 If Reality Check Radio enriches your day in life, support us to keep bringing you the content, voices, perspectives and the dose of reality you won't get anywhere else. Visit www.realitycheck.radio forward slash donate. Daniel Newman is a mate and a good guy. He's also one of the hardest working local body politicians that I know. He's here to discuss the challenges Auckland Council is facing with its 10-year budget and all of the unfunded mandates left by previous mayors and councils. He joins me now. Daniel Newman, welcome to the crunch. Good afternoon, Cam. How are you? I'm a boxer bird, so I'm still soldiering on after I had my little fall and a little trip to the hospital, but nothing can kill me. You know, I've had strokes, I've had bells palsy and I've had this little thing. It's very hard to keep me down a little bit like you, really, in politics, isn't it? Well, you know, the men and women who work on the front lines of a public health system, they do the best job, don't they? The first responders, the doctors and nurses and the healthcare assistants, by gosh, they do an amazing job and they do it with a smile and I have nothing but respect for them. Yeah, I mean, I've got no complaints about the ambulance service or the emergency department. Everything else after that, those a little bit hit and miss, particularly depends on which hospital you go to. But, you know, I've got no complaints over the care that I've had from our public hospitals, both at North Shore and at Auckland. So, yeah, I agree with you. It's a hard job and they're dealing with all sorts of sick and moaning people when they come into the ED and they still managed to have a smile and you just think, well, I really like something of what they have been taking. I don't think I could ever work in the health sector. My wife is training to complete her nursing qualifications at the moment and I mean, she has a particular passion for aged care and I love what she does, but I just know that I wouldn't be qualified for it. Some people have certain skills. I'm not one of them. I just have such admiration, respect for people who work on the front line. So more power to you in your recovery camp. Yeah, well, I don't have the skills to do what you do. I could never be a counsellor. I'm inoculated with true serum and if someone who was blessedly stupid came to see me, I'd have to tell them. But nowhere near as polite as you are and you keep getting elected. So you must be doing something right. Well, I'm not sure that I and the world's best counsellor is a lot of people. But, you know, I feel like I'm a bit of an overpaid social worker in the role that I've got my ward in South Auckland. I represent some of the wealthiest, some of the poorest and a whole lot of people in between. What I would describe my constituency as representing is basically New Zealanders who aspire to do better, who aspire to do well in their lives. For their families and what I try and do is make life a little bit easier for them where I can. Often, that means having to say no to people. You have to say no to people. I always say to my colleagues, you know, saying no to people ten times is about the only way that you can ever potentially get to a position when you can afford to say yes to somebody because the needs. The needs are many, the wants are even more, but your capacity to deliver to people is limited. And that's really, you know, if you were really, if you're asked to say what is the biggest problem that Auckland counsellors has grappled with for a long time now and grappled with unsuccessfully is the legacy of unfunded mandates, commitments that have been made by people through the years with no means of paying for it, no means of addressing the maintenance of our roads, our drains, our parks, our community assets that people care about, that they've paid rates for all these years. And I look at people around that table, there's some great people and you would have spoken to my colleague and friend, Ken Turner, who was passionate about these things, absolutely about doing the right thing. But it's about trying to, you know, people, people need to be very mindful that local government can't be all things to all people. But by gosh, a lot of people get elected to try. Well, that's what Morris Williamson famously says all the time, isn't it? It's everybody wants to get to heaven, but no one wants to die. And that's the problem with local bodies, isn't it? There's all these wants and demands from the public purse without actually realizing that it's going to be funded and it's going to be funded in an ongoing way. I mean, this is exactly what George Wood was talking to me last week about, you know, and in a couple of projects, one you're very familiar with is the Whitewater Rafting White Elephant that's in Manukau. I'm not sure even 10 people a day would use that place. But the enormous cost and then the ongoing costs of having that foisted on the council is only small bear compared to the massive costs of the Central Rail Loop, which Lyn Brown pushed forward onto the council with no ability to fund the ongoing maintenance of it. Yeah, look, I mean, one of my great challenges in public life is the amount of pressure we tend to put on volunteers, just people who are trying to maintain services, community assets. You know, I've got people who are trying to put a roof over the local tennis club courts and Russell Road and Manarewa. I will get that funded because I will knock on doors, big barista, whatever I can, external to council to get the funding and put a roof over the tennis courts and Russell Road. A little bit of support from council, which is great. But the pressure that we put on the volunteers in that club around