Dunne's Weekly: Luxon's Tough Talk One-sided

DUNNE’S WEEKLY

The water pipe, which burst beneath Wellington’s Cambridge Terrace on Wednesday morning, could not have chosen a better moment to do so. Not only did it cause massive traffic disruption, but also a loss of water pressure, and in some cases supply, to the nearby suburbs of Roseneath and Mount Victoria. It was the last thing needed by both the beleaguered Wellington City Council, and the hapless Wellington Water (the utility company owned by the region's Councils) whose handling of the region’s water issues has already become a national joke.

For that was also the very day the Prime Minister was due to make his first major address on local government to the annual conference of Local Government New Zealand - the body which represents all the country's local authorities - at the Wellington City Council's new Takina Conference and Exhibition Centre, just a few hundred metres away. Moreover, the theme of his address was that Councils need to "rein in the fantasies" and get "back to the basics" of collecting rubbish and fixing pipes and potholes. Councils had to return to “reality” he said, adding that “the days of (government) handouts” are over because ratepayers “are sick of white elephants.”

The Prime Minister also spoke in detail about Local Water Done Well, the government's recently announced national water upgrading government plan to replace the former Labour Government's Three Waters scheme. His remarks could not have been clearer, and more pointed, and his target more obvious. Coming on top of the Minister of Transport’s remarks to a Wellington Chamber of Commerce breakfast that same morning where he “congratulated” his audience for making the “arduous journey” into Wellington City, past leaking pipes, and an “infestation of speed bumps”, the Prime Minister’s comments confirm the government’s general disdain for the left-wing Wellington City Council and its current leadership. But whether the Council will heed, or even listen to, the government’s messages remains to be seen.

Certainly, the Prime Minister’s “back to basics” message will strike a chord with ratepayers in Wellington and elsewhere who are facing large rates increases over the next few years. They are likely to welcome a renewed focus on fixing potholes and pipes, and better waste collection services, ahead of more inner-city speed bumps and raised pedestrian crossings.

But, to mix a metaphor, it is not all a one-way street. While ratepayers generally want to see less Council indulgence and a greater focus on getting the basics right, they do not expect that to mean the government withdraws completely from any role for Councils to support the development of local amenities or services. At the Local Government Conference, the Prime Minister reaffirmed the government’s intention to remove once more the promotion of the “four well-beings” – social, environmental, economic and cultural – from local government’s mandate. These had been put in place by the Clark Labour-led Government, removed under the previous National-led Government, then restored under the last Labour-led Government.

However, that should not mean that those well-beings are to be ignored completely. By default, if nothing else, the responsibility for upholding these now shifts back to central government. The Prime Minister and his colleagues cannot allow the abolition of the well-beings as local government responsibilities to also mean that they are to be ignored by central government. Yet that now appears very likely to be what will happen.

Culture and heritage looks set to be the first area where this will occur. Our system of classification for buildings and items of heritage significance is a national, not regional, one. So, maintaining and upgrading buildings and items of national heritage interest ought to be the responsibility of central government, not hard-pressed local ratepayers. But that is not happening, nor is the government showing any interest in honouring our national heritage classification system.

In Wellington, for example, a significant contributor to the sharp rates increases has been the blow-out in the costs of restoring the city’s earthquake-risk Town Hall. Some, like the increasingly heritage-sceptic Housing Minister, have questioned the Town Hall’s heritage value, but so long as the building retains national heritage status, the responsibility for funding its restoration should not be falling as heavily as it is on Wellington ratepayers, while the government sits idly by.

It is the same with Christchurch Cathedral. This iconic building in the heart of the city is one of the country’s best-known buildings. It is a long standing image of Christchurch and the quest to secure its restoration became a symbol of the city’s resilience to come back after the devastating earthquakes of 2010 and 2011. But now the project is being mothballed indefinitely because of a funding shortfall of $85 million, which the government is refusing to meet. Christchurch Cathedral has been a central feature of the city’s life since construction began in 1864 – so it is hardly a “white elephant.” But the government’s short-sighted decision calls into question its commitment to upholding national heritage classification and protection standards. After all, in the grand scheme of government finances $85 million, possibly advanced by way of suspensory loan over many years, is not a large amount.

Beyond that and arguably more worryingly, the government’s refusal to act also sends a clear message that at least so far as culture and heritage is concerned this government has no interest in upholding the well-being responsibility it is about to remove from local government. That raises the far more important question whether it will be similarly uninterested when it comes to upholding the social, economic, and environmental well-beings it is about to remove as well.

As with its wider reforms, the government's narrow focus on getting to know the true cost of various services risks it overlooking unwisely their wider value and benefit.

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