Prime Minister John Key speaking to the media after his post-Budget address to the Trans-Tasman Business Circle lunch at Vector Arena, Auckland, this afternoon. 17 May 2013 New Zealand Herald Photograph by Sarah Ivey
Prime Minister John Key speaking to the media after his post-Budget address to the Trans-Tasman Business Circle lunch at Vector Arena, Auckland, this afternoon. 17 May 2013 New Zealand Herald Photograph by Sarah Ivey
THREE KEY FACTS
The City Rail Link was approved in 2016 after efforts by Len Brown, Simon Bridges and Sir John Key.
Key revealed challenges in convincing Sir Bill English and Steven Joyce to support the project.
Discussions at a breakfast event highlighted the view Auckland should have more local control and funding authority.
How did the City Rail Link (CRL), New Zealand’s most expensive transport project, get approved in 2016, when the Government’s priority was to pay off debt?
Sir John Key, Prime Minister at the time, spilled the beans at a breakfast event yesterday marking the first 15years of Auckland as a Super City.
“Probably the biggest problem,” said Key, “was getting it past [Sir] Bill English and Steven Joyce.”
English was the Finance Minister and Joyce the Minister for Economic Development. Simon Bridges, Key’s Transport Minister at the time and also a speaker at the breakfast, backed him up.
“I think of the CRL as having three parents,” Bridges said. “Me, Len Brown and Sir John Key.”
Brown was the first mayor of the Super City in 2010, serving two terms until he retired in 2016.
“Len was on at me all the time,” said Bridges, “and when I got it, it was clear Bill English and Steven Joyce were a lost cause. So I went to Sir John and wore him down. My point is that you need to be meeting, all the time. Central government and local government need to be talking.”
Planning for the CRL began in 2008 and was pursued by Auckland Council after it was formed in 2010. That same year Joyce warned CRL advocates not to engage in “wishful thinking”.
The Government did express support for the CRL in 2013, but it wasn’t until January 27, 2016 that Key announced a commitment to funding the project.
He said he was a big fan now. “I guarantee you, in five years people will forget all about the cost and the problems of getting it built and say, ‘Thank God we’ve got it.’”
Other revelations also emerged from the breakfast event, which was attended by private and public sector leaders from throughout the city.
Minister for Auckland Simeon Brown said that as far as he knew, Mayor Wayne Brown had not been to Wellington even once during the term of the current Government.
Wayne Brown confirmed that. “I haven’t been to Wellington for 10 years,” he said. “And I have no intention of going there.”
Bridges said he thought the mayor was right not to go, and that the “big brother in the partnership” should be coming to talk to Auckland.
Simeon Brown had left the event by then and there were no other Government representatives in the room to hear Bridges say it.
Bridges made the comment in the context of his earlier remark that local government needs to be talking to central government all the time, as Len Brown had with him.
Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown (front) and Minister for Auckland Simeon Brown. Photo / NZME
Before he left, the minister revealed the Government will be introducing legislation “in the middle of the year” to “formalise” a new Auckland Transport Alignment Plan, which will co-ordinate the planning of the Government and the council.
Wayne Brown is also on record wanting an integrated transport plan, but he spoke up for more local control. “Where the next harbour crossing goes shouldn’t be something Wellington decides,” he said.
The mayor continued with his theme that the city is not taken seriously enough by Cabinet. He pointed out that critical trading relations tend to be city to city, not country to country, and offered to lead any new trade missions the Government would like to set up.
“Auckland is poised to lift productivity, innovation, tourism and incomes,” he said. But it needs the authority to raise money that will make the council less dependent on rates.
Key agreed with that. When the conversation turned to congestion charging, which would impose a toll on certain roads at busy times, he said: “Actually I would argue it should be up to Auckland”.
The same, Key said, was true of a “bed tax”, which would levy everyone staying overnight in a hotel or motel. Mayor Brown has promoted this vigorously.
Simeon Brown shot it down. “We’ve said we’re not doing it,” he said. “So we’re not. We didn’t campaign on it. That’s the decision we’ve come to.”
The mayor didn’t accept that. “We need the bed tax and we need the ability to make these decisions for ourselves,” he said.
“Last election, Auckland voted for change. That’s why we have the Government we have. If Auckland had voted like the rest of the country we’d still have Labour. So I think they [the Government] are going to be thinking about that.”
Ngarimu Blair, from Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei, had his own provocation for the day. “We want to be treated like Fletchers,” he said.
Ngarimu Blair of Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei: Treat us like Fletchers. Photo / NZMA
When it comes to development, “don’t treat us like a Te Tiriti partner. Treat us like a major economic stakeholder. When we’re a Te Tiriti partner it means lots of meetings and invoices flowing all round the city, but not much getting done”.
Speaking to the Herald later, he said: “We want the city to treat us like the major corporate we are and cut through the well-intentioned but often token Treaty talk. We can build assets for the city that also return commercial value for our people. We then can invest in the social and cultural restoration of our people.”
Former Deputy Mayor Penny Hulse, on a video, said Auckland should aspire to be “the first city of the Pacific”.
But as all the speakers pondered the future of the Super City, the theme of who’s talking to who, how often and how effectively, kept sliding back into the conversation.
Sir Peter Gluckman, also on video, thought there was not “the appreciation from Wellington for what Auckland can do and can be”.
Mark Thomas from the Committee for Auckland, which co-hosted the event, said: “There’s a fine line between leadership and stupidity.”
Simon Wilson is a senior writer covering politics, the climate crisis, transport, housing, urban design and social issues, with a focus on Auckland. He joined the Herald in 2018.