the accountability is for what is such an exceptional local project. I wish that we'd put accountability on ourself because what I can tell you listeners is that the City Rail Link is an unfunded mandate. The contract for that deal was not funded. The liabilities were not crystallized. You will see in the next 10 year plan, the exceptional cost of of the new stations, i.e. the cathedrals that are being built along that that rail. Look, great project. But ultimately, if you don't have the means to fund the maintenance of it, that is going to be a budget buster and there's more of them coming. So why am I in public life? If I'm in public life in part to try and bring some contestability to the conversation, try and bring a negotiation with central government. But most importantly, to look after my constituents and my ward. Cam, we will in 2024, we will consult on on changing the way in which we do our waste management system for a household rubbish collection service, consulting on whether we should go from Wembley to Fort Martley. Now, I accept that there are thousands of people, myself included. You don't need to put the rubbish bin out every week, but as an exercise in trying to change the behavior and habits of people across the vast metropolis of Auckland by dropping the weekly rubbish collection service to Fort Martley, it's that kind of thing that motivates me to keep running because I don't like the idea of introducing inconvenience to the lives of people who need that rubbish collection service. And I sure as heck, do not like the idea of fly tipping all over the South Auckland streets. It's already a problem, but we ought to be in public life to provide quiet enjoyment, convenience and services that people pay for. And they expect they should be regular, consistent and they should meet the public's need. That's those are the sorts of issues that inspire me to keep running. And those are the sorts of things that I need the Auckland ratepayers to think about because those are the debates that we're going to have. And people won't like it, I'm sure. Maybe maybe you could suggest that they stop spending half a million dollars on raised pedestrian crossings and instead put that into doing proper rubbish collection. It'd be far more beneficial. Yeah, look, it's remarkable that we've been able to get through nearly well over 2000 years now. And and, you know, in that in the time that that we have existed in the modern world, we have been able to cross the road safely. It's signalized pedestrian crossings at grade where you don't actually need to go over a speed path because I think, of course, of course, I want people to travel safely. But that doesn't necessarily require that you've got to put speed humps up and down arterial corridors along the Great South Road, where, you know, you have to put your car effectively into neutral as these climb over these these raised tables. The reality is that I think that we've got the point where we are over engineering aspects of our life to the point where people feel inconvenienced. They can't see the value for money proposition. It's costly. It's time consuming. Every time you dig into the road, you're digging into a road corridor where there's pipes and wires. Every single time you do that, cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching, you can't just continue to engineer your way to the point where you can't actually do anything other than raise billing hours for consultants absent doing anything. I've got a marvellous example in my word. In the Great South Road outside the Nam Naksa Seek Temple, it's a big temple on the Great South Road. It's not for everybody, but it's important to a community of Seek New Zealanders living in Manarewa when they travel there. We want to put a signalized crossing outside of this thing. It doesn't need to be an raised table. People just push the button across the road when it's safe to do so. We could have done that years ago, but the costs blow up because the thing has to, apparently, according to some traffic engineer has to be raised. Those are the sorts of issues that cause disruption. They increase cost and they upset people. So Ken Turner will have lots of examples of that. And George Wood will have lots of examples. And Morris Winterson, I've got it too. If only we could just basically say, look, I want to achieve an outcome. It worked 20 years ago. It worked 50 years ago. It can work today. It's cost effective. That's what we should be able to do. So it's an arm rest, isn't it? Absolutely. But these raised tables, they're just I've got a big bear about them, A, because of the cost and B, because no one actually asks for them. And yet they get put in where I live in Takapuna. There's one particular part of the road where there's three of these things and there's 250 metres from the first one to the third one. And at the same time, the council has lowered the speed limit on the street to 30 kilometres an hour. So not only do we have them, everybody going along at 30 kilometres an hour and holding up traffic and everything else. We've got two raised tables, pedestrian crossings, then around about then a third one. It's just a box. Well, you know, look, there's no reason for you to drive excessively down a cul-de-sac, for example. Of course, you're going to just bring your car to a low speed down a cul-de-sac. And of course, nobody realistically expects to be speeding outside the school gate during the morning drop off off the afternoon peak. But if you are a shift worker and you're going off to work at the airport at three o'clock in the morning and there's no one else on the road, I don't think that it's essential that you should be travelling at 30 kilometres an hour down