The great Nikki Kaye, the truth about emergency housing, the Wynyard bridge and more - Simon Wilson

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We’ve lost a great Aucklander

Working hard and being determined to make a difference is more common among MPs than you might think, but holding onto your principles is less common than you’d hope. The Nikki Kaye I knew was all those things.

She worked tirelessly in her specialist field, education, she knew the value of the arts and she stood up for the queer community. But the environment perhaps sat closest to her heart. As Auckland Deputy Mayor Desley Simpson noted in a tribute yesterday, she told Parliament in her maiden speech that it was “our most precious asset” and “when times are tough, it should not be put aside”.

Kaye put that into practice, fighting her own party more than once, in public, on mining and the preservation of the Hauraki Gulf.

I took her to dinner on Ponsonby Rd once, along with Jacinda Ardern and a tape recorder. It was 2011, three years after Kaye had won the Auckland Central seat in a shock result from Labour’s Judith Tizard, and Ardern wanted it back.

The two of them went at it for a good three hours, both trying to outdo each other with facts and figures and contested policies, both resolutely good-humoured and also determined to have the last word.

Their rivalry was often called “The Battle of the Babes”, which they hated, but what I witnessed was a battle of two brainboxes who were both driven by an unusual notion in politics: it didn’t have to be ugly. They both believed in the power of ideas and goodwill and it was plain to me they were both headed for leadership.

I saw Kaye what seems like a thousand times after that: community events, business events, Stop Stealing our Harbour protests, nights at the theatre, out and about in the city she loved and worked so tirelessly for. She went to everything and was always upbeat, always excited at the possibilities for progress.

Nine years later, she was National’s deputy leader and we were back on Ponsonby Rd, this time with her new boss Todd Muller, when I invited them both to lunch. She was even more enthusiastic, even more in command of policy and full of ideas.

Nikki Kaye in part of the Aotea Conservation Park on Great Barrier. Photo / Audrey Young

She stepped away from politics later that year, caught up in a maelstrom not of her making, her cancer more advanced than we knew, and put down roots on Aotea Great Barrier Island. She was still pouring her public service into environmentalism, and mentoring and inspiring, now at a local level.

“I feel loved,” she told the Herald’s Audrey Young in their last interview. Which she was. Even more remarkably for a politician these days, she was not hated.

We lost a politician who showed us how to be a good person in power. She, according to all reports, gained some happiness. I thought that was brilliant.

How well do you know Auckland?

Retail spending has been up as well as down this year. In September, compared with September a year ago, it was down 9.6% in one of our biggest shopping precincts, down 5.8% in another but up 12.9% in a third.

Which of these centres recorded which of those numbers?

1. Takapuna
2. Newmarket
3. City centre

Answers at the end.

What the housing ministers told a housing conference

“Priority One,” declared Housing Minister Chris Bishop in a keynote speech at a community housing conference this week. No, it’s not a secret service code nor a sci-fi movie about saving America from aliens. Priority One is Government policy that says whānau with kids living in motels go to the head of the queue to be properly housed.

Housing Minister Chris Bishop (left) and Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka visiting a community housing project earlier this year. Photo / Mark Mitchell

They’ve had success: by the end of September, 726 whānau with 1452 tamariki have been moved from emergency housing into social housing, according to Government data.

And it’s not just households with kids, as Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka told the same conference. He said the number of whānau in emergency housing had fallen from 3342, when his Government took office, to just 871 today.

That’s a spectacular achievement. Or is it? After Potaka spoke, he faced a barrage of questions, all on the same theme: the numbers did not tell the true story.

“We’re dealing with teenage parents who can’t get into emergency housing,” said one. “They can’t even get on the register. They’re told it’s not allowed and frontline staff are under instruction to drop the numbers.”

So much for Priority One.

Another said: “They get told the emergency housing programme isn’t taking any more people. It’s been shut down.”

“That’s a real concern to me,” Potaka responded. “I’m really triggered by that.” He invited delegates to email him with details.

But over morning tea, the talk was the same. The conference was full of people who work in the social housing and homeless sectors, which meant they had daily experience of what the ministers’ declining numbers meant.

Applications for emergency housing are being declined and the word is out that it’s not worth applying. One delegate told me she works with people who’ve been told living in a car isn’t so bad.

And no one is recording how many people this affects.

With no data, the problem becomes invisible. Until it’s not, because it turns into every social problem you can imagine.

And with no data, there’s no way to quantify the problem. No way for the housing ministers to convince the finance minister they need more funding. No way to make things better. No way to offer hope.

Sustainable heroes and a gateway drug

“There’s a climate catastrophe going on out there and we’re sitting in here celebrating,” said comedian and presenter Te Radar on Wednesday night, compering the 22nd awards of the Sustainable Business Network.

Spout entrepreneurs Jo Mohan and Luka Licul, award-winners for their milk dispensing system. Photo / Peter McIntosh

They had a record number of entries this year, so they created “The Next 95”: a list of excellence from the worlds of food, fashion, technology, finance, nature, the built environment and more.

