‘Bribery, bullshit and bullying’: Why plans for an international airport in Tarras have become so controversial

Saturday, 20 January 2024

Three years ago, Christchurch Airport announced an audacious bid to build an international airport in a quiet Central Otago town. Mike White returns to Tarras to see what’s changed, and finds bitterness and battle lines. This is part one. Read the second part in tomorrow’s Sunday Star-Times.

Cherry van der Mark remembers coming here for the first time, up here high on the Bendigo hills near Tarras, and being lost for words.

She eventually found one that described her feelings, looking out over the valley bordered by mountains, and filled with the Clutha River.

“I was amazed. I was absolutely amazed.”

Her husband, Rob, had bought the 11ha section from local legend John Perriam, of Shrek the hermit sheep fame.

Their meeting had started with a cup of tea, progressed to Perriam rolling out a map and saying anything was for sale, and ended with a handshake agreement for the van der Marks to purchase the block, and plant a small vineyard.

Rob recalls sitting on a transformer box at the top of the property, gazing north as the sun angled behind the Pisa Range, and the colours of the land changed from stark to subtle, and thinking, “How lucky am I?”

That was 10 years ago.

Since then, the couple has transformed a hillside covered in boulders and briar rose and bastard rabbits, into neat rows of pinot noir, chardonnay and riesling.

“We fell in love with the land - the vineyard’s an excuse to live here,” says Cherry.

But in mid-2020, their idyll was rocked by news that an international airport was proposed for Tarras, a few kilometres away, with 750ha of farmland having already been purchased for the project.

The buyer was Christchurch International Airport Ltd (CIAL), and the fact it had forked out $45 million for four farms told the van der Marks they were utterly serious.

CIAL had been secretly plotting Project Oscar for a couple of years. The farmers who negotiated with it didn’t know who they were selling to. Even the land agent was in the dark.

But here it was, an airport company from another region, marauding across the border in a brazen raid, claiming a vast triangle of land in a town few Kiwis could plot on a map, and threatening to ruin the van der Marks’ peace and dreams.

It wasn’t just the van der Marks who reacted with disbelief and horror at the news.

Countless neighbours and Tarras residents were sideswiped and gobsmacked.

But the truth was, there had been rumours of new airports in the area for years, with an application for one near Mossburn in the 90s turned down on appeal.

Queenstown Airport had investigated Tarras for a new, greenfields airport, but rejected it due to weather and cost.

However, Christchurch Airport’s CEO, Malcolm Johns, saw things differently.

He believed that as visitor numbers and Central Otago’s population grew, Queenstown Airport wouldn’t be able to cope, and CIAL could get a slice of this “unmet demand”.

Christchurch Airport (which is 75% owned by Christchurch City Council, and 25% by the Government) had already lost custom to Queenstown after Canterbury’s earthquakes, and Johns wanted some of that back.

For CIAL, it was gloves off: Bugger what Queenstown Airport thought, bugger that it wasn’t in their patch, bugger the visionless detractors decrying it, this was how business works.

But sandwiched by corporate rivalry were Tarras locals, around 200 families, most of who’d been drawn to the area because of its quiet rural aspect.

Tarras is 35km from Wānaka, about the same from Cromwell, just over an hour from Queenstown.

It’s the first town you hit when you come over the Lindis Pass from Mt Cook and Mackenzie Country, a settlement so small, traffic only slows to 80kph.

There’s a Shrek statue, a school with about 20 kids, a cracking cafe, three small stores, two petrol bowsers, a public telephone, and 48 red post boxes.

Beyond the highway is a golf course, a quaint church, an under-used rugby ground, and a collie club that just celebrated its centenary.

Now imagine an international airport, with runways 2.6km long, with planes landing and taking off 24 hours a day, with traffic streaming in and out, and all the industries that go with an airport - motels, hotels, takeaways, service stations, car hire yards, hangars, car parks etc - plonked amongst this.

That’s what residents imagined when they heard about the project. And it’s what they’ve been imagining for more than three years, as they’ve tried to get certainty about their future.

It’s what Rob and Cherry van der Mark see in their minds now when they look out from their vineyard - huge jets banking about 500m in front of them, before landing, the noise, the exhaust, the smell.

“People come here and value the beauty, the scenery, the impressive landscapes, the quiet - I mean, listen to the birds,” Rob says, leaning a little forward in his chair above the vines, after a day’s work leaf-plucking.

“And a large international airport in the middle of the valley is not compatible with those values.

“It’s just not right here - and it’s not required here.”

Like many, the van der Marks can’t understand why another airport is needed in the lower South Island when there are already four internationally capable airports within a few hours - Christchurch, Queenstown, Dunedin and Invercargill.

On top of that, there’s an airport at Wānaka, 15 minutes away.

“It’s not needed, it’s not wanted, and we can’t afford it,” says Cherry.

She says CIAL’s information is full of superficiality, unproven claims, and improbable optimism.

