May 6, 2025 • 22 mins
This year marks 15 years since the birth of Auckland’s Super City.
The controversial idea to merge eight regional and district councils into one SUPER council was kickstarted after a Royal Commission on Auckland Governance back in 2007.
The city now stretches from Wellsford down to Bombay, and from Muriwai to Orere Point.
More than a decade later, discussions are still being had about whether it was a good move for New Zealand's largest and most populated city.
Today on The Front Page, NZ Herald senior writer, Simon Wilson, joins us to discuss what needs to be done to make sure Auckland’s still thriving for the next 15.
Follow The Front Page on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
You can read more about this and other stories in the New Zealand Herald, online at nzherald.co.nz, or tune in to news bulletins across the NZME network.
Host: Chelsea Daniels
Sound Engineer/Producer: Richard Martin
Producer: Ethan Sills
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Yoda. I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page,
a daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. This
year marks fifteen years since the birth of Auckland's supercity.
The controversial idea to merge eight regional and district councils
(00:26):
into one super council was kickstarted after a Royal Commission
on Auckland governance back in two thousand and seven. The
city now stretches from Welsford down to Bombay and from
Uruay to Hoe their point. More than a decade later,
discussions are still being had about whether it was a
good move for New Zealand's largest and most populated city. Today,
(00:50):
on the Front Page ends At Herald's senior writer Simon
Wilson joins us to discuss what needs to be done
to make sure Auckland's still thriving for the next fifteen years.
So fifteen years on, Simon, how super is our supercity?
Speaker 2 (01:14):
So yeah, the Auckland City has been a supercity officially
in legislation for fifteen years. That's when the new amalgamation
in twenty ten, the amalgamation of eight different local authorities
now around the Auckland region was completed and we got
Auckland Council, which is both a regional council that in
(01:35):
the way that other parts of the country have, as
well as a city council in the way that other
cities have the combined them won so it's called a
unitary council. After fifteen years, it has now been an
opportunity to take stock of just how well that's progressing,
What is being solved in the city, what is the
state of play with funding, with planning, with ambition, and
(01:59):
how are we doing with our natural resources and with
the way in which people are able to thrive.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
So tell me.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
About this latest research from the Auckland at fifteen that's
by the University of Auckland's Complex Conversations Lab, which sounds
like something that we just do in our day to
day right, thank you, Right. How are Auckland is feeling
about the supercity?
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Well, there are some The way in which the survey
was done was that it's a kind of opten survey
of people who went online and participated in conversations about
what the city is like and where it should be going,
responded to some provocations and statements added their own for
other people to talk about and the surveys from that
process built up a picture of what people think they had.
(02:45):
I think five hundred and seventy five participants who made
over one thousand proposals, and out of that they reached
in many ways a very high degree of consensus. So
there is over ninety percent support for enhancing the natural
environment of the city. And I don't think that should
surprise anybody. We know we live in a beautiful city,
(03:05):
and we know we want to look after it, and
we know we want to make the most of it
and not threaten it. That environmental side comes turns into
things like the beach is clean, when the storms come,
do they remain clean or clean enough? So will we
doing enough in those sorts of areas as are we
dealing with CARDI dieback? Are we looking after the forests?
Are we making sure there is enough what is called
(03:28):
urban nahili, which is the urban forest. We're making sure
there's enough greenery in the city. And we know that
those things are becoming more important, not just because we
like trees and trees are good for our mental health,
but also trees provide enormous amounts of shelter, and that's
becoming more important. In some parts of the city, particularly
in the south of Auckland, where the sun is getting
(03:52):
hotter and stronger and the weather wilder, and we need
those kinds of protections too. So all of that's happening.
There is a big push for the city to become
more innovative. Question for Auckland is that we have pretty
highly educated population, pretty highly mobile, We are a relatively
wealthy country, and we have pretty good communication networks, and
(04:14):
all of those things ought to mean that we're very
well placed globally to become what's called an innovation city,
to be using technology to make the most of our
economic opportunities, and to do it from this fabulous place
so that we attract what Sir Paul Callahan used to
call the people to come and work, play and live
(04:36):
here because it's a great place to live and because
you can do the stimulating, interesting work that you want
to do that maybe you were doing in Europe or
Australia or America, that you come and to it in
New Zealand, come and do it in Auckland, where you
get all the advantages of the outdoor life as well
as the fascinating diverse society, and you still got those
economic advantages too. The problem with that vision is that
(05:00):
it is the vision of almost every city in the
world that's about the same sizes.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Right, yes, why should you choose all exactly?
