On The Nation: Auckland mayoral debate

Youtube clips from the show are available here.

Headlines:

Auckland mayoral candidate Phil Goff says the Transport Minister has given the green light to replace the Interim Transport Levy with road user charges

Auckland mayoral candidate Mark Thomas says he would sell off the Ports of Auckland business, and half the Council’s shares in Auckland Airport, to pay for new road projects

Auckland mayoral candidate John Palino says central government should pay the entire cost of Auckland City Rail Link - candidate Vic Crone says central government should pay half, but the Council should own it

Lisa Owen: Auckland’s housing crisis, transport system, and sky-rocketing council costs look set to dominate the local mayoral election campaign. There are some big challenges ahead for whoever takes on the top job. So, who’s got the big ideas to get elected? We’re joined by mayoral candidates Phil Goff, Vic Crone, Mark Thomas and John Palino. Good morning to you all.

Phil Goff: Good morning, Lisa.

John Palino: Good morning, Lisa.

Vic Crone: Good morning, Lisa.

Mark Thomas: Good morning, Lisa.

Owen: My first question is for the left candidate, so who is that?

Goff: Err…

Thomas: That would be Phil.

Goff: I’m centre-left, I think. Yeah.

You’ll take that one?

Goff: Yeah, I’ll take it.

Well, your policies seem to be virtually the same as Len Brown’s, so where is your policy point of difference from the status quo?

Goff: No, I don’t think it is the same. We’re two totally different people with totally different experiences. My policy points are around the issues that people talked about in the vox pop. It’s about congestion leading to gridlock, it’s about housing affordability, it’s about council efficiency and effectiveness. We’ve got a long way to go on those. You need a candidate that can work with central government to start to make progress on them.

Vic Crone, does Auckland need a mayor or a CEO? Because your critics would say those are two completely different jobs.

Crone: Yeah, and they are different jobs. Auckland needs a mayor, but let’s get real - the governing body and mayor is accountable for the spend of council. And that’s a $60b investment programme over 10 years. We’re suffering because we don’t have a mayor who understands how to run this organisation with the efficiency of a business. So, yes, I absolutely bring 20 years of business experience, but, actually, do you know what? I’ve got a fair bit of experience with both local government and central government, and also not-for-profit and social enterprise. And that’s the skillset that I want to bring to Auckland to take us forwards.

Okay. Mark Thomas, there’s at least two centre-right candidates in this mayoral race. Are you struggling to get noticed?

Thomas: I’m the man in the middle, and that’s really the man who’s had the experience on Auckland Council. I’m the only person who’s been part of the Council for six years, and so I bring three things, really; that understanding of Auckland Council’s issues, I bring 25 years’ diverse business experience running hundred million dollar businesses, and I understand the local politics, and those three attributes, none of the people here today have. And really it’s a combination of those three, because we’ve had former Cabinet ministers come in and be mayors of Auckland and that hasn’t worked. We’ve had business people with no experience in local government, and that hasn’t worked either. It’s the three things that I bring together.

Okay. John Palino, you had a clear run on the right last time and you still couldn’t manage a win, so how are you going to get over the line in such a crowded field this time?

Palino: Well, look, I think what’s important for a mayor is that he needs to be a leader, but he has to be a visionary, and that’s why I actually wrote my policies down, so that people can understand and they can read that. And that’s what’s really important. The big thing that happened last time was it’s hard to get the message out. You need a lot of money to get that message out, and now I’m getting the message out by having that book so people can read about it.

Is this time round about redeeming yourself, then?

Palino: No, not at all. There’s nothing to redeem. I did quite well. I got 110,000 votes.

You didn’t win, though.

Palino: No, I didn’t win, but, you know, if you look at it, Len spent almost $900,000 on his campaign and got a little over 160,000, and I spent 150 and I got 110,000 votes. So I actually did very very well. The people really responded. But there’s other issues why I didn’t get in last time, I was an unknown.

Okay. Well, this council is a council with big debts. It’s got some big projects on the boil and a number of priorities. Rates is a big part of paying for those things. Vic Crone, you’re promising average residential rate rises of 2%, so where is the rest of the money going to come from?