the Great South Road to get to your three o'clock, three a.m. morning shift. Neither is it likely that you are going to encounter a palaton of leisure cyclists at that hour. So I think that we have to get the balance right. I think the truth of the matter is, is that there is a policy expectation driven by some who believe that the key attribute to improving the safety of cyclists is to extend motorist travel times by reducing speed to an absolute minimum. There are occasions, there are locations where clearly travelling slowly is optimal. But one blanket rule, I tell you what one blanket rule is a recipe for, it is a recipe for governments to lose elections. And that is one of the reasons why the Labour Party is in such a pile of state at the moment. Because ultimately it is in part a byproduct of people feeling frustrated that big government said we're going to engineer your life to the point where you're safe from yourself. Well, people actually went out and they decided to reverse engineer that policy direction, didn't they? Governments come, governments go, but the policy settings still need to be put right and that's part of the conversation moving forward. Well, that's part of the problem with Auckland Transport, isn't it? Because the politicians who stand for election every three years come and they go. That's just how it works. But the civil servants, the public servants that are in these almost autonomous departments are still there. And clearly Auckland Transport is filled with a whole bunch of cycle wobbles that want to impede traffic for the very people who actually pay for the roads through road user charges or through fuel excise taxes. They want to impede those people and make it easier for cyclists, who I call them road maggots, because they're feasting off the road and the people who pay for the road. And we've got this situation, you know, like we've got this in Takapuna, a cycleway through Hoursmere Road, no one ever uses it. You've got Pua Nui Road is another one. I go down Pua Nui Road twice a week in Papataui. And there is never a cyclist on the cycleway. The other cycleway is the one that is on the other side of Parallel to Pua Nui Road. And they've got these what I call Tim Tams, these little chocolate concrete berms shaped like a Tim Tams spread down the road, where it's all filled with detritus because the street sweepers can't come and sweep it. No cyclist is going to ride in that little narrow protected pace. It's cost us millions of dollars, no doubt, to do all of that. But nobody uses this stuff. You know, we've got a road maintenance contract. The road maintenance contract requires the road to be maintained, that we have to maintain the substructure, do the seal, do the reseal, etc, etc. Within this fixed funding envelope, that also has to sweep the streets. When you put those concrete blocks on the road, that creates separation. It's not easy for those big machines to go along and sweep up in the cycle corridor. So of course it's filled with debris and rubbish and everything else. Why would a cyclist with half a brain traveling quickly want to use such a route? I mean, frankly, you're likely to burst your tire. It is inconvenient. It is not as a distraction. A lot of people don't use it. But Cam, I've got a view that some of my good colleagues love them as I do, sort of. When they tell you that the critical thing is to create the safest route for students to cycle to school, they have to understand that the world is more complex than that. There are reasons why people can cycle. There are also many reasons why people choose a different mode of transport. I happen to believe that one of the key things that parents want is they want to have choice for their children. Often that choice means that they won't necessarily be going to the school at the end of the street. I've got students in my ward who will shortly be going to a new Catholic secondary school, Saint Ignatius and Drury. They will not be cycling there. They will be travelling by bus. They'll be travelling by car. They'll be travelling, hopefully by train. There will be different ways for people to do this. And the idea that you can just have one idea, one utopic idea of how life will be lived, that's what's wrong. Because what you have is a model that doesn't work for many people. And in the end, it doesn't work for anyone. Because it costs, it can't be maintained. It's inconvenient. People are asking questions why we're doing this. And then you lose the agency to be able to make changes that are required. It's very difficult for me, for example, to say, look, I need to go and sell some assets, but I'm also going to need to raise some revenue. Your rates are going to have to go up. Your services are going to come down. People say, why would you do that when you're out there building body cycleways everywhere? And the question is a fair one. And the truth of the matter is that there have to be choices that are made. It would be helpful, frankly, if we had a better sense of direction from the new government through the government policy statement on land transport. I'm hopeful about getting direction there. And ultimately councils can only fund half this infrastructure. If the other half of the funding comes from the New Zealand Transport Agency, that funding is not available, then council can't go down the path of funding some of these activities. So hopefully we get a real reality check taking place in central government too, because they are our partners and they have been complicit in the past in funding some of this. And they will need to take their fair share of the wax when some of these unfunded mandates are hopefully knocked over. Well, that's right. I mean, as you drive