Speaker 2 (05:08):
So, what is the thing that is going to make
Auckland unique? And we can't be smug about it. We
can't just go We'll look. You know, it's a great
place to get your kayak out and get on the harbor,
go surfing or go tramping or whatever, because other people
offer those things too and can offer a better sentard
of living. We know, housing prices are really high here,
so there's a real barrier and those sorts of things.
You know, there are a range of issues that we
(05:30):
confront that we're not very good at confronting, and unless
we get much better at them, we risk being left
behind by other cities in Asia and Australia and in
other parts.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
Of the world overall. When this new line opens, Auckland's
rail networks will start looking quite different. In addition to
the new and upgraded stations, the network will have far
more capacity, slightly more coverage, and much better cross city connections.
But in my view it's important as extra capacities to
good use While it will be most needed during the
(06:02):
busy peak periods, I want to see it be used
to boost off peak frequencies as well. There are many
stations in Auckland suburbs that only get trains every twenty
to thirty minutes and I'd like to see this improved
to more turn up and goes to our frequencies.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Well, one of those things that I guess that we're
not amazing at might be that cohesion in public transport.
Now seventy six percent I believe said that we lack
a cohesive public transport vision and I've got to agree
with them, But how much do you reckon the City
rail Link will better those results when it's open.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
The Yeah, So the theory of the City rail Link
is that it will double patronage of our rail system.
And it doesn't mean that everybody's going to start catching
the train. It's not like that. You know, most people
don't live near a train station, but a lot of
people do. And when you think about congestion on the roads,
congestion was identified in the survey as the biggest single
(07:00):
transport problem to be solved. The problem with that is
that there are different ideas about how to solve it
right now. Some people say more roads, Some people say
better public transport, better cycling and so on, so that
you take people off the roads. Some people say congestion charging,
so that the busiest roads should be have a toll
on them at those times to discourage people from using them.
(07:25):
Then these debates are ongoing in relation to the CRL.
If you could move ten, twenty, even ten percent of
the population who are currently driving every day, you could
move them onto other forms of transport, onto public transport,
in particular, you would overnight, you would solve the congestion problem.
You would have streets that are freer than they currently
(07:47):
are during school holidays. So the CRL is a big
part of that is a big part of saying there
will be twice as many trains. The trains, the train
trips will be faster, They will take people further to
where they want to go, because if you're coming into
the city, you won't just be deposited at Britain Art.
You'll be able to get off at Cutting a Happy Road,
or get off at Midtown area now closer to perhaps
(08:08):
to where you work or where you study, and those
things will all make public transport more appealing. That's the
theory of that. And you know there are other things too.
If we had a concerted effort to have kids not
be driven to school, that would make a real material
difference to congestion on our roads, not just for in
terms of the school traffic, but also in terms of
(08:29):
people who you know. You drop the kids at school
and then you could drive on to work, or you
drive to work, so you might as well drop the
kids to school. It's a checking anything. If you could
break that, go back to a generation or two earlier
where that wasn't the norm. Now you'd make a big difference.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Again, I guess, how is it working having such diverse
parts of the city under the same council. You can
forget the further north you go from the city center.
Just how much is considered part of Auckland. Do the
people in say fung A Paroa have the same concern
as someone in Wayuku.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Often they don't. If they're stuck on the motorway and traffic,
then they essentially do have the same concerns. If you
think about Fungapara, so that's a relatively developed suburban area
that's a good distance away from the city, different from Wayuku,
which is very rural. A lot of Auckland now is
rural geographically, but not many people live there now. Most
people live in the built up areas. Of course, by definition.
(09:24):
The example that people always used to give when the
supercity was formed was what are we going to do
about our waterfront? And there were so many different local
authorities that had different points of view that nothing ever happened.
Since the super City, the waterfront of Auckland has developed
quite significantly. So you think about Queen's Wharf was given
back to or Council and became they wanted to make
(09:46):
it the People's Wharf, the renovation of Shed ten. They're
the North Wharf area, that the viaduct, which was pre
Supercity but has continued to evolve, the North Warf area.
There are cycleways, there are great recreational areas. There are
lots of things for people to do that are free,
as well as going drink and eating, the bars and
restaurants and so on. You think about the sale GP
(10:06):
thing last summer, where there was enormous, enormous popular support
for events that people could get to. Those sorts of
things have all evolved and been made possible because of
the super city. It's been easier to plan, easier to organize,
easier to get approval and funding for that kind of development.