Crone: Yeah, it’s about capping rates. And that’s because we’ve got to take the burden off ratepayers and put the burden back on council. But it’s actually not good enough just to cap rates; you’ve got to look at the rest of the financial management of council. So, absolutely, targeting at least $500,000,000 of inefficiency of spend. How do you know that’s there? Because you’ve got the $1.2b, etc. So that’s important. The third one that’s important: staff costs have ballooned by 70% in five years, so we’ve got to start to get those back under control.

So what are you going to do then? You say you’re convinced that there’s $500,000,000 worth of savings. You’re convinced the fat is there.

Crone: Absolutely there is.

So where are you going to slice it from? You mention staff, are you going to cut some jobs?

Crone: Yes. So, my policy targets 5%-10% staff cost reduction, which is around $40m-$80m per annum. On top of that, procurement.

So how many people will lose their job?

Crone: It’s a staff cost. There will be some losses of jobs. I estimate 50-100. Until you get the number and you’re in, you actually can’t see, because councils aren’t transparent.

Well, is anyone else going to cut jobs?

Thomas: It’s less about the people; it’s more what they’re doing. When they’re not doing enough of the value-adding exercises, we spend $870m per annum, and admin support and lower priority cost, so I’m announcing an emergency budget today – if I become mayor on the 1st of November – to actually ask the chief executive to provide $100m worth of savings in the first three months of my term. And that’s because we’ve got to get the money spent better, more on the transport and the housing projects.

Well, you’ve got your eyes on ATEED and Regional Facilities Auckland, haven’t you? What are you going to do with them? Cut them altogether or what?

Thomas: Well, we need to have our events and tourism activities linked to the assets we own. We own the art gallery, we own the zoo. We’ve got two separate businesses that are actually competing in the space, and so I’ll merge those and get $3m of savings there. But the big savings come from the re-write of the Auckland plan that I‘ll initiate next year, and actually getting some of the low value spending into the high value areas.

Okay. So you’re going to amalgamate two businesses within Auckland Council. The other thing you’re talking about is outsourcing the consents department, aren’t you?

Thomas: That’s right.

How do you know that’s going to be more efficient?

Thomas: We know housing’s a big issue. We’re making provisions for land supply, 130,000 new houses. We’ve got to spend money on the infrastructure and then speed the consents up. I was on a task force last year that said we’re too slow. I want to get the private sector involved, to have some competition.

You think they can do it better?

Thomas: Well, they did it in Christchurch, because we investigated what happened there.

I’m asking here. Do you think they can do it better here?

Thomas: I know they can. It’s supposed to be 20 days to get a consent. It can be triple or even more, and that’s what’s slowing up the house building in Auckland.

But will that cost people more?

Thomas: Not at all. What it will do is it will actually make the process more efficient. Developers tell me one of the key reasons why we’re not building enough affordable housing is that we’re not quick enough. We’re not fast enough.

Okay. All right, Phil Goff, you’ve got the same kind of idea in terms of offering trims. 4%-6%, get rid of duplication, you say, so what do you axe?

Goff: Well, I think what people realise about the supercity is it hasn’t delivered the efficiencies, it hasn’t cut the duplication, it hasn’t cut the waste. I get stories all the time. It’s about inefficiency, it’s also about changing the culture of council, because council is not transparent and it’s not responsive. So, where do you look for cuts? Well, there’s 130 people in the Council’s communication unit. Now, I can’t, for the life of me, understand why you’d need 130 people in that area. I’ve seen cases where somebody’s gone to council, they’ve met with eight different officials to discuss a minor problem. Why would you have eight officials, none of them able to make a decision at meeting?

So you’re talking job losses as well?

Goff: I think, look, you’ve got a turnover at council of about 16%, 17% per annum. I think you’d absorb a lot of those job losses through the normal attrition rates.

But the kind of savings you’re talking about, 4% to 6%, you’re not going to get that by cutting just a few jobs, so where else is it coming from?

