Brian Rudman: Government must backtrack on double-billing

COMMENT

In 1997, central Government politicians came up with all sorts of inventive ways for Aucklanders to spend the $849 million of assets then owned by the Auckland Regional Services Trust.

To a certain extent at least, we saw them off, telling Prime Minister Jenny Shipley, and spendthrift Maurice Williamson (who wanted to lolly-scramble the cash to Aucklanders) that we'd make up our own minds how to spend it.

Seven years on, and a different shade of Government in power, but little has changed. Wellington is still trying to tell us how to spend our money.

This time they want us to pay for the double-tracking of the Government-owned railtracks between Mt Eden and Avondale - the first stage in the long-delayed project to put two lines along the complete western commuter corridor.

Of course if we'd been Wellington, the home of the train-commuting civil servants who make these sort of decisions, double-tracking of this vital part of the national rail network would have been completed decades ago.

But better late than never. The announcement on Friday that the Government had given approval for preliminary work to begin on the project is great news for anyone who sees improved public transport as the common-sense solution to the city's traffic problems.

The bad news is that the Government plans to invoice Infrastructure Auckland for the expected $18 million-$20 million costs. Why?

The western line is part of the national train network, the rail equivalent of State Highway 1. Both these Government-owned highways are used by commuter as well as "national" traffic, and, until now, the Government has paid the infrastructural costs. So why are Aucklanders now being asked to pay for this planned improvement to a state-owned asset?

It's not as though we haven't got plenty of infrastructural improvements of our own to pay for. Improvements for which we have no chance of getting Government finance. So why buckle to Government pressure on this one? Instead of trotting off cap-in-hand at their behest to IA, we should be upping the pressure on the Crown and demanding double-tracking all the way to Waitakere and electrification of the system as well.

With Government coffers bulging with surpluses, and the Government desperate to be able to showcase something positive it's doing for Auckland after four years in office, there'll never be a better time for Auckland to up the pressure.

It's instructive to revisit the formation of Infrastructure Auckland in 1998. It was born out of the Shipley Government's determination to destroy the highly successful Auckland Regional Services Trust and play Santa Claus by distributing the $849 million of assets among individual ratepayers.

To the Government's embarrassment, a referendum seeking popular backing for this money scramble showed only 4 per cent support for this greedy option. The vast majority of Aucklanders wanted the nest-egg to be used for the development of the region.

The local politicians got on the bandwagon demanding, unimaginatively, that all the money go on drains and roads. A rearguard uproar from the arts community shamed the politicians, both local and national, into setting aside a miserly $10 million for arts and culture.

Subsequently, IA was set up to oversee and distribute the money and assets - an 80 per cent shareholding in Ports of Auckland being the major jewel - on behalf of the region.

If you interpret IA's aims broadly, then it's true the double-tracking programme probably fits the funding criteria "to make grants to transport and stormwater project undertaken in the Auckland region that generate optimal community benefits".

That could also be said of the current improvements being undertaken on spaghetti junction. But if the Crown roadbuilder, Transit NZ, had come cap-in-hand for a handout for that work, IA would rightly have told them to take a running jump.

The same surely holds for the double-tracking. There are plenty of urgent infrastructure requirements in Auckland which the Government will never pay for. Among them: more train stations, the upgrade of stormwater pipes to end the pollution of streams and the two harbours, urgently needed rolling stock for the passenger network and integrated ticketing systems.

This is all infrastructure which Aucklanders will have to pay for, either from our IA nest egg, or through increased rates.

My view is that charity begins at home. Money we have squirrelled away should be ours to spend on ourselves. Only if we have some left over should we start offering it around. And there's not going to be any over. Not by a long shot.

Of course, double-tracking the western line will help Auckland. But it's something the Government should have done long ago on its railway corridor at its expense. It's high time it dipped into its own bulging coffers and just got on with it.