around doing your constituency work, and if you happen to head down Cavendish Drive, at the point where the Cavendish Drive goes under the rail line, have a look at the cycleway just in there as a point of reference. Take some photos. Take that along to council and say, why are we doing this? This is just ridiculous. In terms of the NZTA funding, you're absolutely right, because Len Brown pushed for the central rail loop. He managed to strong first labour and then the key government into partially funding, I think it was the other way around, actually it was the key government, then the labour government into funding half. But they're not funding half of the $220 million it costs to run the thing every year. That's right. They're only funding half the capital cost, but that's not where the expense comes in. You know, 50% of a rail corridor, I mean, firstly the rail corridor should be funded by Kiwi Rail. I mean, Len Brown was always great for a photo, wasn't he? But ultimately, Len Brown doesn't pick up a tab. You and I and every other Aucklander out there is going to have to pay the bill for what is an unfunded mandate. We're talking about a capital cost. 50% cost share for the ratepayers of Auckland is rubbish. I would never have done that. I'd that deal if I'd been on council at the time. But you're right. There's two subsequent gorillas, which will really impede the council's balance sheet for years. The operating cost of this thing, the interest cost of the... You could have to borrow money to fund this. So we've got an eye-watering or interest cost. And then the cost, the depreciation, the operating expense of this thing. That's a killer. We're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars every year. Every single year. But it would be good if people could understand that we're not that rich. We are not Singapore. We're not New York. We're not London. I'm sick and tired of sitting through sermons where people presume that we have a whole lot of revenue sources at our disposal, which put us on par. There's nothing wrong with Auckland. But there is something fundamentally enumerate with thinking that Auckland is as wealthy as some of these other international jurisdictions for which the funding model is very different in the capacity to meet the operating cost is much greater than what it is here in Auckland. In my word, I've got a ward of 180,000 people. My word represents, includes some of the poorest people. It includes a lot of first-time buyers, includes a lot of pensioners on fixed incomes. They are not well-disposed to pay for the operating cost of things in the hope that we can achieve some standard that you would expect elsewhere. We can achieve a good standard here. But we have to cut our cloth to reflect the reality of what we face, and that's very different to what you will see elsewhere. But people's aspirations are good on them for being ambitious, but you still have to be ambitious with the means of delivery. A lot of my colleagues have never actually been in the business of delivering anything, so they struggle. Yeah, I mean, wouldn't you say that you're sick to death of hearing these wonderful ideas about what happens in London or Holland or Amsterdam or God knows where else they dream up as some sort of nirvana that we should be replicating in Auckland? It's almost certain they've never considered the geography of Auckland when making these comparisons. We've got a city that is the largest land area of any city in the world. We're number one. The second is, of course, Los Angeles. But we're actually bigger in terms of land area, and okay, there's a few little faults with that description because some of that is water, obviously. But water is a key component of Auckland City. We're on an isthmus that is only two kilometres wide at its narrowest part. Everything has to go through that isthmus, and everything on either side of that and all around it is rather steep hills that are peppered with volcanic cones, none of which is conducive to cycling vast distances, none of it. Auckland is a region with physical choke points and pinch points. Auckland is also a region of right payers and tax payers who have needs. Those needs need to be met before the once. Not all the needs are met, and we ought to meet those needs. And the third thing is that Auckland has, unfortunately, been home to a lot of people who get elected to positions with grandiose ideas, but without the numeracy and the humility to understand that you've got to pay for it. If you can't pay for it, you've got to pivot, and that's a challenge. Look, Cam, I would be very keen to see the successful completion of a number of these great projects, but looking out my window, I've got a nice office here on level 26 on 135 Albert Street. I look south, and I look in the direction of what would have been the corridor for light rail if it had ever happened. The reason why light rail will not happen is that we are not a wealthy country. If we were a wealthy country, we could have realistic discussions about delivering these things, but we're not a wealthy country. And even if we were, frankly, I'm not sure of the value proposition. But what I do know is that if you don't bring a sense of commercial reality to decision making, and if you can't focus on trying to provide convenience and quiet enjoyment to the lives of Aucklanders who are sick and tired of planning without delivery, if you can't deliver on those things, then you shouldn't be in elected public office. And that's the challenge for my colleagues, just as it's a challenge for our parliamentarians. It's one of the reasons why some of them weren't reelected on the 14th of October. In two years' time, I face re-election. I'll see what