That's the upside. The downside is that it's a city
(10:27):
of one point seven million people. There are twenty one
local boards, most of them have populations that are bigger
than most other cities in the country, and they have
local boards which are part time members. They don't have
anything like the funding of other city councils. So there
is a real gap at the local democratic level now
(10:51):
between decisions that get made centrally by Auckland councils centrally
and people's aspirations in their neighborhoods and their suburbs. And
that's very hard to know how to bridge because you know,
the one obvious way to bridge it would be to say,
let's have lots more democratic engagement. Let's have lots more
opportunity for people in local areas to belong to committees
(11:14):
and communities where they can feed in ideas and have
a say in what happens. But nobody's very keen on
paying for that. Nobody wants to have that kind of
local democracy where we've got lots and lots and lots
of officials. That's quite problematic. Decision making is removed and
nobody has a real has a clear answer.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
And I can imagine the funding in these small areas
as well. I mean, I'm just thinking about a situation
perhaps where a local board is petitioning for a zebra
crossing in their town center versus what that money could do,
say for the waterfront in the viaduct, and how like
who along that line would that local board need to
(12:01):
go through to get the funding for that zebra crossing,
because I can probably tell you right now that that
funding is probably going to go towards something in the city,
right Actually.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
No, no, no, So that the council in its fifteen
years has had slightly different ways of organizing how the
money is spent, but it's always been driven by the
idea that there will be pots of money for each
of the local areas. So if there is money to
be spent in your area and your local board wants
a zebra crossing there, that money won't be taken and
(12:32):
used in another local board area or in downtown, right,
that will be allocated to the local board to spend
in that way, they might have to persuade Auckland Transport
that it's worth having. An Auckland Transport might come back
to them and say, well, we've got twenty requirements for
more zebra crossings and yours, in terms of the risks
that we've measured, is only number ten, so we can't
(12:52):
do it this year. Now, that might happen, and you
have an ongoing debate about that, because the local board
will say, but this is our priority, so therefore they
should listened to. Transport will say well, it's not our priority.
And that's a clash that is not managed very well
all the time. Now, so you do get that tension.
But Auckland Transport can't say, well, the money you want
to spend on the zebra crossing, we're going to spend
(13:13):
it in another part of the city.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
They can't say that, right, So I'm going down a
conspiratorial path, am I.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
I'll put my pitchfork away.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Having just said that, local boards would probably say we
want more money. You know, there was a under an
earlier there there was a proposal. Can't remember the exact
wording of it, but it was the one, the one
big project. Each local board had to say, this is
the one thing we want to fund and they only
got one.
Speaker 4 (13:39):
Oh wow.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
So there was this pot of each of them had
a pot of a reasonablysizeable amount of money and they
got to decide each one and that led to some problems.
That system isn't quite in place now, so it's always
evolving the way the city city works. But that led
to some problems where what about project number two and
three and four? Are they just not going to happen?
You know those things are going to be important too,
(14:01):
And that was one of the problems. Another problem was
you had a case out and with a couple of
local boards near each other. Both of them wanted and
entertainment a recreation center, and they both got They both
made those projects their one project, and they were pretty
close to each other, only a kilometer or so apart,
and the city planning didn't need those two centers so
close to each other. But the idea of the local
(14:23):
boards deciding meant that that was progressing. I think in
fact that got stopped in the end. But you can
see the problem that would be there. How you balance
central planning with local important local decision making every day
is a problem. It doesn't mean it's not worth doing,
and it's but that is part of the thing that
the council engages with.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
Now.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
I know that the rest of the country probably rolls
their eyes and hates when we center in on Auckland,
But something Deloitte Chief Executive Mike Horn said in the
research stuck out to me. He said, if Auckland isn't
competing globally, then New Zealand will suffer. Couple of things here. Firstly,
do you think the country needs to accept that in
(15:04):
order to thrive, Auckland needs to do well.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
I think that's right. And one of the things about
Auckland is that we have something like a third of
the population and I think thirty eight percent of the GDP.
Now that's quite low for a major city. So the
GDP in London compared to the British GDP is much higher.
In other countries where there is one big city as
we have, you would expect it to be higher than
(15:29):
the proportion that we have. So that that is a
problem for the city now and a problem for the
country New Zealand has. If our farming, if our agriculture
isn't doing well, we are in trouble as our whole country.
It's not just farmers in trouble. We're all in trouble
if it isn't doing well. We know that, but that
is also true about Auckland itself. Auckland is such a
(15:52):
powerhouse economically now that if it isn't doing well, then
the country suffers as well. So we need from a
national perspective, we need planning to do both those things
as well as keep the regions viable so they're worth living.
And we don't want everybody to come to Auckland because
that's just that's there would be a nightmare.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
For everyone road through a nightmare aready, right, and there aren't.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
The houses and all the rest of it. And you
want the regions to be viable, but you also need
that central city to be strong. And as you say,
the Deloitte chief executive Mike Horn saying, we need to
understand that's that's one of the things he said that.
