Savage: Auckland Airport shares sale flies in the face of common sense

An emotional welcome at Auckland International Airport. Photo / Jed Bradley

OPINION

In New Zealand, we like our airports to be publicly owned. Sixteen of the 20 main airports are 100 per cent owned by councils. Four of them – including Auckland – are a mix of public and private ownership.

If Auckland Council sells its shares in Auckland Airport, it would be the first of our airports lost to public ownership.

Instead of selling the shares, the council needs to remain the largest shareholder and increase its influence so the airport continues to serve the needs of not just Auckland, but all New Zealanders.

And it’s about more than just terminals, a runway and car parks.

Auckland Airport is our most important border crossing, a thriving business precinct, and a major industrial and logistics hub where tens of thousands of Aucklanders work around the clock in a wide array of public and private sector jobs.

The whole airport is built on reclaimed foreshore in the middle of a sensitive ecological area. It covers 15 square kilometres of land compulsorily acquired from iwi and landowners.

In his op-ed about airport shares (NZ Herald, March 30) and debt, Mayor Wayne Brown insisted that “emotive nonsense about protecting jobs is just unhelpful”. But the quality of the jobs at the airport matters.

Air traffic controllers at Auckland International Airport. Photo / Richard Robinson

A safe airport, a secure border and a thriving airport precinct depend on the whole area being a place where there are well-paid jobs with good rosters and safe work practices. Where workers are empowered, engaged and productive.

At the start of the pandemic, the main entry point for Covid-19 was Auckland Airport. Increasing safety throughout the airport and the workplace via better border controls and health and safety protocols were key to keeping the virus from spreading through the country.

Auckland Airport controls the whole precinct and, just like airports overseas, it can set the standards for safety and security. Raising standards, protecting our essential workers, and having decent jobs is vital to our economic and cultural wellbeing.

There is a campaign by the mayor, by Maurice Williamson and other councillors, to portray selling the airport shares as the only answer to increasing rates by asserting that the airport is a burden and somehow responsible for the council’s debt.

This is a distortion of the situation and a throwback to the lamentable asset sales era of the 1990s.

Higher inflation and interest rates mean that council rates likely need to rise more than expected or desired. This is simply the cost of living collectively in a growing world-class city.

Raising rates is a simple and feasible way to deal with the increase in costs and means no asset sales would be necessary.

The interest on council borrowing is not the result of owning a share of the airport. The airport is a valuable source of income and does not cost ratepayers any money. In fact, council debt would be larger if it were not for the money the airport delivers every year.

In his recent Letter to the City (NZ Herald, April 11), the mayor told Aucklanders he wanted to take back council control of Ports of Auckland, Auckland Transport, Eke Panuku Development, Tātaki Auckland Unlimited and Watercare. He wanted them to be “more responsive to the needs of Aucklanders, rather than putting themselves at the centre”.

Yet, he is proposing to sell Auckland Airport shares. When a monopoly business controls an essential piece of infrastructure or an essential commodity, it has more power than any other type of business owner.

Savage. Photo / Supplied

Without public ownership, economic forces can act to override the personal integrity of those who run the airport, and there is no guarantee the airport company will act in the long-term interests of the public. If the airport closes or slows down for any reason, the flow-on effect is extensive.

A damaged or disrupted airport, or an airport that is unsafe or inefficient, is detrimental to the whole economy.

Seventy-five per cent of all international passenger transport to New Zealand is via Auckland. Each year more than 20 per cent of all exports and 12 per cent of imports arrive and leave via Auckland Airport.

We need an airport that operates in the wider interests of all the key stakeholders for the environment, workers, airlines, businesses, central and local government, and our communities.

If the public’s shares are sold, our ability to influence and control the country’s most important international airport would be gone. Regaining that power and influence would cost the city billions of dollars and take decades to achieve.

Maintaining and then increasing public ownership of the airport company is the best way to ensure the interests of Aucklanders and all New Zealanders are at the forefront of our airport’s planning and operations.

- Savage is E tū's director for aviation and infrastructure.