clouds?
Or was this clever politics? After all, as he and his advisers will have known, he couldn't really lose. If the telcos told him not to be stupid, he could attack them as corporates who don't care about their customers. If they played nice, he'd look like he was being an effective leader.
They played nice. "The telecommunications sector welcomes the Mayor's input and … the opportunity to discuss local government's role in future deployment," they wrote in reply.
The letter to the telcos was friendly-ish and got very little publicity. But Brown was just warming up.
THE NEXT day, the Monday, he wrote a tough-talking letter to Watercare. He told the council-owned utility "not to spend any more money" on work related to Three Waters, the Government's nationwide plan to restructure water services.
The previous council was opposed to Three Waters, he reminded them. He campaigned against it himself and had "detected no support for it at all among Aucklanders".
That got a lot of publicity. Brown seems determined to stop Three Waters; he is likely to get strong support from most of his councillors; and he will be able to rally many other mayors and their councils as well.
After the fanciful attack on the telcos, this was a serious power play.
Brown also gave Watercare two other instructions. One was to put "a strong focus on your head office and other costs, so you can keep water charges down".
The other was to report to him on the Central Interceptor, the big tunnel now being dug from Grey Lynn to Māngere that will largely resolve, finally, the problem of sewage overflow after heavy rain.
You can see the work underway now: there are many fenced-off construction holes in roads and parks around the city.
Brown wrote, "I am also concerned about progress on the Central Interceptor project being delivered by your organisation. I would appreciate – and so would Aucklanders – an update."
He wanted to be told about "any changes that have taken place from the original project scope endorsed by the Council, including any changes in timelines, changes to costs and budgets, reductions in scope from the original contracts, and your current expectations around final delivery, key milestones and costs".
Is that a reasonable request for a new mayor to make? It sounds like it.
But the reality is this. Brown received a major financial briefing from council officials on his first Monday in office: a week before he wrote this letter. Watercare and sources at council have told me that briefing covered the Central Interceptor. The mayor’s office denies this.
Officials gave Brown Watercare's most recent three-monthly report to the governing body of council and told him the next three-monthly report was due on November 1. They also walked him through another report specifically updating him on progress with the Interceptor and the council's other big project, the City Rail Link.
As it happens, the Interceptor has been delayed by Covid, but without forcing a cost blowout, and Watercare does propose an extension to the main Interceptor tunnel. The officials briefed Brown on all this.
One more thing. The quarterly reports are public documents, available online, and the tunnel extension proposal is also in the public record. You can read about it on the Watercare website.
What's going on? Why did Brown ask for information he was given just a week earlier, in writing and in a face-to-face briefing, and which is in the public domain?
Brown has frequently criticised councillors he worked with in the Far North for "turning up to eat the sausage rolls but not bothering to read the reports". Surely he's not guilty of that himself.
EIGHT DAYS after writing to Watercare, Brown announced he had received a reply from Margaret Devlin, chair of the board. He thanked her for the quick response.
Devlin's letter was friendly and informative. She told him the preparatory work Watercare was doing on Three Waters was being paid for by the Government, so was not a drain on ratepayers.
She assured him Watercare is indeed "keeping costs at minimum levels" and pointed to the statement of intent, a statutory document that requires the utility to keep the household costs of water below 1.5 per cent of average household spending. "Last year," she wrote, "we achieved this target, with the percentage being 0.85 per cent."
And she confirmed the Central Interceptor is on track, as previously advised. She attached a "detailed update", which appears to closely parallel most of the information supplied at the earlier briefing.
Brown announced he was "grateful for the assurances".
Just to be clear. Brown raised what looked like red flags with Watercare. But they were not red flags and it's hard to believe he did not know it. He was then assured that all was well and accepted the assurance.
There's a name for this. It's called being "performative".
Brown is performing the role of tough-guy mayor. Putting on a show for the benefit of an audience. Which is us.
ONWARDS! DAY three of the letters was Tuesday and the target was Ports of Auckland (POAL), which is wholly owned by council.
This time, Brown was talking even tougher. "I expect POAL to be working with, and not against, me and the council in these efforts," he wrote.
It's an unusual way to open a conversation with people you want to build a good relationship with.