He also says, we've had an incremental approach to development
and that has to change because it's meant to be
(16:36):
slipping away. You know, I've been following the super city
since it was formed in twenty ten, and the first
to me, Lenn Brown, always used to say, don't fret
about the fact that we're not getting big transformative change
happening straight away. Every little bit helps. We will do
this incremental thing, and it will build on the last
and we will keep building on it and the next
(16:57):
and the next. And that is how most polots tix
works most of the time. It's the reality of politics.
And he knew that, and the city was progressing. But
what Mike Horn is saying is that actually that isn't enough.
We understand that we are not making ourselves attractive enough
for the world's best and brightest to come and live
(17:19):
and work here, for the world's entrepreneurs to want to
set up here and put money into the New Zealand economy.
We understand we need to transform in order to do that.
We also understand that you can't just make the buses
a bit more efficient and I hope to transform the
transport system. You've got to be thinking bigger about it
than that. You can't just make the schools a little
(17:41):
bit better and hope to transform the problems we have
an education. You've got to do better than that. You
can't just build a few more houses and solve the
housing crisis. You've got to build a lot more houses
to solve the housing crisis and on it. Guys, how
we get how we do those transformative things is extremely
difficult because probably most people are reasonably comfortable with the
(18:02):
idea that we as The survey shows very high support
for density done well, particularly around transport hubs. Doesn't follow
that you want more density in your street?
Speaker 3 (18:15):
Yeah, yeah, What are your thoughts on living in Auckland.
Speaker 4 (18:21):
Auckland is expensive. I've lived overseas a lot and being
back two years and coming back I was shocked.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
It's not too bad.
Speaker 4 (18:27):
It can be expensive.
Speaker 3 (18:28):
Sometimes it's inflation.
Speaker 4 (18:29):
But yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
Got a UNI and I have to pay for parking
for the train station.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
I guess you do a bet of it.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
But even then sometimes it's not enough.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
How much are you paying for renting here in Auten City.
Speaker 4 (18:40):
I'm sharing with somebody, so my share is four hundred
and fifty dollars one week. I just done that in Thailane, Cambodia.
I was paying four hundred dollars for one month.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
Get the government to bring some things down, take some
money out of things that's unnecessary and put into things
actually matter.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
And we're already I mean, I guess we're in that
catch twenty two, because we're already paying London Sydney New
York prices to live in Auckland. And it's kind of
like that thing, Well, why should you get paid more
at work when you're doing the work you are at
the moment for the pay that you're getting. You know,
it's just like why why should the city thrive and
(19:21):
why should it better itself when everyone is paying these
prices to live here? Anyway? Like, what's the incentive there
for people to attract more people? Well, we've got one
point seven million people here already, what's going to What
is it going to take, I guess for us to
make that jump and just to really fasten things up
and get to the Sydney, get to the New York,
(19:41):
get to the London.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
I would argue that we need a housing price structure
that means there are enough places for everybody to live.
That's at all the different price points and all the
different types of housing. Now you can't just look after
a certain proportion of the population in that way. An
awful lot follows from housing. If people have got decent housing,
(20:03):
then they're more likely that their families will be healthier,
more likely to be kids going to school. Now more
likely people are in work and able to stay and work.
All of those things follow from having a place, a
secure or and dry, safe place to live, So that's
really important. Beyond that though, what's the point of difference
for Auckland, Well, in terms of big cities. You know
(20:26):
something somebody said to me once when I first moved
to Auckland, which is over twenty years ago. They said,
what I like about it is the mess. What he
meant was, you walk down the street. You don't know
who you're going to meet or see, you don't know
what you're going to see, you don't know what might
have been changing. It's always stimulating. And that's a big
(20:47):
city thing where the fact that it doesn't quite work
properly but people make it work for them. If that
is possible, that can be pretty exciting. You know. One
of the things that means is that really cool little
bar there that those people set up in a place
that doesn't even seem like it should be a bar,
but hell, they're now music venue. And you know, if
you think about a place like Wammy Bar in Auckland,
(21:09):
that seems nonsense. It's an underground and it doesn't seem
big enough and all the rest of it. But people
make do People make do with the mess, and when
they can do that and thrive, you get that happening
in all the different sorts of ways, and that can
be very exciting to live in. So we need that
you need, and it means that you need, as I
said before, place to live. It also means that you
(21:32):
know that you're not going to spend too much of
your life stuff stuck in traffic. You've got to have
viable alternatives to that, and you've got to have a
sense in the economy that there are opportunities for people
that people can move on up and take risks and
make money. You've got to have those things happening, and
if they are all happening, then big City has become exciting.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
Thanks for joining us, Simon, Thank you. It's it's for
this episode of the Front Page. You can read more
about today's stories and extensive news coverage at enzdherld dot
co dot nz. The Front Page is produced by Ethan
Sills and Richard Martin, who is also our sound engineer.
