 If reality check radio enriches your day and life support us to keep bringing you the content voices Perspectives and dose of reality. You won't get anywhere else Visit www.realitycheck.radio forward slash donate Morris Williamson is a Repeat guest on the crunch and we've had him on before of course and he's agreed to give us regular updates on the goings-on Ad Auckland Council. He was the transport minister for many years So I'll hit him up about what's going on in Auckland Transport. He joins me on the line now Welcome back to the crunch Morris Williamson. Good to have you. Nice to be with you I hope you've had a restful holiday period enjoying the sun. Thank god. We got a good summer this time Yeah, this time last year was pelting down with rain in the most appalling Manor and of course the left-wing media people like rustle brown and simon wilson were accusing the mayor of being absent I'm not sure that the mayor. I mean he's he would like to think he's got godlike qualities, but I don't think he can stop rain No, um, there are a few people who've tried along the way and failed I I do worry about the entire issue of climate change because There are people who say in a marama davidson has said it if the greens policy was enacted We would be able to solve climate change And what that doesn't take account of is we are 0.17 of a percent of the entire greenhouse gas emissions And so even if new zealand disappeared into the ocean tomorrow and was gone altogether It will have no impact No impact whatsoever on climate change The big driver of climate change will be both asia and latin america And the huge volumes of what they're contributing to the atmosphere In a week some extra in an extra contribution outweighs everything we've done entirely so Yes, we do need to do some things to to sort of mitigate climate change We should have a little bit better building codes in some of the flood prone areas Where we build on some stilts and allow better drainage I was lucky enough to spend some time In New Orleans after Katrina and it was interesting to see all along the Mississippi That the houses were on like two meter type poles And you had a concrete base plate underneath that where you could maybe store something or even park your car if it wasn't right But you couldn't leave any Thing in terms of living there and then when the Mississippi did flood it never got past the one and a half meter of the poles So your house was surrounded by water, but it did no damage whatsoever So I think the way we build needs to change so that we if we do build in flood prone areas We do it sensibly. I think better Drainage systems where we can get rid of the excess water, etc. But the idea we're going to stop These things happening And in fact, I'm one of the strongest believers in climate change the world's ever seen I believe the world's climate has always changed and will continue to always change And we just need to adapt to live within the parameters for which mother nature throws at us I would have thought having a chat with a few Dutch people might it might solve a few problems as well Yeah, they've had to you see the necessity is the mother of invention And there are people all around the world who have had to change what they've done In order to cope with I mean, I don't know what percentage of the Netherlands is actually below sea level But I know a big percentages and yet they've managed to cope accordingly and and work So, you know, you've got two options. You can either solve the climate change issue and stop it happening Well, good luck with that Or you can say what if we are going to get those big floods from time to time and we always have done This side floods are only a recent occurrence. There have been really big floods and Really hot temperatures south of England was estimated to be in the high 40s Around the battle of Hastings time 1066. That's a thousand years ago They were growing grapes and grape Vineyards and that in the north of Scotland Where Scotland was that warm. So yeah, look get ready get real There will be climate change. There will be heavy sort of events like rainfalls and storms and so on And we just have to build and mitigate accordingly and cope with it. And it's not that hard if you plan for it Yeah, it's always it's always interested me that Everyone sort of ignores one of the biggest migration influxes that occurred as a result of what would be called climate change these days And that was the arrival of angles and jutes and Saxons from Europe into into Great Britain. Yeah, and they were driven out by floods and Rising rivers and and low lying Areas in Jutland and places like that. That's where they got their names from so They all my great and that was well before 1066 when the Normans robbed up and gave them a lesson in war Well, one of the things if you go to Hastings as a plaque there I was reading it and it said one of the things that bought down William the conqueror's soldiers more rapidly than Mal nourishment and dysentery which always used to be the biggest killer of soldiers All bows and arrows and swords, which was second They were falling in the battlefield from heat exhaustion because wearing a suit of armor in a 40 degree Temperature you literally can only swing a bloody broadsword for a few minutes before you fall You you put on a wall a wall padded gambas on and then put put Five or six kilos of steel chainmail over the top of that in an iron helmet You can get a bit hot, aren't you go into a sauna and try running around for a while Anyway, so so that's one of the things that Auckland's got to face We've got to start And not not the extreme of let's ban building in any flood prone areas because in that case It did just about we're all flood prone at some point somewhere What we're going to do is say what what are the likelihoods of flooding in specific