Brown told the POAL board the company had "recently wasted hundreds of millions of dollars on a botched automation project". The figure is disputed but he was right in essence: the project was a massive failure.
But automation was a project of the previous board and management. And it was the previous mayor, Phil Goff, who replaced the people responsible. This new board cancelled the project.
Barging on, Brown wrote, "The port's appalling safety record is a stain on Auckland."
That's true too, but again, it was Goff who called the board to account on this. He set up a major health and safety inquiry and its damning report was one of the key factors in his decision to replace some of the board members.
Brown did at least have the grace to acknowledge there have been changes.
But his letter did not primarily concern automation or safety. Brown wants action now to move the port and he was in full-blown crusade mode.
He doesn't want to sell the land: "The port land belongs to the people of Auckland and should always belong to the people of Auckland. It must never be sold."
Nor, he wrote, is he "interested in any arrangement involving a long-term lease which would lock the port into its current footprint for decades".
The letter was written ahead of revelations a Dubai-based company has been "in talks" about buying the port operation, which would inevitably involve a long-term lease. Brown makes clear the company is wasting its time, and he will know he has strong support from most councillors on this.
But the mayor does believe it can be better used. "The financial return to ratepayers has been paltry given the value of the council's capital investment," he wrote, adding that he intended to establish "rigorous additional benchmarks for return on capital based on valuing the port land at its highest and best use".
Most analysts and stakeholders agree the port will have to move one day, which is often defined as "within the next 30 years", which is usually taken as permission to do nothing about it.
Brown isn't having it. His letter instructs the board to collaborate with Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei to produce an action plan, by March 31 next year, that will address three specific goals.
First, an end to car imports and other port operations at Bledisloe Wharf, by "a fixed date in the future".
Second, the conversion of the wharves from the Ferry Terminal to Bledisloe into "an area that can be enjoyed by all Aucklanders, with better access to the harbour including a view-shaft to the sea". That's public space, presumably set up for events and ongoing public activities.
Third, ending the use of trucks to move freight in favour of a "100 per cent rail solution as quickly as possible". As Brown correctly notes, this will significantly reduce congestion on the city's motorways and other roads and lower carbon emissions.
Frankly, I'm with him on much of this. I admire the decisiveness and I think he's right to trigger some long-overdue action.
HEAVENS, THOUGH, there are some big challenges here and Brown's letter doesn't acknowledge any of them.
The port can't decide on its own to shift freight to rail and it can't happen in a hurry. It needs significant investment by the Government.
And that won't happen unless freight-to-rail becomes part of a freight strategy for the entire upper North Island. The Government is working on that strategy now.
Any decision to change where cars and other imports arrive should also be part of that strategy and will also require significant investment.
And when the strategy report is published, it will need wide agreement: preferably bipartisan, multi-council and as close to industrywide as possible. How quickly can that happen?
Another challenge: aiming to put freight onto rail while at the same time closing the port's car and container operations is contradictory. No one will invest in rail infrastructure destined to become a stranded asset in less than 10 years.
There's also the challenge of defining the "highest and best use of the land": how much is commercial and how much is public space? What does "best" mean?
There are already several private-sector proposals for new uses of the port land. They include a stadium, a museum and other cultural centres, educational facilities, parklands, protected swimming areas and other public amenities, along with commercial development.
One proposal is sponsored by Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei and includes some visionary ideas about landscape, education, tourism and the cultural presence of mana whenua.
But is the next step really to ask POAL and the iwi to plan for the use of one part of the site? What about public engagement and a new masterplan?
The existing City Centre Masterplan assumes little change to existing use of the port land, but Brown's demands could quickly make it redundant.
Perhaps the port/iwi response in March next year will kick everyone into action and we'll have a big public debate on what, how and how soon.
"There is no one who voted for me," Brown wrote, "who should have been unaware of my view that car importation and container services should cease at the current site." That may be largely true, but did many people vote for him because of that view?
Previous polling has suggested there is popular support for shifting the cars and containers well inside the 30-year timeframe. Helen Clark and Sir John Key both support it and so does Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei.
But the idea has never generated much enthusiasm from the Auckland Business Chamber, the Employers and Manufacturers Association or Business NZ. Nor, Clark and Key aside, from the Labour Party or the National Party.