Goff: I think you’ve got a whole lot of areas that you need to work on. You want to start—

But name me some specifics, Mr Goff.

Goff: I’ll give you a specific. You’ve got the local government procurement area. We reckon we can save about 50 million a year by getting best practice in procurement by local government of goods and services. It’s where they spend 68% of their budget. I’ve had people that are expert in this area go through it, say, ‘Look, this is second best. If we get first best, there’s $50 million—

Thomas: He’s bringing in consultants to actually help him. We spend $200 million a year in consultants already. I don’t want to spend as Mr Goff does, more money bringing in consultants. I want to use the expertise I’ve had from six years of council to actually make the specific savings in the admin, support and—

Crone: The reality here—

All right, John—?

Crone: The reality here is no one around this table has run billion-dollar businesses and cut budgets to the level that we’re talking about except me. Mr Goff opposed every single cut that government put forward when he was leader of the Opposition, absolutely. To have to bring on your own executive team to do this, what we actually need – a mayor that has done this before, that has experience in it.

But you haven’t been a mayor before.

Crone: No, but who has run efficiencies in organisations like this? There’s no one else.

Thomas: We’ve all done that.

Palino: Not a problem, actually.

John Palino, you are the one who is promising the biggest cuts – 10% in rates over three years. So you must have to sell a few more things other than a couple of jobs and stuff.

Palino: Nobody actually—

What are you getting rid of?

Palino: Nobody actually understands the root of the problem. In the past five years, we’ve borrowed over $5 billion, and the reason for that is because our growth plan is driving us broke. You take Los Angeles – Los Angeles is bankrupt, and it’s bankrupt because they can’t fix the infrastructure. They infilled everywhere. Infilling actually causes a debt. We’re not going to be able to pay for that. If we grow properly, we look at my plan on how we grow by building up the nodes – Albany, Henderson, Manukau – and building a satellite city. That generates income for the future because now we’re actually working on intensity in CBD areas. When we had seven councils, who was the richest council? The CBD. Why are we building suburbs? It’ll make us broke. That’s the root of the problem.

Thomas: These satellites are in the current plan. We’ve got Albany, we’ve got Henderson, we’ve got Manukau.

Palino: For years I’ve been talking about that.

Thomas: These are already in the plan.

Palino: Great—

Thomas: John needs to read the plan.

John, sounds like the Unitary Plan by another name.

Thomas: That’s right.

Palino: Yeah, but I had these policies three years ago, so finally they’re listening. You know, I launched this book several months ago. Two weeks later, Labour comes out and says, ‘We’re going to up the metropolitan boundary.’ It was in my book. I gave it to them. Three weeks later—

Thomas: I’ve been party to—

Palino: They’re talking about my policy. Even Phil’s talking about the same things that I talk about, building up the CBD areas.

Goff: Give us a go, and I’ll talk for myself.

Palino: It was the first time—

Goff: I think there are two sides to this equation. One, the council certainly has to learn to do more with less. It’s got to become more efficient in its governance and its management. But the second side about where you get your money from – we’ve got to make savings. We’ve got to be the best-performing city. But the second side of it is – we’re getting 50% to 60% of the country’s growth. We’ve got to get a fair share back from government of the GST and the income tax they take from that huge growth in Auckland to meet the costs of that growth. So part of the skills of the incoming mayor has got to be to deal with central government to get Auckland’s fair share to keep up with the demands of growth and transport and in housing infrastructure.

Okay, we’re going to talk a little bit about how you might deal with government a little bit later, but I want to ask about Watercare Services. Should it be paying a dividend to the council? Should it be making more money, generating?

Thomas: Phil says it should.

Goff: No, no, I don’t think it should at all.

Thomas: You said that in your policy.

Goff: No, I didn’t say that. Well, let me speak for myself, Mark, then we might get it accurate. I think that having Watercare not pay a dividend means that they can reinvest the money that they are taking for the fees that they charge and improving the wastewater and the freshwater supplies to houses.

Does anyone think—?

Goff: If you privatise— Can I just finish with this point? If you privatise Watercare and a private company wants to come in and take a dividend, you’re going to see water rates double or even treble.