“They have a very massaged message, and they’re not really wanting to engage with the public in a meaningful way.”

Rob is incredulous that a project which could cost more than $1 billion doesn’t even have a business plan.

“And if it fails, we’ll be sitting here with an industrial landscape and a commercial failure, which the local community then inherits.”

CIAL says it has to collect data and consult with the community before it can produce a firm business plan, or decide if it applies for consents to build the airport.

But that just leaves locals in limbo.

The van der Marks had plans for a house on their vineyard, with a concrete floor, and views north towards Tarras.

Now they'll build something smaller that can be lifted and transported away, because if the airport goes ahead, “this place will be unliveable”, says Rob.

In retrospect, if they’d known what was taxiing down the line, they would have never bought land here.

But this is good land, Rob says, soil laid down 800,000 years ago by glaciers, something special, something that should be protected, not industrialised and overrun with people.

He feels they’ve been thrust into a David and Goliath fight, and the fight is taking a huge toll on people like them.

“We’re spending way too much time on this shit. We should just be swimming in the river, and having a glass of wine.

“Instead we’re looking at legislation, and bureaucracy, and who we need to talk to.

“We’re a bunch of part-timers, and you’re constantly fighting this negative force, a corporation with deep pockets, with people on huge salaries and bonuses who won’t be working for Christchurch Airport when all this is done and dusted, who will be long gone, sitting in their retirement baches - and we’ll be here with this goddam site.”

Marilyn Duxson was one of the first “part-timers” around Tarras to oppose Christchurch Airport’s plans.

Together with husband John Harris, the retired university professor has turned 28ha of hopeless farmland into the award-winning Māori Point Wines, across the road from where the airport is proposed.

When the airport was announced, Duxson and other residents quickly established Sustainable Tarras to fight it.

And three years on, her views haven’t changed a bit.

“I’ve always said it was such a stupid project that surely it can’t go ahead.”

There’s the cost; the folly of building a new airport when everyone is saying we need to fly less to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; the fact the area already suffers from over-tourism; the fact other airports already exist nearby.

“I keep saying to CIAL, ‘You’re planning an airport of the past - try and plan an airport of the future, which is a hub in Christchurch, and electric planes making hops around the South Island.

“But they just keep on keeping on, with their head in the sand.”

Not only that, the company is trying to buy off locals, Duxson alleges.

In 2021, CIAL established the Tarras Community Fund, which provides $30,000 a year for projects in the area. It insists the fund is a “gesture of goodwill”, given CIAL is now part of the community, and there are absolutely no strings attached.

So far, money has gone to the school, the cemetery, the rugby club, the collie club, the golf course, the playgroup, and to help send a local to a showjumping event in Morocco.

But Duxson is blunt about how she views the fund.

“We’ve always said it was corrupt.

“CIAL is bribing. No doubt - no shadow of a doubt.” (You’ll hear more from CIAL in tomorrow’s Star-Times, but, essentially, the project leader Michael Singleton rejects accusations the community fund is a bribe, insisting the money comes with no expectations or requirements: “I don’t think it’s a great bribe, if it was.”)

A Sustainable Tarras survey found 84% of residents opposed the airport proposal.

CIAL counters that only 40% of residents completed the survey, and argues the community is equally divided between supporters, opponents, and the undecided.

And it points to locals who foresee jobs and opportunities that will help keep young people in the area.

But Duxson is adamant the majority of nearby residents oppose the airport, though most people are just tired of the whole issue.

There’s also a proposal to dredge for gold in the Clutha River behind them, so Duxson says they feel pincered by industrialisation, and assaulted by pollution in a beautiful environment.

“We’ve always said, if the airport happens, we’ll go.

“There’s potential for our tasting room to make a lot of money, but we wouldn’t want to live here, we wouldn’t want to grow grapes here, we wouldn’t want to sell wine that was grown here.

“I wouldn’t want my grandchildren eating all the fruit and berries out of my garden.

“The air is very sweet and very clean here - and that just won’t be the case if we’ve got a bloody big airport across the road.”

Further down Māori Point Road, Billee and Wayne Marsh have carved out paradise from 20ha alongside the Clutha River they bought in 1995.

“We often say to the family, ‘We’re texting from paradise,’ says Wayne. “You couldn’t ask for a nicer place.”

They too would leave if the airport went ahead, with a proposed flight path going pretty much over their house before touching down.

“But it’s a little bit academic whether we look up to the belly of the plane there, or we look up to the belly of the plane over there,” says Wayne, 72. “It won’t be great.

“We have four airports in this area, all set up for tourism. Why do you need a fifth?

“My idea would be to develop Christchurch Airport.

“Honestly, it just mystifies me why you’d want to take tourists away from Christchurch and send them to Central Otago - because they’re not going to turn round and drive back to Christchurch.”

Billee questions CIAL’s claim that another reason a new airport is needed is because Central Otago’s population is growing so fast.