happens. But if people continue to operate in local government on the basis that they can afford things where clearly they can't, Aucklanders have a right to say, you are being unrealistic with the public's expectations and with council's ability or lack of delivery. So I think that elected public office is a great privilege. I appreciate it. But I never take it for granted because every single day I'm having to argue with people, many of whom don't necessarily have what I would call a numerate view about what Auckland can deliver and what Auckland should deliver. I mean, again, the central rail loop's a case in point. The ongoing annual costs to run that in excess of $200 million per annum were the revenue of only $30 million with no prospects of that increasing, even though the crowd that pushed this said, if we build it, they will come. Well, they're clearly not going to come. Even when it's finished, it's been eye-watering the expensive. It's blown the budget. I think it's double what was originally quoted. And now it's got these enormous costs that I can't ever see being reduced. And now Aucklanders are shackled with these decisions by these myopic and enumerate politicians, lightly in Brown. And they've saddled the debt and they've swarmed off to do whatever they're doing with no accountability. It rips my undies and it certainly appears to rip a few people's undies but nowhere near enough of the ratepayers are suffering enough pain to say stop all of this nonsense. I thought it was always going to be the case that when you enter into a contract without negotiating a limit to one's liability, without negotiating a fixed price, without negotiating a realistic deliverable time, that was always a recipe for great risk to Aucklanders. Secondly, you are talking about tunneling technology that we don't necessarily tunnel every day in New Zealand. So we procure the services of professionals that can come in from Europe. Come out here from Europe, stick your boring machine in the ground, tunnel halfway, stop and say, I'm doing no more unless we can renegotiate with you Aucklanders, New Zealanders about what we now expect to be paid to complete the job. That's what's happened and that's what's going to cost and it will cost and cost and cost. The truth of the matter is there are people in this country in positions of trust and leadership who have not necessarily negotiated good deals for ratepayers and taxpayers. It's nice to be able to cut ribbons, it's nice to be able to virtue signal, but you have to deliver things. And that is the great challenge at the moment. My role as a councillor is to try as best I can to limit the exposure of legacy unfunded mandates for which we have signed up to on very unfavorable terms, I might add, but try and limit that exposure and to prevent us from repeating those same mistakes by entering into new contracts in the future, which would, unless carefully considered, would leave us in the same position or worse again. That's the big challenge at the moment and I hope that your listeners are going to be very cautious in the future and consider, well, are those promises funded or is it an unfunded mandate? Because it's an unfunded mandate, if they want to know who's ultimately going to pick up a tab for that, they just need to go and consult their bathroom mirror because almost certainly the costs will fall back on them. They probably can't afford it. Well, that's the thing, particularly in your ward. As you say, you've got some of the poorest New Zealanders, but also some of the wealthiest. As an aside, I was brought up as a kid in Manurewa. That's what we used to call it back then. They call it something different now. And when the school that I went to needed a school hall, the community fundraised for it and built that school hall, it's still there to stay. Dad was the chair of the committee that did the fundraising for Hill Park School. And it was a great suburb to be brought up. I went to Cubs and Scouts and down on Alfreston Road there at the Scout Hall, went to primary school there, and it was a great upbringing. And South Auckland's maligned quite badly by the rest of Auckland, even though there's these wonderful communities where people can safely bring up their children. But Auckland Council has neglected South Auckland too. And I remember when I used to be doing road maintenance or park maintenance for Manukau City Council, and there was a very definite difference in the parks that were on one side of the motorway compared to the other side of the motorway for where maintenance money was spent. We were constantly fixing parks in how I can and out that way and constantly being told by the council not to do anything around cleaning park. Yeah. And the legacy of that is still something that we're having to address today. And it's hard work. Look, I'm getting some really good progress in terms of the maintenance of some of my facilities now. But what I would say describe it as I'm having to work two and a half times harder than some people in order to achieve that. It doesn't help that I have to share my word with a colleague who has a very different vision of the world, but we won't go into that. But, you know, it is tough. It is tough to be able to deliver the best possible outcomes. Look, this isn't well known outside of my community, but concurrent to my role as a councillor and also deputy chair of licensing trust. Now people have views about that. The licensing trust that operates in my community, that doesn't have a monopoly on the sound supply of beer wines and spirits at the local pub, but it operates and successfully and responsibly. And it generates some revenue. And what I can tell you is that I am working deliberately to