Thomas: His policy criticises the fact that Watercare doesn’t pay a dividend, so I think it’s reasonable to expect people to look at that. $5 billion is the investment plan for Watercare over the 10 years of the current budget.

So would you look at it?

Thomas: No, not at all, but what we’ve got to do is actually— we own Watercare, and we don’t scrutinise it enough. That $5 billion investment project doesn’t get enough oversight, and that’s what I’ll do.

Okay, I want to know if there are any public-private partnerships – specific examples that you would engage in as mayor that you think could bring something to the city.

Thomas: Transport’s the biggest issue. Penlink’s an obvious one. I’ve been involved with public-private partnerships. The only one that I—

All right, so yes to you – transport. Vic?

Crone: Absolutely. So Penlink is one; Mill Rd is another. But can I also add in here, it’s not just about public-private with the business sector. It’s about working with the social sector as well. So across Auckland, for example, there’s a number of great initiatives like Manaiakalani in the education space to lift the decile-one performance. We need to be partnering with those people, like Ara, which is in the Manukau airport area, in terms of getting people from education into jobs and tradeswork. And then the third one I want to talk about is the Weymouth area in terms of the Housing Foundation, which is about getting people into homes who would be facing a lifetime of renting—

Those are—

Crone: And so, yes, it’s about public-private—

Those are programmes already existing.

Crone: They are council—

I’m asking you have you got any new ideas for a public-private partnership?

Crone: Yeah, absolutely.

John?

Palino: I want to build a satellite city in South Auckland where most of that will be built by—

Thomas: It’s called Manukau. It’s there already.

Not you, Mr Palino. I think it’s called the Unitary Plan.

Palino: No, hold on a second. This is the difference – is that you let developers just go out there and build. A mayor has to put an overall plan on that, and he has to drive several developers. I’ll give you an example.

He or she has to put an overall plan in place. All right—

Palino: He or she has to drive that.

I just want to—

Palino: Somebody has to drive that.

I want to go to some quickfire questions before we go to the break.

Goff: Can I answer that one? Yeah.

Phil, after the break.

Goff: One specific might be a light-rail system. You could do it by an infrastructure bond.

Okay.

Goff: Or you could do it as a public-private partnership, a build-own-operate-and-transfer.

Okay.

Goff: We’ve got to look at all those options.

All right, given that you’re all sort of talking about making cuts and things, I want to know how much you know about how much it costs to run this city. John Palino, how much does it cost to maintain Auckland’s parks and recreation facilities a year? Do you know that?

Palino: I’m sorry, I don’t remember that.

Okay, 65 million.

Palino: I had it.

Phil Goff, how many council staff are there for every thousand Aucklanders? You want to cut some staff?

Goff: There’s a total of 11,000 staff across the CCOs and the council, and you’ve got a population of one and half million, so you do the maths.

Okay, I will. 5.8 per thousand. Mark Thomas, you want to ditch what you call surplus cultural spending.

Thomas: Mm-hm.

So how much does it cost to run the city’s libraries?

Thomas: We’ve got 54 libraries around Auckland. $870 million is the total budget that they’re included within, and that’s an area, actually, where the main—

50 million a year it takes to run the libraries.

Thomas: …which is close to the number of libraries.

Okay, so, Vic Crone, how much has the council spent on travel? You can either give me in the last year the domestic travel or international, whichever you prefer.

Crone: I thought it’s around 800,000.

2 million is the total for that.

Crone: Gosh, I was a bit optimistic, wasn’t I?

Lisa Owen: You’re back with The Nation and our Auckland mayoral debate. I’m joined by Phil Goff, Vic Crone, John Palino and Mark Thomas. Transport – big issue for Aucklanders. Just want to ask everyone – how did you get here today? John?

Palino: Car.

Goff: Car. That’s the only way you can get from the countryside.

Thomas: I’m off to Howick after here, so there’s no direct train route currently, so I had a car.

You came in the car. Okay. Well, if there was a central rail route, you might’ve taken it. Now, the Government and Auckland have decided they’re going to pay for half each, but, Vic Crone, who should eventually own it? Who would own it on your watch?