zones? And what do we need to change the building code so that buildings can still be built there and used there and for the vast bulk of time Successfully used there, but when the one and you know, whatever hundred years or whatever occurs We cope it copes it functions at drains They don't get the water into the living part of the property and so on Can be done. It's done elsewhere as you pointed out, Holland and I I was impressed as hell along that Mississippi River Bank of what they had done after Katrina A good mate of mine who was born in Fiji like me. His father was the Suva City Council Chief engineer and he was responsible for putting in these massive Stormwater drains around Suva and you can still see them today. They're they're almost like the ones in Singapore Right, and I wonder if If our civil engineers in Auckland City Aren't up with the play that we that Auckland's actually a subtropical city and perhaps we should have monsoon style drainage systems I think there's no doubt and remember Stormwater is not a A water care issue. They're there for clean water and sewerage and Stormwater is more a roading issue when you're building your roading network putting proper culverts and proper, you know relief Ability in LA. They've got a thing called the Los Angeles River Which I was amazed because if you go down to it, it's not easily dry. It's actually concrete It's actually not bloody. It's wide as you can't it's wide as one of the freeways And it's just solid concrete in a big U shape and it's there to get all the water out of LA whenever they get And they hardly ever get rain. I was there for several years and think it rained about four times But but when it does rain it pours In fact, there's a really good Albert Hammonsong seems it never rains in California But when it does it pours and when you get these torrential rains, they've got the infrastructure to cope with getting it out of the place Yeah, a lot of the Auckland's infrastructure, particularly on the isthmus is clapped out and you know Over a hundred years old in many places and not designed for all the additional infill housing and the additional roads and everything else That's putting all that stormwater through the system Yes, it's one of the things councils needing to be aware of all the time. You can't just keep adding A burden to the load and not have some relief mechanism to be able to take it away And so we have built a lot of houses and we've got a lot of people living in a city Uh, even though we're spread out across a big piece of land, but we haven't kept the infrastructure up to date And and this goes back, you know decades or more than decades. It's not just the latest council or the one before Oh, it's it's intergenerational The council has been uh, we could even put it back to you know, the mid 1980s when Michael Bassett's reforms Gave general competence to to the councils. It's at that point that Councils started to account for things like depreciation depreciation is there for a reason It's there to fund the further capital upgrades But unfortunately various politicians from from both sides of the of the spectrum Have raided the depreciation to spend it on frivolities Absolutely Just going back to Bassett's reforms because I was in parliament at the time in 1989 What was hilarious was we were taking I think and I won't get this exactly right But I think there were 34 local bodies in Auckland So you had a Mount Albert borough council and the Mount Eden borough council and only hung a borough council and a new market Borough council and like it's how it borough council and so And some of the quotes I kept them The mayor of new market at the time said If we're forced to join with Auckland city council as they were Then this will be the end of new market It's over Still there Well, you look at what's flourishing and booming right now and look at what's dead as a dodo Downtown Auckland is shocking just shocking and new market has literally tried to get a car park try to get around It is exploding. So I think he got it wrong. Just my Just might be yeah I mean people say to me. Can you come into the into the city for a meeting? It's uh That I've got an appointment to catch cancer actually Rather do that The other thing that I found at the time and I made the comment to bass it at one point about how I'm surprised that even the roads joined up And one of his officials pointed out to me if you took Down Dominion road and down Sandringham road a number of the cross streets like say Burnley terrace Yeah, which run between Mount Albert and Mount Eden borough council If you're driving along the straight Burnley terrace halfway along There's a little dog leg only about five or six meters wide Just does a little less and carries on and you think well, what was that for is a straight, right? And that's because that was where the boundary between Mount Eden and Mount Albert was and they didn't get the roads to line up so I mean that that's the problem with the history of stuff and he he was good to get it down to to seven I I still think we've got a long way to go to make the super city work We we we thought there would be some real gains. We thought there'd be some real efficiency gains We thought we would be getting, you know, one human resource department not seven One accounting department not seven I don't believe that any of what I Argued for is one of the ministers in the government of the time that when Rodney. I was putting that legislation through I don't believe we've seen the real benefits of what could happen And I think that's through poor administration and poor governance Well, we we promised with the super city That there was going to be less staff and and economies of scale and every other Wonderful, you know, motherhood and apple pie statement that was was given to convince us all that it was a good