(22:16):
I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to the Front Page on iHeartRadio
or wherever you get your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow
for another look behind the headlines.
Yoda. I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page,
a daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. This
year marks fifteen years since the birth of Auckland's supercity.
The controversial idea to merge eight regional and district councils
(00:26):
into one super council was kickstarted after a Royal Commission
on Auckland governance back in two thousand and seven. The
city now stretches from Welsford down to Bombay and from
Uruay to Hoe their point. More than a decade later,
discussions are still being had about whether it was a
good move for New Zealand's largest and most populated city. Today,
(00:50):
on the Front Page ends At Herald's senior writer Simon
Wilson joins us to discuss what needs to be done
to make sure Auckland's still thriving for the next fifteen years.
So fifteen years on, Simon, how super is our supercity?
Speaker 2 (01:14):
So yeah, the Auckland City has been a supercity officially
in legislation for fifteen years. That's when the new amalgamation
in twenty ten, the amalgamation of eight different local authorities
now around the Auckland region was completed and we got
Auckland Council, which is both a regional council that in
(01:35):
the way that other parts of the country have, as
well as a city council in the way that other
cities have the combined them won so it's called a
unitary council. After fifteen years, it has now been an
opportunity to take stock of just how well that's progressing,
What is being solved in the city, what is the
state of play with funding, with planning, with ambition, and
(01:59):
how are we doing with our natural resources and with
the way in which people are able to thrive.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
So tell me.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
About this latest research from the Auckland at fifteen that's
by the University of Auckland's Complex Conversations Lab, which sounds
like something that we just do in our day to
day right, thank you, Right. How are Auckland is feeling
about the supercity?
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Well, there are some The way in which the survey
was done was that it's a kind of opten survey
of people who went online and participated in conversations about
what the city is like and where it should be going,
responded to some provocations and statements added their own for
other people to talk about and the surveys from that
process built up a picture of what people think they had.
(02:45):
I think five hundred and seventy five participants who made
over one thousand proposals, and out of that they reached
in many ways a very high degree of consensus. So
there is over ninety percent support for enhancing the natural
environment of the city. And I don't think that should
surprise anybody. We know we live in a beautiful city,
(03:05):
and we know we want to look after it, and
we know we want to make the most of it
and not threaten it. That environmental side comes turns into
things like the beach is clean, when the storms come,
do they remain clean or clean enough? So will we
doing enough in those sorts of areas as are we
dealing with CARDI dieback? Are we looking after the forests?
Are we making sure there is enough what is called
(03:28):
urban nahili, which is the urban forest. We're making sure
there's enough greenery in the city. And we know that
those things are becoming more important, not just because we
like trees and trees are good for our mental health,
but also trees provide enormous amounts of shelter, and that's
becoming more important. In some parts of the city, particularly
in the south of Auckland, where the sun is getting
(03:52):
hotter and stronger and the weather wilder, and we need
those kinds of protections too. So all of that's happening.
There is a big push for the city to become
more innovative. Question for Auckland is that we have pretty
highly educated population, pretty highly mobile, We are a relatively
wealthy country, and we have pretty good communication networks, and
(04:14):
all of those things ought to mean that we're very
well placed globally to become what's called an innovation city,
to be using technology to make the most of our
economic opportunities, and to do it from this fabulous place
so that we attract what Sir Paul Callahan used to
call the people to come and work, play and live
(04:36):
here because it's a great place to live and because
you can do the stimulating, interesting work that you want
to do that maybe you were doing in Europe or
Australia or America, that you come and to it in
New Zealand, come and do it in Auckland, where you
get all the advantages of the outdoor life as well
as the fascinating diverse society, and you still got those
economic advantages too. The problem with that vision is that
(05:00):
it is the vision of almost every city in the
world that's about the same sizes.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Right, yes, why should you choose all exactly?
Speaker 2 (05:08):
So, what is the thing that is going to make
Auckland unique? And we can't be smug about it. We
can't just go We'll look. You know, it's a great
place to get your kayak out and get on the harbor,
go surfing or go tramping or whatever, because other people
offer those things too and can offer a better sentard
of living. We know, housing prices are really high here,
so there's a real barrier and those sorts of things.
