Project Auckland: Wayne Brown’s battle for Auckland - Bernard Orsman

Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown (left) and Prime Minister Christopher Luxon. Photo / Sylvie Whinray

OPINION

Wayne Brown likes to think of himself as the King of Auckland but is yet to get his head around Christopher Luxon being the King of New Zealand.

No amount of huff and puff from the 26th floor of the council headquarters will change that. Wellington rules. It always has, and will always have the upper hand in the relationship with Auckland.

Brown has fallen into the trap of being adversarial in dealing with Wellington, and having achieved limited success with the Labour Government, he is still shouting from the rooftops as the new coalition Government pulls the rug from under him at virtually every turn.

Nothing Brown said could stop the Regional Fuel Tax being abolished ahead of the introduction of congestion charges to replace the lost income of $1.2 billion over four years for transport projects, or the extra $200 water bills could rise this year due to repealing Labour’s Three Waters.

At last year’s Project Auckland luncheon, Brown said the Government should be paying more than 50 per cent of the City Rail Link cost, shortly after it blew out by a further $1b. Did the Government respond? No. Brown threatened “to go feral” on Labour and National ahead of the general election if they didn’t deliver solutions for Auckland, outlined in his integrated transport plan and “Manifesto for Auckland”.

Did political parties quake in their boots? Certainly not.

The mayor has a lot to learn about dealing with Wellington, say insiders.

“Wayne Brown doesn’t understand everything comes at a cost. If you want Wellington to pay for things, they make the big decisions. Auckland Council can’t fund anything. It’s irrelevant what their priorities are. The Crown can still fund stuff and has money, but they do it on their terms,” says a political adviser who has worked in the Beehive and at Auckland Council.

The key relationship between Brown and Simeon Brown, who holds the ministerial portfolios of transport, local government and Auckland, is outwardly cordial but it’s understood the minister does not believe the mayor takes him seriously.

As the Herald’s senior political correspondent Audrey Young said last month in her Politics Newsletter, Simeon Brown was often mocked and underestimated by opponents when he was in Opposition, but clearly, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon would not have given him a big cluster of big portfolios without faith in his abilities.

Brown is National’s fifth-ranked MP, a details person, a policy wonk and a member of Luxon’s inner circle. He may look younger than his early 30s, but he’s developed into a political heavyweight.

In a recent Herald on Sunday column, Heather du Plessis-Allan argued it’s a good thing to have a Brown versus Brown stoush because the city wins.

The short history of the Super City attests that a healthy dose of tension between Auckland and Wellington does produce results.

Take the Super City’s first mayor, Len Brown. The Labour-aligned mayor encountered countless barriers from National ministers Gerry Brownlee and Steven Joyce over his flagship policy to build the City Rail Link.

But he stuck to his guns, didn’t pick fights and kept hold of the policy levers of influence, building a good relationship with Prime Minister Sir John Key.

At the pair’s first meeting in the old Manukau City Council chambers, the two leaders agreed not to criticise one another and stuck to their word. They caught up from time to time, sometimes over a casual dinner. Len Brown also got on well with Simon Bridges, who replaced Gerry Brownlee as Minister of Transport.

On June 2, 2016, Key, Brown and Bridges formally marked the historic start of the construction of the CRL at a ceremony at the Britomart train station.

By contrast, former Labour leader Phil Goff sometimes appeared a little too close to the Ardern Government after he became mayor in 2016.

Labour delivered legislation for the Regional Fuel Tax (replacing an interim transport levy), but on other issues, like Three Waters, Goff was mild in his criticism of the Government and supported Transport Minister Michael Woods’ $785m Auckland Harbour cycle bridge, scrapped in response to public pressure.

Goff was never one to rattle the cage in Wellington. The veteran politician was true to form - diligent and hard-working, on top of issues, practised a managerial style and delivered incremental change with the likes of targeted rates on the environment, stormwater and climate change.

Wayne Brown is very different to his predecessors. He lacks the relationship-building skills of Len Brown, and the focus on a single issue that will see Len Brown - for all his faults - go down in history as the politician who delivered the CRL.

Likewise, he lacks the political and diplomatic skills honed by Goff over several decades that serve him well in his new job as New Zealand’s High Commissioner to the UK.

There’s been plenty of bluster from Brown in his first 18 months in dealings with Wellington, but little to show for it.

Under Labour, he pushed for a joined-up Auckland transport plan driven by Auckland, but this is more or less a dressed-up version of the Auckland Transport Alignment Project (ATAP) that gets refreshed every few years and is dependent on government funding.