idea Well, let me give you those numbers around the time of the merger. There was around 10 000 full-time equivalent staffs Across the seven that all got merged into one so 10 000 and we were we I actually used it in speeches because we were getting the briefing notes from internal affairs We we could see that the efficiency gains deliver about a 25 percent reduction So that would be down to 7 500, you know, quite a big saving of stuff By, you know That's sort of rationalizing of all the service delivery The current staff at Auckland council is about 12 and a half thousand So that's a two and it's a 25 percent increase And yet we had promised a 25 percent decrease So the gains haven't come In real terms the expenditure is exploding. We've got 13 billion of debt on the books I always say to an audience 13 thousand million So if you had a big pile of a million dollars and just kept walking down the road 13 thousand Piles of those million dollar piles. So we we have got to stop spending money We have the only reason I actually stood for council. I wasn't that fussed about being a counsellor And I certainly don't think it's a job. I want to do for long But I want to try and break the back of that spending monster that just keeps consuming money and spending it And yet if you ask your ordinary rate payer out there, are you getting more Service delivery for what you pay for your rates. I've not met someone I've done it with audiences hands up those who think they're getting a better service more detail more product more whatever Not a hand nowhere and I said buddy paying more rates every hand goes up So the reality of it is that that efficiency gains never happened The staff reduction and rationalization never happened And uh, it's time. We try to go back and revisit that whole super city concept. I'm still a fan of it But I would really like to know there were some really strict criteria about how money was spent and what debt could be accumulated Yeah, it seems to be a problem with politicians generally in you being a former or current politician We've been promised these massive projects Basically filled with hopeium You know highly addictive. We're going to get these amazing outcomes. The super city's one max bradford's electricity reforms would be another Yep We had the three waters Boondoggle that the labor party foisted on all of the councils when they originally said it was going to be a choice And then they were forced them and coerced them Just the other day, uh, Christopher luxem and simian brown announced that three waters is getting axed and they've got some other Name for it. You know, I don't know who was um hired to do their slogans I think it was somebody in the local kindergarten to do it But you know water reform done right or something Gay like that, you know, it doesn't make sense. What's your thoughts on on what was released by christopher luxem and simian brown I'm actually quite keen. I don't think this I don't think the slogan is great I agree with that But I think it's quite a good idea because the first question that I always have is name me a country Anywhere where they have fixed their water issue By involving race Putting half of a particular race onto governing bodies and boards Show me where that's made a difference and of course that whole co-governance was what brought down the three waters because Most people lost focus with what three waters was supposed to be about and got really angry about why as a certain group of our citizens Getting the right to control and govern a particular vital asset to the way we live and work and operate And so three waters got bought down by that whole co-governance more than anything else But I do quite like the idea of putting a blow torch back onto councils in terms of How they actually and you hit the nail on the head before with regards to depreciation It's the cheapest way to get through good budgets is just don't fund your depreciation But the day of reckoning comes And we have just never funded depreciation on so much of the asset base and asset class that councils across the country have got So the day of reckoning has to come and the government mustn't be the banker of last resort. I will bail you out But local government in particular has to go to find More intelligent ways. I don't believe that some of the councils we've got should ever exist as small as they are And I think a little bit of you know emerging Of some of those rural and small councils And you can do that by getting a council controlled organization together And letting them run the water operation And so I think the government's put the ball back in their court Which is the way to go and then said come back with Structures and funding and proposals and only then will we necessarily have to either get into loan guarantee systems or even Taxpayers money see Auckland's kind of lucky in that regard. It's already got water care So it seems to be a logical that's already a council controlled organization that could fit into that frame where other councils obviously Don't have that and we need to come up with something similar to that Well, the other thing that Auckland's got which I think We should be pleased with is we've got metering And when I see big cities around this country that don't have any idea of how much water you use Or even little ones like Wellington Little ones like Wellington, but I mean we hear of where I live We use a lot of water because we've got a swimming pool and it requires a lot of topping up when the sun's beating down And at the water's warm and evaporation We should pay More than someone the lady next door who's a pensioner and doesn't use very much water at all But the idea of that you can have a city like Wellington and not know what usage is going on Imagine everything imagine your electricity imagine if you paid an electricity