Brian Rudman: Our Bob's off on another fairy tale magic carpet

Waitakere Mayor Bob Harvey is like the shepherd boy of the fairy tale - the attention-grabber who makes so many outlandish calls for help that when a wolf finally appears on the scene no one takes any notice of his cries as the fangs sink in.

In recent months we've seen a couple of Bobby-dazzlers. There was Bob on the barricades, defending his people from slow poisoning by Waikato water. A true fairy tale that, given that there were never plans to pipe the stuff uphill to the West anyway, if only because the region's reticulation system can't do it, except in emergencies.

Then there was Bob spitting the dummy over plans for upgrading the rail system. Agreed, we can all sympathise on this score. But only Bob went into hyperbole overdrive and declared fantastical plans for a $110 million train-tram scheme of his own which wandered on and off the tracks and roads and provided a 10-minute service to town for his constituents.

Like his other rushes of blood to the head, this one had a quick outing, then, when reality returned, was heard of no more.

Now he's on about a second commercial airport at Whenuapai. Once again it's wham-bam and, I predict, see you ma'am, stuff.

Already, his main ally in the proposal, North Shore Mayor George Wood, having spent less than a week sharing Mr Harvey's limelight, has headed for the hills to hide from the flak.

Not for Mayor Harvey a mere call for an investigation. No way. Up he pops claiming widespread support from local authorities and MPs and suggesting it's all but a done deal. "We are looking at someone flying in there before Christmas," he declared.

Waitakere City and North Shore would together meet the $300,000 to $400,000 costs of setting up an airport company and "we will have an operator within 10 days and the operator will then call the shots" - all achieved, he claimed, by "going through tried and true methods".

Tried and true Super-Bob methods perhaps. But hardly tried and true Government or commercial procedures. In his jetstream he's left hundreds of worried neighbours, distraught at the thought of life in a commercial airport flight path.

The key flaw in the fantasy is that the Air Force has no plans to decamp from its Whenuapai base for at least three years. More likely, it will be four or five.

For security reasons alone, there are no plans to share its home with Mr Harvey's favoured company, Virgin Blue, or any other commercial operator. I know all that because I used tried and true journalistic practices and checked.

Of the rest, who knows where fact starts and fantasy ends?

Mr Harvey claimed budget airline Virgin Blue was interested in using it as a base, but an airline spokesman subsequently said it had no preference for Whenuapai and no present plans to even fly in New Zealand.

Two main arguments seem to have emerged in support of the airport idea. The first is that Waitakere City doesn't want to lose the industry and jobs that will go when the Air Force moves to Ohakea. A commercial airport would provide new jobs and could also be the base for nearby Massey University's aviation school.

The other argument for a Whenuapai airport is that it would shorten the trip to the airport for North Shore and West Auckland air travellers.

So how much would it all cost? Mr Harvey claims that on "bloody good advice" you could make do on $5 million for runway repairs and less than $1 million to convert existing buildings for a terminal.

At the other extreme there's Helensville MP John Key calling it a white elephant that would need $300 million to bring up to standard to cope with Boeing 747s and 767s.

The best figures I could find were those in the Air Force's "basing" study last year, which looked at how much it would cost to stay at Whenuapai. That talked of a total upgrade of the runway and hard standing area costing some $29 million. It also said it would have to be done within the next four to eight years.

Air Force spokesman Ric Cullinane says the asphalt surface of the runway tends to break up a bit because the hexagonal concrete block base underneath tends to "move a little" on the swampy ground.

But whether it's $30 million or $300 million, there's still the rather basic question of whether Auckland needs another airport. John Goulter, managing director of Auckland International Airport, says that with the planned second runway in place, for which all consents have been obtained, the city will have no worries until 2050 to 2060.

By then, of course, we might all be jetting about using personal backpacks. Who knows? But until we have a better idea of 2050 transport needs, it seems a waste of public money to start investing in something we certainly won't need for another 50 years at least.