Auckland being held back by low ambition, Sir Peter Gluckman says

Friday, 14 May 2021

Meeting Auckland's goal of halving carbon emissions by 2030 'will be tough', but it is achievable, the mayor says. (Video from May 2021)

Aotearoa’s biggest city is being held back by low ambition and is failing to make the most of its assets, Sir Peter Gluckman says.

“The cliche that if you don’t know where you are going, any road will do seems particularly apposite,” Gluckman told the Auckland’s Future Now conference on Friday.

Auckland’s potential is being held back by a lack of strategic thinking, a disconnect between tertiary institutions and business, the short-term focus of its council and other woes, the director of Koi Tū, Auckland University’s Centre for Informed Futures, told the Auckland Unlimited-run conference.

He warned the talent and skills that Auckland needs to attract could be lured elsewhere as Covid-19 vaccination programmes ramp up globally.

Koi Tū director Sir Peter Gluckman at the Auckland’s Future Now conference.

* Let's talk about our cities, and how we make them more productive

* Empty seats and Covid-19 confront Auckland's new culture and economic agency

“Many Asian countries are now on the aggressive hunt for that talent – our Covid-free status was an advantage, but that is disappearing,” Gluckman, the founder of the Liggins Institute and former chief science advisor to the prime minister, told several hundred conference goers.

He said successful global cities are significantly productive, but Auckland is well below London, which produces 23 per cent of the United Kingdom’s productivity from 13 per cent of its population.

The chief executive of Auckland Unlimited, Nick Hill, at the Auckland’s Future Now conference.

“In Auckland there are 70,000 students in universities, and perhaps 7,000 academics – I know of no other city in which the dislocation between city, business and universities is as obvious as in Auckland,” he said.

He noted low public investment in research and development, not connecting education locally to industries such as the screen sector – “West Auckland could be our Hollywood”.

Gluckman pointed to the technology used by America’s Cup holder Team New Zealand as a microcosm of what the city could do.

He said much of that work blended expertise from the University of Auckland and experts from overseas.

“Let’s get beyond platitudes and have a true dialogue on what Auckland could be – it would require Wellington, Auckland, and importantly Aucklanders to co-design a realistic future.”

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern speaks at the conference on Friday.

The second Auckland’s Future Now conference is exploring both how to prosper with borders largely closed and what will happen when skilled workers can leave, or have a better chance of arriving.

“We are dealing with a world wanting to open up, but it is going to be complex and uncertain, and difficult to forecast how that happens,” Nick Hill, the chief executive of the council’s culture and economic agency Auckland Unlimited, said.

Auckland’s struggle to attract domestic tourists, partly hamstrung by the loss of council marketing funding in a budget squeeze, is also confronting a sector which employs 55,000 people.

“The rest of New Zealand has become increasing concerned about coming to Auckland and [supporting] tourism, to the same extent that Aucklanders have gone to the rest of New Zealand,” said Hill.

“One of the things we need to be doing is promoting Auckland as a destination domestically, and now to Australians, but because of Covid, we don’t have the funding to do that.”

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern foreshadowed changes to immigration priorities, which are due to be spelled out on May 17 by minister Kris Faafoi.

“We want to shift the balance away from low-skilled low-paid work, towards attracting highly skilled migrants and addressing genuine skill shortages to improve productivity,” Ardern said.

The day-long conference follows the inaugural event in 2020, staged just after the Covid-19 level 4 lockdown.

Hill said important work had flowed from the 2020 gathering, with a tech industry group of 90 leaders developing a five-year plan to attract investment.

Largely unseen had been a year of work with sector leaders feeding data to the Government on the need to get critical and high-value workers places in managed isolation so they can work in Auckland, he said.