bill as an average for the suburb Rather than what you use the guy with the Tesla down the road getting subsidized by everybody else so so I think that The new government has also made it clear they've said they might make it mandatory But I think they've made it pretty clear that one of the solution parts to this getting tidy Is to actually know what usage is going on and to actually start making people pay There's a really other good element to that It actually makes the council carry a lot of the cost itself for the leakage and the wastage Because you put charging on those who are using it through their meters But 43 of Wellington's water is lost through leakage Boy, if you knew that you were having to pick up the tab for 43 of that and not the people that you're trying to charge You'd soon get people out there with a bit of duct tape getting those pipes tighter Well, that's the thing, you know, there's the old business adage. What gets measured gets done And uh, Wellington, I can remember living in Wellington Visiting you and parliament at the time You know in my younger days and uh, I can remember there was a massive outcry when Wellington council Suggested that we're going to have water meters and there were people marching in the street and protesting Well, they're reaping that benefit right now was that water actually pouring down the gutters on a daily basis There's another good Business adage which says if you can't measure it, you can't manage it And if you don't know what it is, you know, if you just don't know what is mrs. Jones next door using compared to The williamsons with their swimming pool and teenagers who take 12 hour showers you go You know, you should pay for your usage and it's the same when you're driving on the roads You pay for your usage through your fuel tax or road user charges And it's the same for a whole range of things you consume if you want to fly on an aeroplane to go to I don't know to go to hamilton It's a lot less than if you're going to london because of the volume of fuel that you're using and so on so I don't understand how we can not I mean I probably live with very small little communities Where you could just average it out and say oh you were low But a city like Wellington for god's sake how they've not had metering for so long and the wastage So we'll see but I actually think water care has been well run I had a lot of respect for some of the directors and managers mark forward did a Damn good job of running water care when it was first set up And it's a shame that we don't have mark around because I thought he did a hell of a good job Talking about road user charges is a little bit of a diversion here. I see the People with electric vehicles who have been basically bludgeoning off the rest of road users for quite some time I'm not looking quite so smug now because the government said right We're going to actually start charging for road user charges And we've got articles and stuff and various other woke womble type Publications where they're comparing a tesla with you know a toyota corolla and saying well Toyota corolla's only got this much road user charges and it's in their petrol Whereas a tesla is going to have the same as a as a two and a half tonne newton And they're sending they're going this isn't fair and it seems to escape them that a tesla weighs as much as a ute Yes, but they're enormously heavy vehicles electric vehicles I think it's a very outdated mode to try and charge for the usage of a piece of tarmac Based on fuel being put into a tank of a vehicle You should be paying for is distance traveled and weight And it's got a heavy vehicle that the cost is more than a really feather light vehicle And if you're doing thousands of kilometers, you should be paying thousands of kilometers use And if you're only doing 20 or 30 a month like the little lady next door who wants to go down to the supermarket once a week So I think the idea of an excise tax at the pump and remember I was transport minister for a bloody long time I could see a day coming. I always said this in speeches When you'll have hydrogen fuel cells, you'll possibly even have Panels on the sort of roof of cars where solar will be efficient enough to keep the batteries running And you will have just a myriad of different fuel cell To to run the vehicle you cannot charge Any other way than for like a road user charge your weight and the distance that you travel I've got a diesel car. I have to pay road user charges every time I upgrade much I've got to pay for so many 10,000 more kilometers My weight of my car is no one and my bill comes back, you know, $800 or whatever is for 10,000 k That's what all vehicles should not matter whether you're a hybrid or whether you're electricity or a hydrogen fuel cell Or even got some bloody big rubber bands and the wind them up and let your car race down the road It should be based on distance traveled and weight of vehicle The same goes for cycleways that should be charged as well Yeah, well, there's not enough there's not enough cyclists using them to pay for it Just kind of say the poor guy that goes down it every day and be paying half a million dollars because I you've got me on to a subject which we probably best not to go to I just so cross at the way we have Taken away lanes of road in order to cope for cycleways and the best example would be around lagoon driver on the Waipurna lake I argued back with at when they were proposing to take away one lane either way It is already Absolutely locked blocked and stopped around there in the morning and at night If you do that you will literally create traffic chaos And they I said so if you want to build a busway go out onto the lake put a concrete bridge out there and put extra Lanes, but don't take away while they didn't listen Uh, they told me I was wrong. It wouldn't have