Tamah Alley: Central Otago Mayor on the long-term agreements between regions and central government

The Government's one step closer to reaching long-term agreements on the future of some of our fastest-growing areas. 

It's agreed to negotiate with councils in Auckland, Western Bay of Plenty, and Central Otago, on 10-year deals to boost economic growth, housing and infrastructure. 

Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown says "small decisions" should be kept with councils. 

Central Otago Mayor Tamah Alley told Ryan Bridge the agreement could cover everything and anything. 

She says they’ve put together a list of priorities for the region, and it will be up to them to negotiate with the government and see where their priorities align.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Remember these city regional deals the government kept banging on about.
Well we've got a bit of movement here. Three regions Auckland,
or Otago and Western Bay have plenty, all agreeing on
a memorandum of understanding ahead of actual negotiation for the
deals Central Otago. Tama Elie is with me this morning.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Tama, Good morning, Good morning, Ryan.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
Good to have you on the show. What if you
actually agreed to agree.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
On that's a good question. We have kind of agreed
to meet at the starting line. So we have been
invited to the process to begin negotiations, which I guess
is the first step, hopefully a promising one.

Speaker 1 (00:39):
Right, So is this a bit of an announcement about
an announcement? They've announced that you guys are going to
sit down and talk.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
Yeah, it is, and you know we love that in
local and central government. So it's a neat place to
be in. It is the beginning of a process. But
we have been working on this since late last year,
so it's something that has been and trained for quite
a few months now.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
If this works, it's a ten year deal. Paint us
a picture. What new things will your area have? Roads, gondolas?
What are we talking.

Speaker 2 (01:13):
I guess it could be anything in everything. We've put
together a list of sort of priority areas for ourselves
and Queenstown Lakes District Council, supported by our regional Council,
and then it'll be up to us to negotiate with
the government and here kind of where they see their
priorities aligning with ours, recognizing that they've been very clear

(01:34):
that there is no new money coming, So it'll be
I guess, a process whereby we figure out how we
might pay for any new projects that come out of that.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
If you could have one project, TMA, what would it be.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
Hey, we are really short on water storage in our
area to manage resilience for both our towns and our farmers,
so I would love to see something like that in
the mix. But it isn't a sciation process and we're
just one of the parties there, so we'll see where
we get to with that one.

Speaker 1 (02:04):
Will rate payers end up after this process paying more?
The government says there's no cash to throw around, but
you will. There'll be visitor charges, potentially, congestion charging, special
rates for certain areas, development charges. This is all sounding
quite expensive.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
Well, and all of those sounding like there are things
that rate payers shouldn't have to pay for. So that's
one of the things that we are looking to do.
We know we have hit peak rates for our people
and we are looking at tools that aren't going to
be their back pockets. The idea of investment coming from
outside of the region and making us a bit of
a shopfront for potential investment opportunities for not just New

(02:47):
Zealanders but also overseas will definitely be something that we're
looking at.

Speaker 1 (02:51):
Yeah, but I'm what I'm saying is at some point
someone's going to have to pay for this, aren't they,
And it's going to be whether directly through rates or
through tolls or whatever it might be. It'll be your
people that pay it, isn't it?

Speaker 2 (03:03):
Well, it will. But a big part of it is
also around housing, and we know that more and more
people want to move to this part of the country.
The more people that you have, the more it's spread out.
But we also know people enjoy living here for particular reasons,
and we want to protect why people move here in
the first place, the landscape they enjoy, the ease of
life they enjoy.

Speaker 1 (03:22):
Appreciate your time this morning, TALM and good luck with
your negotiations Ellied Central Otago MIA. For more from Early
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