Transport Minister Michael Wood vs Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown over ‘dead duck’ light rail

Transport Minister Michael Wood has hit back at a claim by Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown who labelled light rail a “dead duck”, saying that is certainly not the case and as recently as two weeks ago early works started on the $14.6 billion project.

Speaking this morning at the completion of Auckland’s western motorway project, Wood said the Government was continuing to work with all its partners on light rail, including the mayor, who told Newstalk ZB yesterday afternoon, “light rail is a dead duck mate, let’s be real” and previously ruled out council funding.

Wood today said the CBD to airport project - promised by former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in 2017 and meant to be built from the CBD to Mt Roskill by now - was firmly on track: confirming the route and station locations this year, main construction beginning in 2025, and the first stage could be completed before an earlier date of 2030/2031.

This week, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said light rail would now be built in stages, the first expected to be confirmed by the middle of the year.

Wood defended the cost of the project - which a Treasury report has suggested could rise to $19.2b - saying breaking it down into stages could reduce the costs and the $14.6b cost included a large contingency.

Tunnelling of light rail from the city centre to Mt Roskill was unlikely to be staged, Wood said.

“There is broad consensus across Auckland we need a proper linked-up mass rapid transit network for the city...the message from Aucklanders is overwhelming on this, they are sick of politicians talking, replanning, thinking. They want us to get on with the job,” Wood said.

To concerns by Brown about a further blowout to this week’s $1b blowout in the City Rail and a question about the financial load on Auckland with big infrastructure projects, Wood said “people can bitch and moan but there is a lot on our plate that is going to cost a lot but unless we face up to the infrastructure deficit and get on with it, those problems are going to get worse”.

Brown hopes to use the latest overspends as leverage against the Government.

Brown said he predicted the CRL blowout last year almost to the dollar, saying he expected the final cost to be around $6b. It currently stands at $5.5b.

He said the Government wasn’t the only point of blame for the cost overruns. Brown also didn’t think the right people had been given control of the project.

“The people that they put in charge from Wellington don’t have the correct experience. We tend to rely on lawyers in this country instead of people who have got money in the game,” Brown said.

Earlier yesterday, Brown told RNZ he accepted Auckland Council would have to pick up a share of the CRL budget blowout but said he would hold “tough” talks with the Government to push it to pay more.

“We had no say in the Covid rules, we had less say than what I would like in the actual contract management set-up. The people that made the decision were from Wellington and inexperienced, in my view,” Brown said.

When asked for his bottom line if he wasn’t prepared to split the costs 50/50, he said he would rather use the blowouts as leverage against the Government for other “complex deals”.

“I’m a trader and I’m in there to trade,” Brown said.

“I’ve got $1b to pay for the weather.

“I’ve got a budget blowout bequest to me by the new High Commissioner to England.”

Brown also said he wanted to hand a “whole bunch of things back to the Government”, including the Citizen’s Advice Bureau, which he might try to leverage his way out of.

“I don’t see why ratepayers should be fixing people’s marriages, that’s something that should go back to the Government,” Brown said.

Raising rates to cover the CRL project’s extra costs was an “end of the road choice”, not a preferred one.

CRL blamed the Covid-19 lockdowns and lost time spent on site for the overruns, which took the project’s cost to an estimated $5.493b.

It means Auckland Council is now facing an estimated $1b shortfall between finding the extra money for the CRL and paying for flood damage from this year’s wild weather.

Transport Minister Michael Wood on Wednesday appeared to dash any hope the Government would pick up a larger share of CRL’s extra $1 billion cost.

City Rail Link timeline

The City Rail Link project will aim to double the capacity of trains in Auckland’s inner city by building 3.4km of underground railway along with some new stations.

The project’s cost is now estimated to be $5.493b - a $1.074b increase on the previous estimate of $4.419b.

The $4.4b estimated cost was itself a $1b cost increase approved in 2019 above the original $3.4b estimated cost for the project.

The project was originally planned to be completed in late 2024, but this week revised the completion date for the stations and supporting rail infrastructure to November 2025.

When Auckland councillors voted in May 2019 for the council to pay its $500 million share of the last $1b cost increase, then-Mayor Phil Goff said without the CRL, Auckland would hit gridlock and the city grind to a halt.

“Without additional funding, the CRL would not have been fit for purpose,” Goff said at the time.

“We would have had another Harbour Bridge on our hands which was built at half of the size it needed to be and had to have major additions made to it within eight years.”

“We’ve got one shot at getting the CRL right.”

* A previous version of this story referred to CRL being a “dead duck” - mayor Brown was in fact referring to light rail and the story has been corrected.