any impact And if any of your listeners are struggling to try and come down the ellisly pan your highway and get around Lagoon drive onto the back ring highway at time of the end of work day or early in the morning the other way It is just Hell it is just locked blocked stopped cars backed up I was coming down the ellisly pan your highway the other day got to the intersection with lond avenue There's a gas station there and it lond avenue comes in from your left I looked at my gps and it said 47 minutes to my home here in pakaranga Hmm ridiculous You go past the beautiful big wide as gold plated Cycleway and councillor sharon stewart and I often travel in the same car And whoever's the passenger we make notes about how many cyclists we have ever seen On that cycleway and on many days, even though it's taking us a long time to crawl along that road We don't see one cyclist Yeah, it's just ridiculous. Well, it's the priorities that were set by the previous labor government And I I I do have some sympathy with at and that is if they're going to get their funding for things from the government They've got to comply with what the government's direction are. That's why I'm really hopeful That when the new minister of transport simian brown puts out the government policy statement in a few weeks time that a whole lot of that Ridiculous requirement for speed bumps and for pedestrian crossings costing 500,000 and so that that'll all just come out I want to just take you back a bit when I first got to be minister of transport It became quite clear from my briefing notes that You could actually invoke a safety regime to whatever extent you wished and the most extreme would be I'd actually said it in the speech once I think to the a I could actually reduce our road toll to zero Like that. I would make the speed limit 10 kilometers an hour I would make it only self laying track vehicle. So you wouldn't have wheels and tires And there would not be a single human being killed on our roads The economy would be bankrupt by the end of that week and the world bank would have to bail us out But I would be able to go to world forums and say See, I promised you New Zealand is first in the world to not have anyone die on our roads That's how ridiculous and extreme could be So what you have to do with road safety is have safety at reasonable cost That was the mantra that I drove into people and mere wane brown I appointed him to be the chairman of the land transport safety authority while I was minister And he said I remember being berated by you for about half an hour in your office the day I started I want to make sure that it's safety at reasonable cost People will die on our roads. I think it's tragic and every death is tragic But if you try to get it to the point where we have zero like the previous government with their big red zeros You will literally just spend Fortunes of money for no real gain because the road toll didn't actually come down with all they were doing And the inconvenience to road users The delay in traffic movement And the cost of I mean when genuine homes or whatever it was came out with a weekend build a Three bedroom home with a walk-in pantry kitchen in a in a two car garage for less than Auckland is building A speed bump You think something's wrong here. So hopefully 80 of learnt although I see the latest announcement they're going to head with more and more of these stupid things When the government policy statement comes out, they'll not be able to hide behind that excuse anymore Well, we have to do it because the central government is that directive And the ads on the road to zero Made me just so angry Yes, we want the road toll to come down and one of the things one of us never going to get to zero It was such a stupid statement It's never going to get to zero. I mean, I'm just looking at a chart for the road toll fatalities in New Zealand Yes, and there's this big fuss made about 300 and something, you know high 300s Of the road toll every year at the moment But people are unaware that in about 1972 we had our highest ever road toll 870 something like that And then between nine between 1972 and about 1987 It sort of went down a little bit to about 570 but back up to 800 again In 87 but every year since then it has been a downward slope Because we've had increases in technology. We've had airbags. We've got side intrusion beams. We've got the compulsory Seat belts all of these measures have had no impact It has no roading impact on that at all and yet we've got at that's got this directive to try and get to zero by some stupid date That's actually impossible with a growing population. Well, but the councils around the country I've been in Hamilton a lot recently because my mum was in Waikato Hospital until she died and I've been living in Hamilton And they've gone and what they call in lane bus stops So they've built these special things where the bus just stops and the traffic backs up and their car's coming around the corner Thinking it's a free road to come around the corner on and suddenly whoa Straight and you talk to local Hamiltonians and they just say this is madness This is absolute madness And I think there's a by-election going on in Hamilton now for one of the council seats and the previous national mp They're Tim McIndoe standing. He said he's standing on a let's get rid of the in lane buses And let's get rid of the speed bumps and all the pedestrian crossings with rays And he said the the support that people are expressing for thank god There's some common sense now I don't blame the council if the central government say if you're going to get the funding you want then This is what you have to do But the road to zero meant made no sense whatsoever Every activity human beings are involved in every activity including flying aeroplanes And whatever there are people