upgrade every single community-owned sports club facility asset in Montereyba and as much as I can in public or as well. And we will do that as much as possible because I can't be bothered waiting around for some bureaucrat to tell me when I should and should not do it. We've just gone fund these improvements and renewals externally and we're doing that. I can do that quite easily actually with the community-owned assets. The council-owned assets is a whole different matter. I've got to go and consult a bureaucrat in the work program that goes on indefinitely without much progress. But the community-owned assets, we will do them. And we'll do them well. Why do we do them? Because the community needs them because it's actually good to get kids off the couch and playing sport and being constructive and getting high on life in a healthy way down at your local park. And we will do that because I do have an aspiration for doing the very best I can for the working communities of South Auckland, which is why that roof is going to go on the tennis pub courts in Russell Road, which is why we're building an indoor training facility for all year round cricket at Memorial Park, which is why the Rugby Club got its new roof, which is why Squash is going to get a new facility shortly down Waymouth Road. And there are countless other produce. I'm doing it not because the council said it needed to be done. I'm doing it because it needed to be done. And the truth of the matter is, is that the test for your listeners is, are you elected officials, people who are implementing a plan to achieve good outcomes locally? Because most people judge the quality of life in a very local context, how it affects them, how it affects their household, how it affects their neighborhood. Truth of the matter is, Camp Hill Park School is a great school. Gavin Bear, the principal there, is a good friend of mine doing a great job. They're good people. And the families that go there are good people, but they're also good people under stress, under pressure. And that's the problem. When decision makers don't reflect policy priorities that provide for convenience to the lives of people, such as the parents and the kids who go to Hill Park School, that's when you had the problems. So I'm very hopeful that in my time in public office, we can continue to do useful things. But here's another priority camp. I want the new government to make good on its promise, to make these mixed density residential zoning requirements optional. And if they can do that, then I want us to basically exit plan change 78, and try and bring some peace to the lives of people. He was scared that because of plan changes in Auckland, that it's quite possible for Kying or Housing NZers, as they should be known, to go and build these three by three concrete towers on your boundary fence. We ought to be in Auckland a little bit more sympathetic to the people that have built this place and who just want to enjoy it peacefully, quietly, and with a sense of reverence for the traditions that have been used to establish those neighbourhoods such as Hill Park. Yeah, really good points. And I think part of that comes down to the lack of attention that local body, particularly in Auckland, matters are covered by media. I'm only aware really of two journalists, one of which has just retired, Todd Nile, who was a fine journalist. I actually never knew what his politics was, and he always seemed to cover everything from a pure journalism point of view, finding out what the facts were, finding out what either side on a particular issue had, and then publishing notes. And the other is Bernard Osmond, another fine journalist who unfortunately works for a shabby paper called The New Zealand Herald. But that's about it. That's about the only scrutiny that happens. Of course, we've got opinion writers like Simon Wilson who think that everything that a left-wing mayor or councillor puts up is just brilliant, especially if it involves cycling or riding scooters or some other stupid form of transport that's just not suitable. They're all for that. And therefore, they don't actually question, they become cheerleaders rather than actually questioners of these policies that land us with, as you call them, unfunded mandates. And I wonder if perhaps, I mean, I don't know what the solution is for that. Certainly, you only hear from councillors when they're squawking about something. It seems to be difficult to actually get proper coverage of what the real issues are. And if people were more aware of the enumerate public policy that was being foisted on us, then maybe the citizens might be a little bit more angry. Yeah, look, I think that there has been a trend over a long period of time for so-called merged amalgamated decision-making. You take things at a very macro scale. It's so big that the more that decision-making and decision-makers become remote to you, the less you will have a sense of understanding what they're doing and holding them to account. Picking up the phone to your elected officials and challenging that is not something that people do every day. And that's a shame, because if more of them did, you would see a response. I was fascinated the other week, I was at the Town Hall, and there was an enormous crowd of people that came in from Tuckipuna talking about some coastal walk. I'm not going to go into pros and cons of what they were talking about. Point being, they were there, and they were pissed off and they weren't going anywhere. And you could tell the people sitting around the table with me were uncomfortable, because they're not used to a gallery full of upset Aucklanders. And I think that we should have more upset Aucklanders bearing witness. It's