Viv Beck: Heart of the City chief executive agrees with growing calls to get Auckland's economy moving again

There's growing calls among Auckland business leaders to get the city's economy going again.

According to the latest Stats NZ data, Auckland’s 6.1 percent unemployment rate for the June 2025 quarter was the highest of any region and above the national rate of 5.2 percent.

Heart of the City chief executive Viv Beck says the Government needs to find a solution to get the city moving again.

"We're talking to people on the street, businesses who have struggled through 10 years...they need people, they need customers, they need people here and events are a proven way of doing that."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now on another matter, there is a growing chorus of
Auckland voices who are calling for more action to help
Auckland's economy thrive again. Simon Bridges from the Chamber of
Commerce is called for a corporate tax cut. Mayor Wayne
Brown has now renewed calls for a bed tax. Viv
Beck from Heart of the City is with us on this,
Heybiv Viv, Hello, Well, sorry for stuffing up. You know
what a start. Hey, listen, do you agree with these

(00:22):
guys that there is not enough help at the moment
for Auckland.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Yes, I do absolutely, And I think the operative word
you just said then is action and I think speed
because things do tend to go round and round of it.
And you look at that bed tax. If the government
doesn't like it, what there needs to be is discussion
around what are the alternatives so that we actually can
get moving. Because we're talking to people on the street,
businesses who have struggled through ten years as you know here,

(00:49):
and they need people, they need customers, they need people
here and events are a proven way of doing that.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
So what's your preference. Is it for a corporate tax
rate cut or is it for a bed tax?

Speaker 2 (01:00):
Well, tax cuts are sort of a little bit out
of our organizational field, but the reality is what we
deal with. There's a lot of street trading businesses that
need people here, and we can't just have this sort
of stalemate stuff where things don't go anywhere. So we
need people here. If they don't like a bed tax,
give us our GST back and let us get on

(01:21):
with it. America's cup was a great example, totally missed opportunity,
and I think with a different attitude, that could have
been a different outcome.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
So what do you think is going wrong? Do the
guys and I mean, do you sheep this home to
central government?

Speaker 2 (01:35):
Well, I think it can't all go back there. But
I look at our situation here and it's going to
need all the players working together with speed to determine
how we actually get the action we need. You look
at crime that's worked. It's had a minister that's been
wanting to sort of grab it and get on with it.
We've had all the right people here working together and

(01:56):
we've had a significant reduction in crime. We met Minister's
Bishop and Brown last week and said we need the
same level of ministerial support to deal with the social
issues because we know that it's troubling a lot of
our businesses and many others, and we want it's an
attitude with the right people working together to make stuff happen.

(02:17):
And it actually can happen on social issues because it
happened before COVID.

Speaker 1 (02:21):
Right, and so who would be the right minister? Who's
the minister who you think should be the one who
does something here?

Speaker 2 (02:26):
Well? Actually, on the social issues, it's cross agency. Mental
health has been missing in action. We need mental health,
we need housing. So we've got Minister Bishop's attention, mister Brown,
and also we do need Louis Upstein because at the
end of the day, this is it affects tourism and
it's a social development issue. So it's a cross agency approach. Actually,

(02:50):
we don't think it needs more money. It's actually how
do we work together to solve the issue, make sure
people are housed thoughtfully with the right support, that we've
got the right mental health support for them. Before COVID
we had two hundred Rough sleep is successfully housed and
we've developed a great alternative to begging. Let's be bold
and aspirational and make stuff happen.

Speaker 1 (03:12):
Do you think that they do not realize in other
parts of the country, like perhaps in Wellington, how bad
it is in central Auckland.

Speaker 2 (03:18):
I don't think they do. And when I presented at
the COVID inquiry recently, I had it on a graph
the stark reality of the central city versus the rest
of Auckland versus the rest of New Zealand, that it
may not be as severe as it was during COVID,
but the gap is still there. They need to understand that.
I heard the Prime Minister say this afternoon. Apparently he

(03:40):
said something like, well, they're getting a six billion dollar rail.
You cannot seriously think that you're going to open up
a rail and it's mysteriously going to imagically going to
take away the woes of ten years of disruption, the
worst impacts of COVID in the country and the residual
social issues is not going to happen. So we've said
to Minister's Life last week, please be cautious about this.

(04:02):
We need action urgently and it's not all on them,
but they need to work with us locally and not
leave the small business voice out. It's critical to this.
You don't want to go to a city without retail
and hospitality on the streets.

Speaker 1 (04:14):
Fair Point, viv Thank you so much, vive Beck, Heart
of the City.

Speaker 2 (04:18):
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