John MacDonald: Give city council the boot from Christchurch stadium project

So far, the council has spent about $40 million on the Christchurch indoor stadium project, writes John MacDonald. Photo / Supplied

OPINION:

So the Christchurch City Council is asking us what it should do about the new stadium, Te Kaha, now we know that the cost has blown out to nearly $700 million.

So far, it's spent about $40 million on the project. As of yesterday, it's looking like it'll cost $150 million more than expected.

And because it's looking at spending a truckload more money, it's required by legislation to consult the public.

So there are three questions it wants to get our thoughts on: Whether it should just press on, even though the budget has blown out by at least $150 million, scale-back the design to try and keep it within the existing budget, or, press the "pause" button - if not the "stop" button.

Very interesting to see that city councillor and mayoral candidate Phil Mauger thinks it should press pause until at least Christmas, maybe longer, to see if there's a prospect of the costs coming down before the council commits to something which, in all reality, could still blow out to a billion dollars by the time the thing is built.

He's saying that once the design work is finished and the site is ready, things should be paused, so they can see if there's any chance of costs coming down. Because, at the moment, there are all sorts of global supply issues sending costs through the roof all over the world.

But as well as the questions about whether the council should press on and spend the big bucks, scale the thing back so it costs less, or just stop the project (for the time being anyway), I think there's another question we have to ask ourselves.

Is the Christchurch City Council up to the job and should it still be responsible for the stadium project from here on in?

Based on its management so far, I don't think it is. Mainly because it's got politics written all over it. I remember laughing out loud last year when I saw Mayor Lianne Dalziel crowing on the TV news about the council committing to a 30,000-seat stadium and banging on about Christchurch being New Zealand's sporting capital.

I laughed out loud because I think it's generally accepted that Lianne Dalziel was never a fan of the stadium project and its part of the reason why the council kept kicking the thing into touch for so long. And here we are, 11 years after the earthquake, and we still don't have a replacement for the old stadium.

Another factor was the council holding out for a final agreement with the Government as to how much money it was going to put into the post-earthquake anchor projects.

This was called the Global Settlement and that's where the Government's $230 million for the stadium comes from.

But back to the politics. I remember in the years after the earthquake, the city council falling over itself telling the Government it wanted local control back in Christchurch and didn't want people flying in and out from Wellington running the show.

The council hated Gerry Brownlee when he was Earthquake Recovery Minister. The feeling was mutual for Brownlee too. And that's coming through in comments he's making about the stadium blowout.

"They were the people who constantly said they could do better and it should be left to them." This is the council Brownlee's talking about.

"And look at what they've done. Just made a complete hash of it."

Now, as we know, the council eventually got what it wanted and the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (CERA) was shut down. But the Government didn't pull out completely and some smaller agencies were set-up to take on some of the work CERA had been doing. And one of them was Ōtākaro Limited.

Ōtākaro is the Crown-owned company which has been delivering some of the central city Anchor Projects funded by the Government.

So far, its completed work includes the Bus Interchange, the Te Pae Convention Centre and the National Earthquake Memorial.

Other things it's working on include the big Metro Sports Facility, the Te Papa Ōtākaro/Avon River Precinct, the South Frame and the East Frame developments.

And I think it needs to add the Christchurch Stadium to its workload.

Why on earth would we let the city council keep running it when we know that councillors are either going to want to poke their nose in every five minutes, or be so hands-off that they'll have no idea about things like the big budget blowout announced yesterday.

For example, here's what the mayor said about how she reacted when she heard about the $150 million. "I gasped when I heard the sum."

Amazing too to see Barry Bragg, who's the independent chair overseeing the project, saying that two weeks ago his board was "predicting" a $75 million cost blowout.

"Predicting".

I'm predicting that Barry Bragg is going to be telling the council behind the scenes that it's really dropped the ball here. Especially when it comes to the way it's been pussy-footing around and not getting some of the other councils around the place to put money into the stadium.

Which, as far as I'm concerned, goes to show just how incapable the Christchurch City Council has been running the stadium project and why I think it needs to hand the job over to Ōtākaro Limited which has shown itself to be more than capable of delivering big projects.

And I think it would do a great job with the stadium.