Brown's "do it now" directive to the POAL board is bold. But when it comes to the port, that board isn't his biggest problem.
THE VERY next day, it was the turn of Auckland Transport (AT). This time Brown was scathing. "I seek a complete change in approach," he wrote. "You appear to have been focussed on changing how Aucklanders live, using transport policy and services as a tool. Instead, Auckland Transport must seek to deeply understand how Aucklanders actually live now."
He said these things often during the election campaign, although he never spelled out what he meant. Most people, though, take it as an easy-to-read code: Brown is telling AT to make driving easier.
But he has still not said how he thinks they should do it.
The AT letter added a new phrase. Brown wants AT to focus not only on how Aucklanders live now, but "how they want to live in the future" and he wants it to "deliver transport services that support those aspirations".
Brown assumes driving will remain at the heart of our lives. "AT must understand the families who are struggling to move around the region: pick-up their children, do the groceries, get home safely after-dark, and juggle other commitments. You must understand the local businesses who rely on transport connections and their needs now and in the future."
Many people, though, would say that "how we want to live" includes having safer roads and transport options that are so good, they don't always have to drive.
Brown also said this: "Aucklanders do not always have the choice of using an e-bike, a bus or even a train but rely on the roading and carparking networks to make their life functional."
It's ridiculous: no one argues that everyone should always have to ride a bike or catch a bus or train.
Brown gave AT a range of instructions relating to road efficiency, safety, car parking and the cost of cycleways.
But anyone serious about "fixing" transport in Auckland would address the biggest public transport issue of the moment: the lack of bus drivers. Brown didn't mention it.
They would also address carbon emissions and climate change. Brown didn't mention them either.
THIS IS not a debate between those who think we all have to keep driving and those who ride bicycles. It's about how we balance all our different needs.
And – this goes to the heart of it – it's about understanding the value of public transport in managing the number of cars on the roads.
Here's why. In 2010, when the Supercity was formed, there were fewer than 300,000 Aucklanders living on the North Shore and the harbour bridge was near capacity in peak times.
Now there are well over 400,000 living there, but the bridge remains as functional as it ever was. How has it not succumbed to complete gridlock?
The answer is: public transport. There aren't many more cars on the bridge during the morning peak now than there were in 2008, when the Northern Busway opened. Because 40 per cent of commuters who cross that bridge are sitting on a bus.
Right here in Auckland, we have the proof of the value of mass transit. That is, trains and rapid buses in their own lanes.
New busways are now being built to the east and west, the northern route is being expanded, rail electrification is being extended south, there are plans for light rail and the CRL tunnels are approaching completion. The cost is largely borne by the national agency, Waka Kotahi, but AT has significant involvement.
And Auckland Transport is keen to make all its arterial bus routes as efficient as possible, because that will remove one of the key barriers to use.
The commitment to mass transit is not anti-car. It is not because "everyone" is supposed to stop driving. It is because reliable, cheap, safe and frequent transit is the only viable way for Auckland to manage congestion on the roads.
Everyone involved in transport understands this. Labour and National disagree about which mass transit is best, but they agree the city needs more of it, as soon as possible.
Everyone? Almost everyone. The mayor's letter to AT demonstrates no understanding of it at all.
It's his grand performance. Playing to a gallery of people who think the way to stop drivers getting stuck in traffic is to encourage people to drive.
"AUCKLANDERS ARE sailing into an economic and fiscal storm," Wayne Brown has been telling everyone. He doesn't mean some mismanagement scandal to be uncovered in the council's books. He means inflation.
During the campaign, he complained repeatedly about secretive and out-of-control council spending, without offering evidence for it. Now he's looking for that evidence, he may find Watercare aren't the only ones who tell him things are not quite as he thinks.
Port officials will have to find a way to talk to him about the complexity of change, however desirable it is. Transport officials may want him to grasp that he risks sabotaging the very goals he wants to achieve.
Meanwhile, Brown also says he will be launching a "Clean Up Auckland" campaign. To get rid of all the unnecessary road cones.
It’ll be a good show, although it’ll cost a bit, which you might say was unfortunate in a fiscal storm. It’ll look like progress. It won’t fix anything. How performative can you get?
Communications released after minister apologised for his behaviour last month.