Crone: The council should own that, absolutely, and that’s what will happen over time. Yeah.

Palino: No, that should be pushed to the central government.

Why, John?

Palino: Why? Because it’s a big- It’s about the growth of Auckland, and the growth of Auckland needs to be funded by central government.

Crone: When are we going to stand up and actually take ownership? This is what the council does – it builds infrastructure.

We can’t afford our half, John?

Palino: No, we can’t. We can’t. It’s taking money away from-

Thomas: Well, we can. It’s actually in our budget. Our half’s in the budget. It’s a partnership approach that we actually need, Lisa.

Okay, I need to hear you, so-

Thomas: It’s a partnership approach that we need. So we’ve actually spent the last five and a half years locked in battles with the Government. They spend a lot more in Auckland than we do – they spend 20 billion; we spend 3.5 – so I want a more collaborative partnership with whoever the next government is. Phil needs a change of government, but I’m prepared to work with any government to make sure we partner more effectively.

John, so would you pull the pin on the council’s half of this?

Palino: Well, I don’t think we can pull the pin right now, even though it’s actually taking infrastructure away from- It’s taking infrastructure away from everything else. But people-

So you are-? So you are going to pay for it? So then I’m asking you-

Palino: What I’m saying is we should go back to central government; we should actually reason with them and get them to pay for it, because the people, the ratepayers, should not be paying for Auckland’s growth. They should be paying for their infrastructure and for the repairs of the infrastructure, not for the growth.

How are you as mayor going to get government to pay for 100% of the central rail link?

Palino: I’ll tell you how. So for instance, my policy about building a satellite city in South Auckland, that city while it’s growing, it’s going to build the schools, the hospital, the police station, the fire, the ambulance – everything that is needed in a community which we’re not building right now, because the Unitary Plan right now-

No, but that doesn’t answer the question of how the government’s going to pay for the link.

Palino: I’ll tell you. So in 10 years, that community’s going to have around 300,000 people. 300,000 people generates about $12 billion a year in income. About $3 billion a year goes to central government for taxes, another, say, $1 billion to $2 billion a year in GST and $1.2 billion a year in rates. That’s how we fund it, because we make sure that our growth is going to generate enough income to fund it. That’s how we do it.

Goff: You asked the question, Lisa, who should own it. I don’t think Aucklanders give a damn whether it’s central government or local government that owns it. They just want the infrastructure put there in place. The real question you’ve got to ask-

They might, because it’s about control of fears, what happens to the future asset, whether it gets-

Goff: No, no. They- They want the asset there. The real question to ask is how you get the capital to build that asset, and council is constrained. It can’t do it out of rates. Treasury says they can’t do it out of asset sales. You can’t do it out of borrowing indefinitely, because you’ve got prudential limits. So we’ve got to have something like the Government’s infrastructure fund. They’ll provide the capital 10 years without interest, and then you start paying the interest and paying the capital. Now, they’ve provided something–

That’s $1 billion.

Goff: …that would meet one-fortieth of Auckland’s needs. We need a serious infrastructure fund. Government can raise the money really cheaply. The world’s awash with capital at the moment. We’re spending big money- We’re spending big money by not having the infrastructure in place.

Okay, let’s bring this side of the table in on the conversation. Vic?

Crone: We totally forget that the government are us as taxpayers, and, you know, there’s a big population in Auckland, so the tax we pay will come into government, which is what we’re saying we need more money from. So I actually don’t agree with that. Yes, government need to contribute a bit, but if you look at the cities around the world – you look at Sydney in terms of the airport to the rail; you look at Melbourne in terms of the tram; you look at Sydney in terms of the tram – that is funded by public-private partnerships. Most cities around the world actually partner to deliver it. Sydney only- Sorry, Melbourne are contributing 15% from the government to their equivalent of a city rail link. So we need to and must broaden our sources of funding.

But you’re determined to hold on to that asset. Phil Goff doesn’t care who owns it, but you would hold on to it for Auckland?