amazing what happens when politicians can look across and see an audience. And it's an audience of people who are inquiring, who are interested and who are determined to report on these things and hold you to account. Now the truth of the matter is that the decisions are not taken when the audience is sitting there. The decisions are taken after lunch when the audience has gone home. That's when the decisions are taken and therein lies the problem in my own life and my own approach to it from my perspective of an Auckland councillor for the Manarewa Papakura Ward is I actually get the best sense of grounded feedback from my constituents door knocking. It's a great way to basically empower myself, because when I'm door knocking my opponents have no ability to persuade the outcome of conversations on the doorstep, because they won't do it. When you're out there door knocking and you're listening to people on their terms on their doorstep, it's incredibly enriching. It's time-consuming. I've knocked on about 4,000 doors since the last election and I've got one of the safer wards around the Auckland region. It's safer because I door knock it. I never take it for granted. But when you door knock and you listen to people, it's amazing what they're prepared to tell you, because often they're quite shy, but they'll tell you one on one and that's what we should be doing a lot more of. Listening to people who are prepared to inquire, listening to people who are prepared to be a witness and also listening to people who are shy because the shy Aucklanders are generally people who are going about their daily lives and they're trying to get by and people are specialising and just getting by, but they're the ones that are doing it tough and they're talking to me on the doorstep and they're saying to me, Daniel, we really want to keep publicly rubbish collection service. We don't want to see concrete Tim Tams all over our local roads and for goodness sake, can you please get the lawns clipped down the local pocket park because it's, we want to basically even walk through there without it being overgrown and little in a location of choice fulfilled mice. So local government can do remarkable things for Aucklanders simply by doing the basics well and dialing back on the unfunded mandates that would otherwise just increase cost and cynicism. If we just focused on doing the basics well, that would be a mighty good start. That's what most people, I imagine, say to you when you're knocking and by the way knocking on 4000 doors since the last election, I would bet that no other councillor out there has knocked on any doors since the election and they'll do it about three months out from the next election. That's when they'll start again. So all credit to you for continuing to knock on the door. But I'll bet you the first thing that people say to you in almost every instance is why can't the council just do the basics? We don't need all of this extra stuff, these nice to have things when you can't even fix the potholes in the roads when you can't mow the the berms or you can't keep the footpaths and the access ways in the parks maintained. You can't mow the parks, you know, all of those sorts of things. Those are what people actually want. It's what they use. Nobody wants a situation where the city sanitation gets out of hand because we're now no longer collecting rubbish in a time frame that's suitable for how people live their lives. It's crazy stuff, but you're actually out there listening to those people and not enough councillors are doing it. So maybe the council needs to have a mandated door knocking period on a Friday afternoon or something, you know, so that they can actually get some grounding into what people are annoyed at and what needs fixing. Look, new candidates come to me sometimes and say, Daniel, what should we do? I say, well, you know, go on by a pair of walking shoes and come with me. And well, they do that. It gets hard off the first six doors because you've got to keep going. And then I get people say, oh, well, you know, it's raining today, I'll stay home. Well, look, people are at home on rainy days, so go and talk to them. I feel sorry for you too when you tip up and you say, oh, it's Daniel. Look, I knock on a lot of doors and people open up, I'll get a Daniel. Yeah, that's when I know that I'm having an effect because the word gets out and you build the perception, the perception is actually based on the reality you're doing it. There's more doors and 4,000 in my word, but I'm doing my best. Look, I think that it would be an incredibly empowering thing for some of it would be incredibly empowering for people at every level of government, wherever they are on this country to do a bit of door knocking. And when they do knock, don't go there with a sermon, go there with an open mind and listen to what people have to say. I really enjoy listening to people who have a view on the doorstep that I fundamentally disagree with, because I think, I mean, it's good to have that discussion. It's good to understand why people think the way they do. I want people to tell me what problems they have that I might reasonably be able to assist them with, but I like people to be able to tell me why I'm wrong, so that I can have a think about it doesn't mean to say they're going to change my mind, but we can have a good old discussion about I enjoy people forming friendships with me for whom I don't I don't share their politics and they don't they know they don't have them on the same side as me, but I enjoy them because life is different. Too many people in public life are only prepared to listen to views that they like. Yeah, you ought to be able to open your mind to views that