Wayne Brown’s massive Auckland budget problems – Simon Wilson

OPINION

Auckland mayor Wayne Brown goes into a critical 10-year budget meeting tomorrow. He’s got some massive problems.

The meeting is a confidential workshop, in which councillors will review the results of the very large
consultative process that ended in March. They’ll then bring their views to an open meeting of the council later in May.

The consultation results show Aucklanders are split, often down the middle, on a range of spending and revenue options.

“Walking and cycling improvements”, for example, feature prominently on the list of what some people want less of, and also the list of what other people want more of. It’s the same for “roads and footpaths”: strong views both ways. (And yes, there is a contradiction between wanting better footpaths but fewer walking improvements.)

On many other questions, around 40 per cent of submitters were in favour, and around 40 per cent opposed.

Brown’s second problem is that on some of the key elements of his plan he cannot muster the support of even a thin majority of councillors.

Brown wants to create a “regional wealth fund” not unlike the NZ Superannuation Fund. He calls it the Auckland Future Fund and it probably does have majority support, in principle. Putting the council’s remaining airport shares into the fund, which would likely see them sold, could also squeak through.

But his biggest single proposal – to boost the fund by offering a 35-year lease to a private company to operate the Auckland port – has fared less well.

“It’s still a tight race, which serves to prove that the future of the port is not predetermined,” Brown announced last week. “If we create an Auckland Future Fund, it should be well-capitalised, but how we get from A to B is still up for discussion.”

Decoded: He doesn’t have the numbers.

Nor should he. From the publicly available information, the port plan still doesn’t make enough sense.

The one big thing Brown does have public support on, and likely council support, is his focus on public transport. Almost three-quarters of submitters backed the mayor’s public transport plan, which features a $50 weekly fare cap for all bus rail and inner-harbour ferry services, along with dynamic lanes and other measures to make bus travel faster and more reliable.

His intentions here are good, although his policies are not radical. The fare cap will benefit an adult commuter by $10 a week, if they have a HOP card and travel every week day through three zones. More if they live in Manurewa, Kumeu, Hibiscus Coast, Beachlands or even further out.

For most people, it’s not a game changer. There are many other ways to provide a bigger fare incentive. What about a low-cost, two-zone fare structure, or capping the fares for all passengers: travel free after seven trips a week?

But despite his good intentions, the moderate nature of the fare cap highlights an enormous transport problem for the council.

As the mayor himself says: “Funding for transport in the Auckland region was cut by around $600 million, when the coalition Government scrapped the Regional Fuel Tax in its 100-day plan. And we are yet to strike a deal with central government on transport, which leaves us with a lot of unknowns and a significant shortfall for the time being.”

Decoded: Auckland Transport (AT) has to cut public transport services anyway. This is tragic for the city because it sends us backwards. While fares are important, surveys suggest they aren’t the critical factor in persuading people to use buses and trains: frequency, reliability, travel time and safety all usually rank higher.

But because that “deal with central government” hasn’t even been proposed yet, we’re nowhere near knowing how deep AT’s cuts to services will have to be. Stand by for the inevitable result: As I’ve said before, the roads will get even more clogged up.

In the consultation, there was also strong support (74-89 per cent) for spending on council services, water, parks and other community facilities, and the environment.

How good is that? Despite a massive campaign by the grinches at the Auckland Ratepayers Alliance, we really are, in many respects, the city we like to think we are. Community minded and greatly caring of the natural beauty that surrounds us.

Less popular, but still with clear majority support, was spending on “city and local development” (60 per cent) and “economic and cultural development” (59 per cent). And many submitters had a crack at “nice to have” spending.

Let’s just say it: There’s no such thing as “nice to have”. The phrase is a euphemism for “I don’t want it”.

Take the debate about whether bus lanes should replace car parks on arterial roads. There’s no “nice to have”: for people on both sides, the other is not nice to have.

Wayne Brown likes to call spending on cycleways a “nice to have”. He’s even taken to suggesting that all we need is a rumble strip to mark the bike zone off from the rest of the road.

This is classic. The reason we need bike lanes at all is for the safety of riders. Rumble strips, especially in Auckland traffic, are a laughably out-of-touch solution.

Brown has also called economic and cultural development a “nice to have”. Spending on this was slashed in the last annual budget and the rest is still at risk. But it has several purposes.

One is to create a higher-wage economy. For example, the pathways created for young people in the poorer parts of the city so they can get into skilled jobs in IT, construction, transport, design and other fields.

Another is to attract high-skilled workers and entrepreneurs to live and work in the city. That’s about supporting the economic opportunities, but not just that. It’s also about making the city a stimulating, entertaining and safe place. You can’t do these things without heaps of cultural activity, good urban planning and a thriving economy.

All of which brings us to the big challenge councillors now face. It’s time for leadership.

Time for councillors to learn from but not be dictated to by the split results of the public consultation. We elected them to show fiscal restraint, but not to abandon our communities. Their job is to build a better city, with a bit of vision and a bit of courage too.

Brown is proposing a 7.5 per cent rates rise for next year, followed by 3.5 per cent, then 8 per cent, and “no more than” 3.5 per cent thereafter. The lumpiness is largely because of spending commitments on the City Rail Link. And the targeted rates for water and the environment are to be reinstated, which is excellent.

These rates numbers are low. In this city, for nearly 25 years, we’ve elected councils that believed in slow and steady rates rises. In consequence, we do not face the horrifying 20-30 per cent rises of other local authorities. Our council has not abased itself to the false god of cuts-at-all-costs and its grim-faced priests in the Taxpayers’ Union, and we are reaping the benefit now.

In fact, given everything, Brown’s numbers are low. There’s room for a bit of upwards movement there. Perhaps that’s the tradeoff the mayor can do to make his budget stick.

And here’s why. When it comes to community care and building a better city, Brown’s plans include a lot of talk about community services and facilities, disaster resilience and there’s even a nod to the quality of the built environment. That’s all good.

But they do not include enough money for these things. And local boards are not getting the budgets they need for Brown to make good on his promise to empower them.

It flies under the radar with all the debates about stadiums and airport shares and so on, but communities – in everything from flood resilience to bus services – should be front and centre in the council’s planning. They aren’t, not yet.

Meanwhile, RIP free buses and trains for children. As of May 1, the Government has cancelled its predecessor’s free travel subsidy for children aged 5-12 and half-price fares for ages 13-24.

Just another example of a bully punching down? This one is more than mean. It’s stupid too, because like the cancellation of the regional fuel tax, it will put more cars on the road, making congestion worse. Thus sabotaging the very transport goal the Government says it values most.

Simon Wilson is an award-winning 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.