'We can create a healthy, resilient city that ensures a high quality of life for our children and for generations to come.' Photo / Greg Bowker, File
'We can create a healthy, resilient city that ensures a high quality of life for our children and for generations to come.' Photo / Greg Bowker, File
Opinion
OPINION
I was lucky enough to grow up in Auckland. While building our global business, it has been a beautiful, multicultural city we are proud to show off to our overseas customers and partners.
Like most Aucklanders, I felt a great sense of pride when Auckland was ranked as themost liveable city in the world in 2021, when our streets were quiet and our communities pulled together to tackle emerging challenges.
It was the same sense of pride that I shared when, in 2015, Auckland joined the C40 cities— a network of mayors of nearly 100 world-leading cities collaborating to deliver the urgent action needed to confront the climate crisis.
We backed ourselves on that action, too, with the creation of Te Tāruke-ā-Tāwhiri: Auckland's Climate Plan. We set out a pathway to play our part alongside those leading international cities, allocating over $1 billion of investment in climate action initiatives through the Climate Action Targeted Rate.
Climate change is here. It's a real problem and it's us - people - who are causing it. Disruption is inevitable, but the necessary changes we all must make are also a fantastic opportunity.
We can create a healthy, resilient city that ensures a high quality of life for our children and for generations to come. That is, as long as we vote for leaders who are responsible and creative enough to plan for the big stuff coming our way.
The last thing we want at this critical time is for Auckland to slide backward towards some Rogernomics era thinking about running our city like a business, cutting costs wherever possible, trying to milk every last dollar out of our city's operations.
Wayne Brown called the people of Auckland "ill-informed" when, in 2010, nearly 50,000 of us marched in protest against plans to extract minerals from iwi and conservation land. At the time, it was the largest demonstration New Zealand had ever seen - only to be superseded by our rangatahi calling for meaningful climate action some 10 years later.
You can't build a successful city by cutting budgets. World history is littered with "business" people who have made things much worse for their constituents by focusing on short-term fiddling over meaningful investment in the future.
For example, after decades of pumping the lion's share of transport funding into making it easy to drive, Auckland faces a need to change.
The petrol and diesel burned up by our cars and trucks become carbon dioxide gas, which acts on our planet like a heat-trapping blanket. This warms our oceans and changes the climate which supports us, making it difficult to produce healthy food, provide clean drinking water or protect the places where people live.
Phillip Mills. Photo / Supplied
Auckland city will continue to grow, both in size and population. Transport is the source of more than 40 per cent of the region's greenhouse gas emissions - more than any other sector. For a sustainable future, Aucklanders need better transport options than to be constrained by their cars. We're going to need fresh ideas, not the tired old thinking of yesterday's men.
We're on the cusp of completing the City Rail Link, a transformational project that will deliver the equivalent of 10 motorway lanes worth of people into the city centre - without the traffic, noise, or pollution. In the face of problems on a global scale, it's the sort of regional project we desperately need to embrace.
Fares-free public transport, more walking and cycling paths that improve our health while reducing emissions, and more frequent and reliable bus services like our fantastic Northern Busway that moved almost 8 million passengers in 2019 - these are the transformational policies that will bring Auckland into the future, relieving congestion and slashing our emissions.
Our communities and businesses need to stay focused on what really matters. We can be good stewards of our city, creating the future our children need so that they won't be facing these same challenges - or worse - in 10 years' time.
I'm proud to be an Aucklander. We're creative, kind, and clever. We can support each other through this shift. We can empower our communities, reshape our streets, and build opportunities without wallowing in futile battles to try and keep things the way they were.
We are standing on the edge of something great. Our Auckland can be a city that works for everyone who lives here, that lays the ground for future generations to thrive. And each of us has a role in making it happen.
To get there, we need to make sure our future isn't left up to chance. To elect energetic, future-focused leaders who will bring people together and make our city great. Have your say - send your voting papers in today.
• Phillip Mills is executive director of Les Mills International and a committed environmentalist.