You know, there are a range of issues that we
(05:30):
confront that we're not very good at confronting, and unless
we get much better at them, we risk being left
behind by other cities in Asia and Australia and in
other parts.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
Of the world overall. When this new line opens, Auckland's
rail networks will start looking quite different. In addition to
the new and upgraded stations, the network will have far
more capacity, slightly more coverage, and much better cross city connections.
But in my view it's important as extra capacities to
good use While it will be most needed during the
(06:02):
busy peak periods, I want to see it be used
to boost off peak frequencies as well. There are many
stations in Auckland suburbs that only get trains every twenty
to thirty minutes and I'd like to see this improved
to more turn up and goes to our frequencies.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Well, one of those things that I guess that we're
not amazing at might be that cohesion in public transport.
Now seventy six percent I believe said that we lack
a cohesive public transport vision and I've got to agree
with them, But how much do you reckon the City
rail Link will better those results when it's open.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
The Yeah, So the theory of the City rail Link
is that it will double patronage of our rail system.
And it doesn't mean that everybody's going to start catching
the train. It's not like that. You know, most people
don't live near a train station, but a lot of
people do. And when you think about congestion on the roads,
congestion was identified in the survey as the biggest single
(07:00):
transport problem to be solved. The problem with that is
that there are different ideas about how to solve it
right now. Some people say more roads, Some people say
better public transport, better cycling and so on, so that
you take people off the roads. Some people say congestion charging,
so that the busiest roads should be have a toll
on them at those times to discourage people from using them.
(07:25):
Then these debates are ongoing in relation to the CRL.
If you could move ten, twenty, even ten percent of
the population who are currently driving every day, you could
move them onto other forms of transport, onto public transport,
in particular, you would overnight, you would solve the congestion problem.
You would have streets that are freer than they currently
(07:47):
are during school holidays. So the CRL is a big
part of that is a big part of saying there
will be twice as many trains. The trains, the train
trips will be faster, They will take people further to
where they want to go, because if you're coming into
the city, you won't just be deposited at Britain Art.
You'll be able to get off at Cutting a Happy Road,
or get off at Midtown area now closer to perhaps
(08:08):
to where you work or where you study, and those
things will all make public transport more appealing. That's the
theory of that. And you know there are other things too.
If we had a concerted effort to have kids not
be driven to school, that would make a real material
difference to congestion on our roads, not just for in
terms of the school traffic, but also in terms of
(08:29):
people who you know. You drop the kids at school
and then you could drive on to work, or you
drive to work, so you might as well drop the
kids to school. It's a checking anything. If you could
break that, go back to a generation or two earlier
where that wasn't the norm. Now you'd make a big difference.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Again, I guess, how is it working having such diverse
parts of the city under the same council. You can
forget the further north you go from the city center.
Just how much is considered part of Auckland. Do the
people in say fung A Paroa have the same concern
as someone in Wayuku.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Often they don't. If they're stuck on the motorway and traffic,
then they essentially do have the same concerns. If you
think about Fungapara, so that's a relatively developed suburban area
that's a good distance away from the city, different from Wayuku,
which is very rural. A lot of Auckland now is
rural geographically, but not many people live there now. Most
people live in the built up areas. Of course, by definition.
(09:24):
The example that people always used to give when the
supercity was formed was what are we going to do
about our waterfront? And there were so many different local
authorities that had different points of view that nothing ever happened.
Since the super City, the waterfront of Auckland has developed
quite significantly. So you think about Queen's Wharf was given
back to or Council and became they wanted to make
(09:46):
it the People's Wharf, the renovation of Shed ten. They're
the North Wharf area, that the viaduct, which was pre
Supercity but has continued to evolve, the North Warf area.
There are cycleways, there are great recreational areas. There are
lots of things for people to do that are free,
as well as going drink and eating, the bars and
restaurants and so on. You think about the sale GP
(10:06):
thing last summer, where there was enormous, enormous popular support
for events that people could get to. Those sorts of
things have all evolved and been made possible because of
the super city. It's been easier to plan, easier to organize,
easier to get approval and funding for that kind of development.
