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Mayor Wayne Brown accepts Auckland Council will have to pick up a share of the City Rail Link project budget blowout but says he will hold “tough” talks with the Government to push it to pay more.
That’s because - while the Government and Auckland Councilhave agreed to pay a 50-50 share of the bill - the Government has been making the bulk of decisions about CRL’s management, Brown said.
“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 told RNZ this morning.
He also said raising rates to cover the project’s extra costs was an “end of the road choice”, not a preferred one.
It comes as the CRL project yesterday delayed the completion date and applied to Auckland Council and Central Government for an extra $1 billion in funding.
CRL blamed the Covid-19 lockdowns and lost time spent on site for the blowout, which takes the project’s cost to an estimated $5.493b.
It means Auckland Council is now facing an estimated $1 billion shortfall between finding the extra money for the CRL and in paying for flood damage from this year’s wild weather.
Transport Minister Michael Wood yesterday appeared to dash any hope Central Government would pick up a larger share of CRL’s extra $1 billion cost.
CRL is expected to double the capacity of the existing rail network. Photo / CRL
He said the management and payment of the project had been split evenly.
“The arrangement in terms of CRL across governance and costs is that it is a 50-50 partnership between Auckland Council and the Crown,” he said.
He also called CRL, with its new underground rail lines and stations, “essential to Auckland’s development.
“We need a functional mass rapid transit system that doubles the capacity of the existing rail network. It’s the equivalent of 16 lanes of traffic coming into the central city,” he said.
Brown said it was a good project but the Government had taken it over.
He said he might not be successful in getting the Government to pay more of the costs but he would talk to them.
“I’ll be going to the Government and saying, ‘Listen here mate we didn’t have 50 per cent of the decision making’,” he said.
He called CRL a typical project the government gets involved with by overestimating the benefits and underestimating the costs.
“I’ll be working hard to minimise how much Auckland ratepayers pay on this.”
‘Every person should be concerned’: Warnings of Council job cuts
Significant job cuts are likely for Auckland Council’s head office as it looks to plug a forecast $295 million budget deficit as well as cover the cost of storm and cyclone damage and the City Rail Link budget blow-out, the mayor says.
In an interview with Newsroom published on Thursday, Auckland councillor Maurice Williamson said there would be a substantial downsizing of council head office staff numbers.
When asked by RNZ whether there was any truth in this, Brown said: “Absolutely true.”
“We’re asking the council itself to make as much saving as it can and we’re particularly asking the CCOs [council-controlled organisations] to make savings. There’s been huge growth in salary costs in the council-controlled organisations in the past couple of years.”
Asked how many roles would be cut, Brown replied: “Every person should be concerned.”
“We’re in an economy that is in trouble at the moment and so everything has to be justified.”
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 yesterday 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 $500m 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.”