Crone: Yeah, because it’s about the long-term infrastructure programme, and we’ve got to integrate that asset into everything else that we have.

Thomas: We should own the assets we need to. What no one’s mentioning is we’ve got $42 billion of assets on our balance sheet, and actually, we’re rubbish at running some of those assets. In my own ward, we’ve got rugby club rooms we’ve had for six years-

Okay, so what are you going to flick?

Thomas: So what I’m going to do is ask Aucklanders to give me permission to swap half the value of the airport shares and the port operating company, provide $1.2 billion, which we should transfer into priority assets.

The whole of the port and half of the airport, just to be clear?

Thomas: Not the land, not the land. Just the company.

Yes, yes, just the company.

Thomas: We don’t have the best-performing port in New Zealand – actually that’s Tauranga, which is actually 45% privately owned. So there’s a model for that. That would give us $1.2 billion- $1.2 billion to actually transfer into priority assets like the Pakuranga-to-Panmure busway, which is our second top-priority transport project, but it’s not due to start until 2021.

Let’s just explore this a minute. So flick off half of the airport shares and get rid of the-

Goff: No. I’m against it.

Okay. Well, let’s do a round robin. Where do you stand?

Goff: I’ll give you that guarantee right here I will not be selling those airport shares. The dividend return from the airport is hugely valuable to Auckland ratepayers. That’s why everybody wants to buy them off us. The airport is comfortable working with the council. It says that it is a responsible stakeholder. We need to have a strategic interest in that airport.

Okay. But the port you’re happy to move but keep it as an asset?

Goff: It’s- Look, I think you keep your land. What you do with the port-

But you’d be happy to sell the company?

Goff: No, you can’t even make that decision about the port unless you make- until you make the decision about what you’re doing with the port.

John, airport shares-?

Palino: No, we would never sell that. It generates too much income.

Airport shares and the port – where do you stand?

Palino: The port- The issue with the port is that it generates only a certain amount of money right now. You know, the land value’s worth about $150 million, and we’re only making about $41 million off of it, so the public are actually compensating by $100 million.

So sell the port?

Palino: No, you don’t sell the port, because- You don’t sell the port, because then you can’t do anything with it. In 10 years, we should close the port. We’re not responsible for moving it. You can close it. Now, it’s not something we’re going to do, because we have-

Thomas: Let’s talk about the things we’re not going to do (!)

I’m going to have to ask someone else about that soon. But can I-? Airport shares- Let’s be clear on the airport shares.

Palino: No, we keep the airport shares.

Keep. Okay. So, just close the port in 10 years’ time, Vic Crone?

Crone: There is no way that you sell operations on the port, and there is no way that you just close the port and shut down all of the infrastructure to Auckland businesses.

Palino: There’s no way you’re going to move it for $4 billion.

Crone: So what you do need to do, though, is you need to take a long-term view. We don’t want our port expanding further into our harbour. It is a beautiful, incredible piece, and if we are able to move that very carefully and in a really considered way – because we are going to outgrow it – we can then work out – what does the brand personality of Auckland look like on the world stage? And that’s what really excites me about the port. So many ports have been moved around the world. We actually just need to stand up and listen.

Thomas: Vancouver is one of the world’s most liveable cities. They’ve got a working port right in the heart. The issue’s not that we can’t have it; it’s just got to work better for us. And we have $1.25 billion in congestion.

I want to move on from the port. I want to go back to something that you mentioned, which was the infrastructure fund and the $1 billion. So this is relying on government for funds, as Vic Crone has mentioned. So I’m wondering – have you had a chat to Government about how much they’re prepared to stump up for you as mayor?

Goff: I have, actually. I’ve had quite a long discussion with the Minister of Transport, because it’s really important that the mayor works together with the government of the day. But my point is twofold.

What was that conversation about specifically?

Goff: It was about the port. It was about the infrastructure fund.

What commitments did you get?

Goff: Look, that’s an ongoing discussion, and I’m not going to commit the Minister of Transport that I will be working with as mayor in advance of an agreed position. That would be- That would be disrespectful.