That's the upside. The downside is that it's a city
(10:27):
of one point seven million people. There are twenty one
local boards, most of them have populations that are bigger
than most other cities in the country, and they have
local boards which are part time members. They don't have
anything like the funding of other city councils. So there
is a real gap at the local democratic level now
(10:51):
between decisions that get made centrally by Auckland councils centrally
and people's aspirations in their neighborhoods and their suburbs. And
that's very hard to know how to bridge because you know,
the one obvious way to bridge it would be to say,
let's have lots more democratic engagement. Let's have lots more
opportunity for people in local areas to belong to committees
(11:14):
and communities where they can feed in ideas and have
a say in what happens. But nobody's very keen on
paying for that. Nobody wants to have that kind of
local democracy where we've got lots and lots and lots
of officials. That's quite problematic. Decision making is removed and
nobody has a real has a clear answer.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
And I can imagine the funding in these small areas
as well. I mean, I'm just thinking about a situation
perhaps where a local board is petitioning for a zebra
crossing in their town center versus what that money could do,
say for the waterfront in the viaduct, and how like
who along that line would that local board need to
(12:01):
go through to get the funding for that zebra crossing,
because I can probably tell you right now that that
funding is probably going to go towards something in the city,
right Actually.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
No, no, no, So that the council in its fifteen
years has had slightly different ways of organizing how the
money is spent, but it's always been driven by the
idea that there will be pots of money for each
of the local areas. So if there is money to
be spent in your area and your local board wants
a zebra crossing there, that money won't be taken and
(12:32):
used in another local board area or in downtown, right,
that will be allocated to the local board to spend
in that way, they might have to persuade Auckland Transport
that it's worth having. An Auckland Transport might come back
to them and say, well, we've got twenty requirements for
more zebra crossings and yours, in terms of the risks
that we've measured, is only number ten, so we can't
(12:52):
do it this year. Now, that might happen, and you
have an ongoing debate about that, because the local board
will say, but this is our priority, so therefore they
should listened to. Transport will say well, it's not our priority.
And that's a clash that is not managed very well
all the time. Now, so you do get that tension.
But Auckland Transport can't say, well, the money you want
to spend on the zebra crossing, we're going to spend
(13:13):
it in another part of the city.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
They can't say that, right, So I'm going down a
conspiratorial path, am I.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
I'll put my pitchfork away.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Having just said that, local boards would probably say we
want more money. You know, there was a under an
earlier there there was a proposal. Can't remember the exact
wording of it, but it was the one, the one
big project. Each local board had to say, this is
the one thing we want to fund and they only
got one.
Speaker 4 (13:39):
Oh wow.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
So there was this pot of each of them had
a pot of a reasonablysizeable amount of money and they
got to decide each one and that led to some problems.
That system isn't quite in place now, so it's always
evolving the way the city city works. But that led
to some problems where what about project number two and
three and four? Are they just not going to happen?
You know those things are going to be important too,
(14:01):
And that was one of the problems. Another problem was
you had a case out and with a couple of
local boards near each other. Both of them wanted and
entertainment a recreation center, and they both got They both
made those projects their one project, and they were pretty
close to each other, only a kilometer or so apart,
and the city planning didn't need those two centers so
close to each other. But the idea of the local
(14:23):
boards deciding meant that that was progressing. I think in
fact that got stopped in the end. But you can
see the problem that would be there. How you balance
central planning with local important local decision making every day
is a problem. It doesn't mean it's not worth doing,
and it's but that is part of the thing that
the council engages with.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
Now.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
I know that the rest of the country probably rolls
their eyes and hates when we center in on Auckland,
But something Deloitte Chief Executive Mike Horn said in the
research stuck out to me. He said, if Auckland isn't
competing globally, then New Zealand will suffer. Couple of things here. Firstly,
do you think the country needs to accept that in
(15:04):
order to thrive, Auckland needs to do well.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
I think that's right. And one of the things about
Auckland is that we have something like a third of
the population and I think thirty eight percent of the GDP.
Now that's quite low for a major city. So the
GDP in London compared to the British GDP is much higher.
In other countries where there is one big city as
we have, you would expect it to be higher than
(15:29):
the proportion that we have. So that that is a
problem for the city now and a problem for the
country New Zealand has. If our farming, if our agriculture
isn't doing well, we are in trouble as our whole country.
It's not just farmers in trouble. We're all in trouble
if it isn't doing well. We know that, but that
is also true about Auckland itself. Auckland is such a
(15:52):
powerhouse economically now that if it isn't doing well, then
the country suffers as well. So we need from a
national perspective, we need planning to do both those things
as well as keep the regions viable so they're worth living.
And we don't want everybody to come to Auckland because
that's just that's there would be a nightmare.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
For everyone road through a nightmare aready, right, and there aren't.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
The houses and all the rest of it. And you
want the regions to be viable, but you also need
that central city to be strong. And as you say,
the Deloitte chief executive Mike Horn saying, we need to
understand that's that's one of the things he said that.
He also says, we've had an incremental approach to development
and that has to change because it's meant to be
(16:36):
slipping away. You know, I've been following the super city
since it was formed in twenty ten, and the first
to me, Lenn Brown, always used to say, don't fret
about the fact that we're not getting big transformative change
happening straight away. Every little bit helps. We will do
this incremental thing, and it will build on the last
and we will keep building on it and the next
(16:57):
and the next. And that is how most polots tix
works most of the time. It's the reality of politics.