Brown and Transport Minister Michael Wood traversed several issues, such as light rail (which Brown initially opposed but seemed to warm to after visits to Sydney to see the rapid transit system first-hand), and moving 100 per cent of freight at Port of Auckland by rail, but the pair were never on the same page for any length of time.

Former Transport Minister Michael Wood. Photo / Mark Mitchell

The mayor got a taste of how Wellington can ride roughshod over Auckland when in a rare bipartisan agreement Labour and National came up with new rules to allow for three houses of three storeys on most sections to address the country’s housing shortage.

When Labour’s Megan Woods went a step further to take control of urban development along the light rail corridor between the CBD and the airport, Brown labelled it a “bombing raid”.

It wasn’t the mayor’s protestations, but concerned residents in the leafy suburbs, that made National walk away from the one-size-fits-all intensification plans. As for the light rail corridor, that was killed with a change of government.

This month, the mayor was back on the warpath over the Government’s intensification plans, calling on Housing Minister Chris Bishop to stop a “dopey mandate” on the issue. Bishop ignored the barb.

At last year’s election, Brown attempted to get attention from Wellington with the publication of his “Manifesto for Auckland”.

Also known as the “Auckland Deal” it was his way of telling political parties to get out of Auckland’s face and let the council get on with running its own affairs with more decision-making and funding.

“Wellington needs to stop planning Auckland. Let us do the work we are tasked with. We are a regional government, we should be able to deliver for the region,” he said.

The manifesto was pretty much ignored and once in government, the coalition partners got on with their 100-day plan, repealing the fuel tax and Three Waters along the way.

With the 100-day plan done and dusted, there are opportunities for Brown and ministers to work through issues they agree on, and find ways to address their differences without Brown mouthing off like he did when Simeon Brown announced the Government plans to build two new roads - the East-West highway and the first stage of Mill Rd.

Brown jokingly referring to these two projects as roads of “National Party Significance” will not go down well with the Government, which campaigned on building them and has every intention of building them.

Picking a fight on the issue will not help Brown on other issues where there is common ground with the Government and the mayor can influence wins for the city.

Two projects spring to mind. Congestion charges and a new busway along the Northwestern Motorway, where National is vulnerable.

The last National Government chose not to build a busway when it upgraded the choked motorway, and its voting base in the growing northwest is becoming more and more frustrated with the congested commute and poor public transport when they eye the Northern Busway with envy.

The second project where Brown has a role to play is the introduction of congestion charges.

The mayor favours “time of use” charges on congested sections of the motorway “and potentially major arterial roads” rather than “congestion charges” in a ring around the central city.

There’s scope to explore both options.

How long it will take to introduce and, importantly, who will get the proceeds - Auckland Council or NZTA, or a share each - remains unknown.

Whatever the outcome, it will take several years to pass legislation and set up congestion charging in Auckland.

Importantly, former Transport Minister turned Auckland Chamber of Commerce chief executive, and now NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA) chairman, Simon Bridges is on record saying no other single initiative could do more to put a dent in Auckland’s rampant congestion than congestion pricing.

Expect Bridges to play a big role in the project and a role in bringing Brown and the Government together as a middleman between Auckland and Wellington.

In the short term, Simeon Brown needs to show his hand on National’s “Local Water Done Well” plan that replaces Three Waters and threatens to cost the average Auckland household an extra $200 in water bills.

Wayne Brown is urging the Government to give a Crown guarantee for new debt by Watercare to avoid the costs of water projects coming out of ratepayers’ pockets.

Simeon Brown has said National’s water policy will ensure water services are financially sustainable but did not spell out what measures will be taken to ensure this.

This is an issue where Wayne Brown has a valid case for the Government to find a solution with the clock ticking.

With water bills due to go up by 25.8 per cent in the long-term plan, the no-solution outcome is a $200 hit on ordinary households during the cost-of-living crisis.

There is another ray of hope for Wayne Brown from Wellington - and that’s the proposal by Act for sharing 50 per cent of the GST collected on new residential builds with councils to fund infrastructure.

Bishop has recently said the Government was actively considering the proposal as part of the National-Act coalition agreement and Seymour said he hoped it would emerge in May’s Budget.

This would be the first time any government has agreed to a share of general taxation with councils, and it’s bound to be opposed by the Treasury and some politicians, who believe councils are reckless with spending people’s money.

Any money from Wellington will be gratefully received, but there’s the crux. The Crown holds the purse strings and the sooner Brown understands this, the better.

Brown was elected on a promise to “Fix Auckland”. He can’t do that without first fixing relations with Wellington.