Let me ask you in a different way. Have you-? Are you happy with that level of commitment you got from that conversation?

Goff: I think we saw a- I got a lot more flexibility from the Minister of Transport than some of his predecessors. But, look, I want to go back to the point about central government’s role. If central government is taking the GST and the income tax from the 50% to 60% of growth of New Zealand that’s happening in Auckland, they are obliged to return that money back in a fair proportion to cater for the costs of that growth.

So does the Government think that too, Phil Goff, in your conversations?

Goff: I will be battling- Whether it’s with a National government or a Labour-led government, I will be battling to get the best result from Auckland. But take- Just this last point-

Before we move on, one more thing, because you want to replace the levy that we’re currently paying — about 114 bucks — with the likes of a congestion charge or petrol tax. But you require someone else to give you permission to do that.

Goff: One of the things—

Mr Goff.

Goff: I’ m answering your question.

Do you have it? Do you have that permission?

Goff: I’m just about to answer that, Lisa. One part of the discussion that I had with Simon Bridges was about something like a regional petrol tax, and he indicated far more flexibility than the government has in the past about introducing that.

So you got the green light as far as you were concerned?

Goff: I would call it that, yes.

Vic Crone is shaking her head, and Mark is shaking his head.

(ALL TALK AT ONCE)

One at a time. One at a time, please.

Thomas: What the Transport Minister said to me is that he thinks things like it would be possibly impossible to move the port. He also said that he wants us to actually make progress… better progress ourselves. Phil will have us hostage to whoever the government is. What I want to do is use more of the balance sheet we had to make more progress for ourselves, and I know we can.

Vic Crone, have you got any kind of commitment that seems to be at the same level that Phil Goff has got for what he wants to do?

Crone: I’ve had a conversation with Bill English, the finance minister, around diversifying the sources of income for Auckland in terms of actually what is his openness to looking at some sort of share of the GDP growth and sharing that with Auckland. He has indicated to me that that is a medium-term option to have a look at, but there’s no commitment, and I’d be really surprised that he’s committed to anyone else.

Because it kind of sounds like — has Phil Goff got the endorsement of the government?

Crone: No, absolutely not. And also the really interesting thing about Phil is he’s talking about government paying, but he won’t give a number. He’s talking about a congestion tax, but he won’t give a number. He’s talking about a petrol tax, but he won’t give a number. How much are you raising to fund our…?

(ALL TALK AT ONCE)

Hang on a minute. Fair question, Mr Goff. How much is your congestion charge in your mind?

Goff: A congestion tax is some years off. That’s why you’ve got to bring a petrol tax in first.

Crone: So how much will you raise with that?

Goff: The money that you’re talking about, you’d be talking about, I don’t know, it could be, say, 10 cents a litre or something like that.

Thomas: He’s making it up as he goes.

Goff: No, no. It’s got to be the product of a negotiation. I’ve spent some time in central government, Mark. I know how it works, and I know the buttons to push, and I know the people that I’d be negotiating with.

Thomas: And we looked at this issue, Phil, three years ago. Len Brown struggled to get this up. We had a year’s worth of work on this.

Goff: Time has moved on. Let me make this point.

No, no. How confident are you, Mr Goff, that you could get this—?

Thomas: He will need a change of government.

Excuse me a minute, Mark. How confident are you that you can get this across the line — a congestion charge, petrol tax?

Goff: I’m really confident, because—

Give me a figure. 90%?

Goff: Let me tell you why I’m confident. That’s the important point. I’m confident because the government has received a Treasury report that says that unless they do this, Auckland can’t meet its infrastructure needs. The Minister of Finance knows that we lose $3 billion a year in Auckland because of congestion. And we spend that money and get nothing to show for it.

I want to move on quickly to a couple of things. John, I’m coming to you now. If you are the mayor, who would you like as your deputy?

Palino: Oh, ooh…

Oh, you haven’t thought about it?

Palino: Well, no. We don’t know who’s going to be in there. I’m hoping there’s going to be a big change.

But we don’t even know if you’re going to be mayor, so I’m asking you to… Anyone?