And he knew that, and the city was progressing. But
what Mike Horn is saying is that actually that isn't enough.
We understand that we are not making ourselves attractive enough
for the world's best and brightest to come and live
(17:19):
and work here, for the world's entrepreneurs to want to
set up here and put money into the New Zealand economy.
We understand we need to transform in order to do that.
We also understand that you can't just make the buses
a bit more efficient and I hope to transform the
transport system. You've got to be thinking bigger about it
than that. You can't just make the schools a little
(17:41):
bit better and hope to transform the problems we have
an education. You've got to do better than that. You
can't just build a few more houses and solve the
housing crisis. You've got to build a lot more houses
to solve the housing crisis and on it. Guys, how
we get how we do those transformative things is extremely
difficult because probably most people are reasonably comfortable with the
(18:02):
idea that we as The survey shows very high support
for density done well, particularly around transport hubs. Doesn't follow
that you want more density in your street?
Speaker 3 (18:15):
Yeah, yeah, What are your thoughts on living in Auckland.
Speaker 4 (18:21):
Auckland is expensive. I've lived overseas a lot and being
back two years and coming back I was shocked.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
It's not too bad.
Speaker 4 (18:27):
It can be expensive.
Speaker 3 (18:28):
Sometimes it's inflation.
Speaker 4 (18:29):
But yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
Got a UNI and I have to pay for parking
for the train station.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
I guess you do a bet of it.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
But even then sometimes it's not enough.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
How much are you paying for renting here in Auten City.
Speaker 4 (18:40):
I'm sharing with somebody, so my share is four hundred
and fifty dollars one week. I just done that in Thailane, Cambodia.
I was paying four hundred dollars for one month.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
Get the government to bring some things down, take some
money out of things that's unnecessary and put into things
actually matter.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
And we're already I mean, I guess we're in that
catch twenty two, because we're already paying London Sydney New
York prices to live in Auckland. And it's kind of
like that thing, Well, why should you get paid more
at work when you're doing the work you are at
the moment for the pay that you're getting. You know,
it's just like why why should the city thrive and
(19:21):
why should it better itself when everyone is paying these
prices to live here? Anyway? Like, what's the incentive there
for people to attract more people? Well, we've got one
point seven million people here already, what's going to What
is it going to take, I guess for us to
make that jump and just to really fasten things up
and get to the Sydney, get to the New York,
(19:41):
get to the London.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
I would argue that we need a housing price structure
that means there are enough places for everybody to live.
That's at all the different price points and all the
different types of housing. Now you can't just look after
a certain proportion of the population in that way. An
awful lot follows from housing. If people have got decent housing,
(20:03):
then they're more likely that their families will be healthier,
more likely to be kids going to school. Now more
likely people are in work and able to stay and work.
All of those things follow from having a place, a
secure or and dry, safe place to live, So that's
really important. Beyond that though, what's the point of difference
for Auckland, Well, in terms of big cities. You know
(20:26):
something somebody said to me once when I first moved
to Auckland, which is over twenty years ago. They said,
what I like about it is the mess. What he
meant was, you walk down the street. You don't know
who you're going to meet or see, you don't know
what you're going to see, you don't know what might
have been changing. It's always stimulating. And that's a big
(20:47):
city thing where the fact that it doesn't quite work
properly but people make it work for them. If that
is possible, that can be pretty exciting. You know. One
of the things that means is that really cool little
bar there that those people set up in a place
that doesn't even seem like it should be a bar,
but hell, they're now music venue. And you know, if
you think about a place like Wammy Bar in Auckland,
(21:09):
that seems nonsense. It's an underground and it doesn't seem
big enough and all the rest of it. But people
make do People make do with the mess, and when
they can do that and thrive, you get that happening
in all the different sorts of ways, and that can
be very exciting to live in. So we need that
you need, and it means that you need, as I
said before, place to live. It also means that you
(21:32):
know that you're not going to spend too much of
your life stuff stuck in traffic. You've got to have
viable alternatives to that, and you've got to have a
sense in the economy that there are opportunities for people
that people can move on up and take risks and
make money. You've got to have those things happening, and
if they are all happening, then big City has become exciting.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
Thanks for joining us, Simon, Thank you. It's it's for
this episode of the Front Page. You can read more
about today's stories and extensive news coverage at enzdherld dot
co dot nz. The Front Page is produced by Ethan
Sills and Richard Martin, who is also our sound engineer.
(22:16):
I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to the Front Page on iHeartRadio
or wherever you get your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow
for another look behind the headlines.
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com