you don't like. And maybe you'll learn something. I've been prepared to change my mind on occasion. It's a good thing. But as long as you had that discussion, I can tell you, Cam, some other people in my ward, whose politics are different to me, but I'll vote for me first. Yeah, well, that's right, because you're actually listening to them. And that's when people come to me and say they want to get into politics. I said, what do I need to learn? I said, say to them, well, God gave you two ears and one mouth. And that's the ratio you should use them in. And then the smart ones will come back at you with some sort of stupid answer. And then the ones who are a little bit sharper than that will think about that and go, ah, okay, I get that now. But often too, when if you are doing that, if you are talking less than you're listening, the person you're talking to may actually have a solution to something that you hadn't thought of you because they look at things from a different perspective. And so if you cut that off, that discourse, then you're potentially cutting off potential solutions. Look, it's not my usual practice necessarily to go on listen to every news broadcast on television. But I was watching a clip of a constituent of mine called Marama Davidson on the microphone in Epsom yesterday screaming about how the new government hates workers. Well, I actually think that any government that is supporting people to go and work is probably not a government that hates you. That's a government which is probably trying to help you to become a worker. Help you to help yourself. I think that we should actually recognise that working for a living is a good pastime. I would really like to sit down with Marama, who I know, and I share peasant trees. I would describe them as courteous peasant trees, but that's about it. And say to her, look, can you open your mind to the idea that you might be wrong and just come and live the lives of people who have a different point of view to you and then consider why they formerly have used and maybe you might have a perspective which is not as informed as you might otherwise have thought. And there's a few people in public life that I would like to do that with. I don't usually do that because it doesn't meet her expectations, but that's one of the things that I think people should do. And that is to check in as to whether their views and opinions are necessarily fair and accurate on every occasion. You and I almost certainly have very different views about many things and that's fine, but it's important to keep an open mind. And there have been times in my life where I don't think I've been as reasonable and discerning as otherwise could be about views that I don't agree with, but you've really got to push the envelope out there and have an open mind in public life. Reminds me of The Silent Walker Mile in My Shoes by Joe South. The lyrics of which, if I could be you and you could be me for just one hour, if we could find a way to get inside each other's minds, if you could see through my eyes instead of your ego, I believe you'd be surprised to see that you've been blind. That's probably a perfect song to bookend this interview, really. You're suggesting that people need to walk a mile in someone else's shoes in order to understand where they're at. Exactly the challenge that you've made there for Marama Davidson, to walk a mile in someone else's shoes. Yeah, absolutely, Cameron. Maybe I need to go on speed a bit more time on the back of a bike somewhere, but it won't probably be down on this little narrow cycleways on Kevin to strive, but I need to keep an open mind too. You could do that as a learning experience, Daniel. You could head out there, cycle it, video it, and then take that to Council and say, look, we've got a problem, guys. We most certainly do. Well, we probably, there's a big problem if it's me cycling it because I don't think there are many others around me, that's for sure. But look, I just want to wish you and your listeners at Reality Check Radio all the very best for the Christmas and holiday season. I wish you peace and good and all to all. I'd be delighted to come back in the New Year sometime and have a chat and we'll sort of catch up as to where things are going around Council. I think it's a, I think you are raising important points and I think your listeners need to be thinking about these things too and challenging and inquiring and asking questions and providing feedback. And certainly, if I come knocking on your door, don't be afraid to open it because I'm only there to help. Yep. And that's, you're one of the most effective Councillors that I know and I've watched your career for a number of years, Daniel. And there's a reason why you keep getting elected and you just keep doing that and all the best for the Christmas period and the New Year for you, but we'll definitely be touching base a fair bit next year. So thank you very much for coming on to the crunch. Look after yourself, mate. Best things to you and the family and I'm signing off now, but yeah, Merry Christmas and we'll be in touch. Yeah, all the best, Daniel. See what I mean about hardworking? Most local body politicians stop door knocking the day of the election. Not Daniel. I mean, he's knocked on 4,000 doors in the past year. No wonder he keeps getting elected. Tell me your thoughts of what Daniel had to say by emailing inbox at realitycheck.radio or text to 2057. Thank you for tuning into RCR, Reality Check Radio. If you like what you're listening to or dislike what you're listening to, either way, we want to hear from you. Get in touch with us now. You can text us with your message to 2057. 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