Thomas: I’ve thought about it, because, obviously, I know all the councillors and I have a good sense of who is going to be part of it.

And? Give me a name.

Lisa, if you can tell me who the councillors will be, I’ll tell you who my deputy would be.

I don’t know who mayor’s going to be.

Thomas: I’d look for regional balance. I’m assuming that I’m going to be mayor, and so what I’ll do is I’ll look for experience and I’ll look for regional balance, and I’ll also consult, actually, with my council colleagues, which Len didn’t do.

What about you two? Will you look for political balance in your deputy?

Goff: I think it’s largely on merit. That’s what you make appointments on — people who can do the job of deputy mayor — and that will be my key criterion.

Had any conversations with someone that you’d like as your deputy mayor?

Goff: No, I haven’t, because it’s inappropriate to do that before the election takes place.

Okay, Vic Crone?

Crone: I think it’s important not to just acknowledge the deputy but the critical roles across council are also the committee leads, and so the finance and performance committee, etc, and so what you actually need to do is look at the skill set that you have in council, and you need to balance that right across— not just the deputy, but across the other areas to get the best outcome for Auckland.

I don’t want to rush you, but a few things I really want to get through. Housing — one of the biggest issues facing the city. No housing policy yet, Phil Goff?

Goff: No, but I’ve talked about it, and it will be there, and it will look at both the supply and the demand side of the equation. The critical thing, and something that I’ve done that Mark hasn’t done is that I came out in support of the Unitary Plan, the thrust of the plan to go up and out. The two things council can do is make sure that we’ve got an adequate supply of land, because if you don’t have an adequate supply of land, that pushes prices through the ceiling such as we’ve seen. The second thing that the council’s got to do is make its resource and building consent process efficient, effective and quick, and it’s none of those things. The last thing the mayor needs to do is advocate to central government for central government to pull the levers that it needs to pull to solve the housing crisis.

All right. So as Mark Thomas says, five weeks to go, you haven’t committed your housing policy on paper, but you have a tree policy. Tell me about that.

Goff: I’ve got a lot of policies, and they’ll all be there, and you’ll see it.

No, tree policy. What is it?

Goff: I think that apart from— The key issues are obviously transport, housing and efficiency, but once—

Do you not want to talk about your tree policy?

Thomas: …how much it costs.

Goff: If you give us a chance, I will. The one thing that we need to do is to protect and sustain the things that make Auckland a really good place to live in. So what I’m advocating is to plant over the next term of council a million additional trees — they’ll be largely native trees — and this will be around our riparian areas, making sure that our rivers and our coasts are protected.

Thomas: How much, Phil?

A legitimate question. How much?

Goff: We’d put in about a million dollars a year, but we’d be leveraging off groups that are already out there doing it. You’ll know about—

So three million over the course of the programme?

(ALL TALK AT ONCE)

Thomas: Are you going to use the wood from the trees to build the houses?

Goff: You might think that the environment is not important, but let me make this point—

No, Crone, is it a top priority for Aucklanders to have a tree policy at this point in the campaign?

Crone: The big issues for Auckland are how we’re spending their money, housing, transport and actually safety. They are the big issues, and that’s what the candidates need to have presented I think well by now in regards to Auckland. There’s a month or so before the ballot papers go out. Phil hasn’t even presented his housing or his transport or police safety, and you go, ‘Well, is he just sleepwalking into the office? Is he that confident?’

Goff: When you see them, you’ll see that they have a lot more substance than anything on the table at the moment.

John, I do have a question for you. Very quickly, John. You’ve talked a lot about satellite cities. I noticed in the statement that you put out that they were going to be gated communities. That seems—

Palino: No, no, no, no. I was talking about building a university.

Oh, okay. Satellite cities won’t be gated?

Palino: No, of course not. But in that satellite city we have the opportunity to build an on-campus university that kids feel safe. It’s a gated community, so kids are safe. So when we have foreign money coming in here, bringing our kids in, they know that their kids are safe in that community. That’s what we should be building.

We’ve got to leave it there. We are out of time. This is a race to watch.

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