Luxon’s bad-mannered exercise in selective hindsight

Tuesday, 27 August 2024

Dave Armstrong is a playwright and satirist based in Wellington. He is a regular opinion contributor.

OPINION: When a film museum/convention centre was first touted in the days when present Green MP Celia Wade-Brown was mayor, I was ambivalent about it revitalising our tourism. But councillors unanimously voted for it.

When the deal with Sir Peter Jackson fell through and we were assured by Mayor Justin Lester that the convention centre ground floor exhibition space would still be packed full of blockbuster exhibitions, I thought it a bad idea to proceed.

When Mayor Andy Foster, now part of the coalition government, said he expected Tākina “to be a catalyst for further investment in the area”, I was unconvinced.

In 2023 when Mayor Tory Whanau opened Tākina and said it would be “the first step in the rebirth of Wellington”, I wondered if she would later regret her cheerleading.

So why, when Christopher Luxon berated councils around the country for overspending on “nice to haves” and called Tākina “a white elephant”, was I strangely furious that he was dissing my mayor and her council? I felt like the parent who can happily diss their own kids, but heaven help anyone else who does it.

Perhaps it was just Luxon’s bad manners. After being welcomed by mana whenua and Wellington’s Māori mayor, he dissed their whare. A bit like telling the aunties and uncles in the marae kitchen that their tea was too strong and hāngī too dry.

The Prime Minister’s criticism was wide-ranging. It was as if every single council in the country was guilty of overspending, be it a conservative district like Selwyn, Ruth Richardson’s old haunt, or liberal Green Wellington.

The truth is that almost every council in the country, progressive and conservative, has had to whack up rates thanks to inflation, water problems and crumbling infrastructure.

Yes, some councils have spent money on projects which others think profligate. That’s called democracy. I think Christchurch’s new $683 million stadium is eye-wateringly expensive. But the point of local politics is that local representatives get to decide. What you or I or Christopher Luxon think is not the point.

Our own Cake Tin is a white elephant if looked at from a purely financial point of view. Yet most Wellingtonians can point to amazing moments – the All Whites win over Bahrain and Martin Guptill’s double century against West Indies spring to mind – so we are OK about taking a smallish financial hit in (regional council) rates over the years.

Yet the Prime Minister’s criticism was also selective. Since when did National suddenly become down on convention centres, given it funded Christchurch’s and assisted Auckland’s through a pokies deal? Would it have had the cojones to condemn Tākina when Hobbit fever was rife, and the council supported it unanimously? There was not a squeak. Our leader has 20/20 hindsight.

As Green councillor Nīkau Wi Neera pointed out last week, the Wellington Convention Centre, for all its faults, cost just under $200m and was constructed on time and only slightly over budget. Compare that with the Auckland convention centre, which was budgeted at $402m with a cost of $900m and counting, and the government-funded Christchurch convention centre which was budgeted at $284m and cost $450m. They make Wellington’s white elephant look positively grey in comparison.

Hutt MP Chris Bishop also weighed in on the Wellington City Council on TV. He didn’t like the way the council withheld fully funding Wellington Water’s request until they were satisfied the money was going to be spent efficiently. Given the inefficiencies and gaffes we have seen from the company and its outsourced contractors, I’d say the Wellington City Council’s decision was fiscally responsible.

Will our central government look at how outsourcing to private companies has increased costs and decreased efficiency at Wellington Water over the last decade, in the same way that outsourcing buses led to the bustastrophe? Or is that too difficult compared to simply bashing the present council for a problem that has been decades in the making?

The message to councils from central government is very clear. Stick to the basics and don’t have any more “nice to haves” or we’ll regulate how much you can raise rates. The difficulty is that it’s hard to define what is basic and what is “nice to have”.

If you own a swimming pool in your backyard then a public swimming pool is a “nice to have”. But if you live in a small house in Naenae, it’s a basic amenity that could stop your kids from drowning one day.

Personally, I think giving landlords a few million billion bucks back in tax is pretty high on the “nice to have” scale. What about paying top-notch salaries for a vaguely defined white elephant, vanity project called the Ministry of Regulation with three times the staff of the Productivity Commission it replaced? I wouldn’t call it a “nice to have” because I suspect it won’t be nice to have but will become the state equivalent of the Taxpayers’ Union minus the smart-ass tweets.