Sustainable business is everywhere. Spout Milk has so far replaced 100,000 plastic milk bottles with reusable kegs for cafes, hotels and corporate clients. Zincovery transforms zinc furnace dust into recycled zinc products and expects to have saved 3 million tonnes of CO2 within a decade.

No, said Te Radar, speaking for almost all of us, he didn’t know zinc furnace dust was a thing, either.

EV Maritime, an Auckland firm that designs and builds carbon-fibre, zero-emission fast ferries, received two awards, one for the “transformational leadership” of its founder, Michael Eaglen.

The company will launch two new ferries here next year and plans to roll out 300 globally by 2040.

“Catch ferries,” Eaglen told the crowd. “They’re a gateway drug to all the other public transport.”

The full Next 95 list is available online.

Where’s that Te Wero bridge?

Te Wero bridge, aka the Wynyard Crossing that connects the Viaduct to the Wynyard Quarter, is still not open, although Eke Panuku, the council agency in charge of its repair, told me this week it was “on track to open in December”.

Still closed but soon to open. This photo of the Wynyard Crossing was taken in January. Photo / Michael Craig

December starts this weekend and the bars and restaurants on both sides need it open now.

The bridge is a classic example of the short-term/long-term dilemma facing all government agencies, local and central. A very beautiful $50 million bridge was originally planned but that was abandoned in favour of a $3.5m temporary alternative, which opened in 2011 in time for the Rugby World Cup.

The expensive beautiful option, with twin “leaves” that would have swung open, was proposed at least twice more, but the temporary bridge was proving its worth. So they kept up the maintenance and crossed their fingers. Finally, this year, it had to close.

But it’s not being replaced with a flash new one. They’re restoring it with a comprehensive “preventative maintenance” rebuild, intended to last many more years. Cost: $10.6m.

The disruption has been traumatic this year. But would anyone want to argue the process has been wrong? Building shiny new things is good. So is making do.

Beautiful but too expensive: the "double leaf" design for a bridge we never got, at the Wynyard Crossing.

And hey, with the bridge soon back in action, time’s running out to take a ride on that cute little red ferry they’re using at the moment.

The Red Boat is a temporary ferry connecting the Viaduct and the Wynyard Quarter. Photo / Alex Burton

What’s fair for bus fares?

The NZ Transport Agency (NZTA), acting on instruction from the Government, has asked councils to raise more money from public transport. For some, this could mean fares rising by up to 70%.

In Auckland, Deputy Mayor Desley Simpson says the council doesn’t want to raise fares and will look hard at other options, like more advertising on buses and at train stations, and putting retail vendors into those stations.

Both ideas are good, although ads that mean you can’t see out the bus window suck. Bigger problem: they won’t generate anything like the money NZTA is looking for.

This is crazy. The purpose of public transport is to provide a service for everyone who can’t or doesn’t want to drive, walk or ride a bike. A third of Aucklanders – mostly young people – don’t have a licence.

The aim is to carry as many people as possible. So everything – fares, routes, frequency, reliability, safety, comfort and everything else – should serve that end. Raising fares by 20% while losing only 10% of customers, say, is not a win.

And it hurts people in cars, as well as public-transport patrons, because it puts more cars on the roads.

They said it

Sustainable Business Network chief executive Rachel Brown. Photo / Ted Baghurst

“We’re here to help get this country back on the right track. Sustainable and resilient, a country we can all be proud of.” - Rachel Brown, the often-fiery CEO of Sustainable Business Network, at the SBN awards

“Get out and vote. Do the boring stuff that old people do.” - Michael Eaglen, the more laid-back founder of EV Maritime, at the same event, with much the same message

This week in the Herald

A few favourites:

AUT law professor Kris Gledhill wrote a sobering piece about boot camps and brain development in young people.

“Leave history in the history books and just enjoy gladiators fighting sharks”: Reviewer Karl Puschmann’s entertainment truth bomb about Gladiator II.

“I’ll never forget what Robert F. Kennedy jnr did during Samoa’s measles outbreak”: A timely reminder that the people Donald Trump is lining up to run America can cause a lot of harm in this part of the world, by Brian Deer at the New York Times.

It's not even funny but you still have to laugh. Guy Body, November 27

Quiz answer

Shopping in Newmarket fell by 9.6% and in the city centre by 5.8% but it rose 12.9% in Takapuna.

In my view, it’s no coincidence that the “public realm” improvements in Takapuna, making it more pedestrian-friendly, have finished. They’ll be done fairly soon in the central city, too.

Night festival in the revitalised Takapuna town centre.

I know, not everyone agrees. But I think Newmarket is an exemplar of what happens when you put in a big new mall, encourage everyone to drive there and leave the main street to its own devices.

Mark Knoff-Thomas from the Newmarket Business Association tells me 2023 was a record year, which I assume the new mall was instrumental in achieving. But the spend has fallen since then and - this is my view, definitely not his - Broadway remains a hellhole full of cars, with shops closing.

Remember the Westfield car park that took hours to get out of last Christmas? Newmarket has very good bus and train services. Just sayin’.