“Nelson and Richmond are growing fast, and Hawke’s Bay, and Tauranga - is Christchurch zooming up there and giving them an international airport?”

She says CIAL acts like they’re the smartest guys in the room, and can see things nobody else is able to, and then tells Central Otago residents what’s good for them.

When she recently asked for information, Billee says she received a response from CIAL’s lawyer, which she found intimidating and bullying.

CIAL insists it’s consulted widely, with the last community meeting just before Christmas, and feedback from Tarras residents will help it make decisions about the airport plan.

But Billee Marsh says Christchurch Airport has only fronted when pressured, and its consultation has been a box-ticking sham.

“They’re divisive, disparaging, and dismissive - I give them a D.

“And if they won’t pack up of their own volition, and they keep progressing and applying for consents, it will end up in the Environment Court, and that’s where the real battle starts.”

Billee says they’re ready for that battle, though they’ll have to raise money to fund it, whereas CIAL has bottomless pockets, backed by ratepayers and taxpayers.

“But I’ve got better things to do with my time.

“Who needs it, who needs it?”

Back on Bendigo’s hills, where miners endured summers and winters of misery searching for specks of gold, and stray merinos stayed unmustered and unshorn for years, Hayden Johnston isn’t sure what to think.

“Like everyone, the uncertainty is the worst thing, and not knowing where things are at with it, puts you in a bit of limbo.

“Depending on the outcome, I could be affected in a variety of ways. And some could be pretty catastrophic.”

As well as owning Tarras Vineyards, Johnston operates The Canyon, an events venue specialising in weddings.

The proposed flight path for Tarras airport sees jets passing right overhead.

“If it is as shown, I just don’t see how the two could co-exist,” says Johnston.

“Being up there at Bendigo is all about the view, and experiencing the remoteness, and the beauty, and the location. You’re drawn to be outside. So it’s pretty hard to mitigate against things like noise.

“I’m not automatically opposed, or for it. I’m trying to be as objective as I can be.”

If the flight path was moved, there are potential benefits for his businesses, given there will be more visitors in the area.

And Johnston admits an airport down the road could be handy.

“It’d be hypocritical to say airports should be banned, because I use them.”

But the continuing lack of clarity about the project’s future, or when everyone will know if CIAL is going to green light the airport, is the killer, Johnston says.

That could be many months away. Even if CIAL decides to go ahead, the consenting process, and arguments in courts, will likely take several more years.

“At the end of the day, you’ve just got to get on with life and deal with what’s there,” says Johnston.

“But I’d certainly rather not have the uncertainty to deal with - no doubt about that.”

Further south, in Cromwell, sentiment seems more supportive of the airport.

But even then, it’s not clearcut.

Luke Win and Ray Casey run R&R Hiabs, a company that lifts and shifts everything from garden sheds to houses, and plays a key role in the construction industry.

“I’m for it, business-wise,” says Casey. “I’d be stupid not to be - we’re about growth, we’re about moving, we’re about building.

“But personally? Don’t want it in my backyard, like every other Kiwi.”

The extra pressure on already substandard roads from more tourists would be disastrous, Casey says, citing the narrow Kawarau Gorge between Cromwell and Queenstown.

“It’s hopeless. And if you add buses and tourists through it - what a f…..g nightmare.

“But the other thing is, how many visitors does this area want to get?

“We’re tapped. We haven’t got staff to fill roles in normal businesses, we haven’t got houses, we can’t get hospitality people, we haven’t got the facilities for them.

“I mean, how greedy does everyone want to be?”

As for claims there won’t be any adverse effects if the project proceeds, “Bullshit,” says Casey. “I don’t believe it won’t change how we live and what we do here.”

He says they’ve gone to all the meetings about the airport, but have no control over what happens.

“We can speak till we’re blue in the face - no one’s going to listen.”

Win says he felt manipulated at “drop-in sessions” run by CIAL.

“It's very well done, it’s very clever.

“You walk in, and there’s these very well-spoken, well-dressed consultants that are going to try and sugar coat all the bullshit, but can’t even back a trailer at the boat ramp or landfill - that’s what you’re dealing with.”

He’s examined the issue in great depth, and can see pros and cons.

“I’m real on the fence about it, I really am. We’d be busy, there’s no doubt about it.

“But I think there’s so many other things that could be done before this.”

Ultimately, whether the airport went ahead, or not, would be decided by people who didn’t live in the region, and their decision would determine what happened to the communities here for decades to come.

Win wonders why Christchurch ratepayers aren’t questioning what’s going on, with an enormous investment being made in another region, while their potholes and street lights and water pipes weren’t being fixed.

“And I’d also want to know, if this all goes south, and doesn’t pan out, how much did this fiasco cost, just to talk about it?”

Part Two tomorrow: Fantastic opportunities or endless misery. Does Tarras airport stack up? The arguments for a new international airport in Central Otago.