who drown in the bath every year If we want the bath to zero policy, we should be ripping out baths All across the country. There should be a bath police. They go suburb to suburb Oh, we we we should just say allow baths, but only if they Got half a centimeter of water. You know the bath can only be two inches deep and otherwise Well, you can drown and listen to it till you can drown in that So, you know, we've got to be so you can't drown in it. So let's make the baths You know almost like a shower tray So that that's how silly it gets look As I said, every death is a tragedy and so on But the fact is that transport is the greatest enabler of economic growth It gets our food to all the distribution centers and we we eat well and live well now compared to previous generations It allows for us to participate in entertainment and holidays and so on that we never used to be able to It allows for all of what our new society wants in return for that there will be tragic crashes where people lose their lives and if you want to say well, we'll have it as zero Then all you're going to do is make it impossible for people to participate in a modern society So I'm really pleased that the the big red zeros that michael would spend 10 grand each on those red zeros Have been shoved in the cupboard down at the ministry of transport and locked away And that it will be safety at reasonable cost and could you um, could you see uh, uh, and I'm thinking those zeros could be used by wane brown for example to uh, and you know show us what he's achieved in the last year Yes, well that's That's one of the things that I think is important to focus on I learned many years ago and harsh lessons in politics That the public don't Vote for you because you're a nice person and they don't vote for you because you're friendly at their school Uh prize giving and give something to their kids They vote for you because you are delivering outcomes for them That you promised you would do and at the end of your time they go wow And the problem we've got at Auckland council is we we promised a lot of things And yet runs on the board After half a term because it's coming up to 18 months of the three-year term Runs of the board are pretty hard to spot. I mean we were going to get rid of The orange road cones And yet as far as I can see the little buggers are actually breeding Because they're just more and more of them every self-replicating. I think they like bacteria aren't they they just Yeah, I mean I went to milford the other day and I turned the corner Uh on to Hearst me a road heading towards milford And I could not see the road For the amount of orange that was placed on it You know, it was incredible. There was I think there was like 5000 Road cones there and more were appearing as I drove past I just wish I'd spotted it because if you'd started a a road cone manufacturing business About five six years ago before the government put all of its rules that you even if you Fixing a water leak somewhere down a road what used to be the guy went down there with his spanner Lifted up the manhole grabbed the pipe pulled it together tightened up the bolts and that was it now You have to put a traffic safety management regime in place up every side road up all roads leading to it You have to have traffic calm down to either stopped or 330k And that that is just insanity compared to where we were now the argument was every now and then Somebody got hurt at a building site because there wasn't proper trade traffic safety management But if you look at that williamson avenue Uh pedestrian crossing that costs sort of you know, 490 500 000 170 000 of the cost of doing that pedestrian crossing 170 000 was traffic safety management That is getting all the orange cones putting them all out paying for whatever I guess they lease them by the day or whatever and and Paying for all of that while you're putting down a pedestrian crossing in the old days You might have put one sign up either way Beware pedestrian crossing being painted or and cars slowed down and took accordingly And we've just got silly about it Safety at reasonable cost can be the only way forward There There'll always be a death associated with it. In fact, I did a speech at high school and I won the speech contest with it We had to give I didn't know you went to high school morris. I didn't go for long You went to eat your lunch, didn't you? I went to eat my lunch But I yeah, they couldn't put me in the fourth form because my father was still in there But but the the old joke that was we had to give speech on new zealand's most dangerous sport And all these other kids talked about rugby with the net breaking and so on or motor racing and people being killed in it Or skydiving and all these sports and I gave a speech which won the speech contest Hilarious speech about the most dangerous sport in new zealand was lawn bowls without And that's because more people died every weekend playing lawn bowls than any other sport in new zealand by a long way Now, you know why they died of course But they died and the facts and the facts I could present you with all the tabular day I mentioned croquette. He's up there too. Croquet would be second or third down. Yeah. Yeah. I think the word croquet He's not a good word But but lawn bowls was definitely the most dangerous sport and if you looked at those numbers without knowing what it was and looked at How many people are dying you do say, right? We've got to ban this Can you imagine indoor bowls is probably just as bad just as dangerous go out close all the lawn bowl Companies down shut them all down because look at how many people are dying every week road to zero We don't want any lawn bowls deaths and that's your problem with the road to zero It's a lovely idea. I wish no one died Well, the only way you can have that is we have no activity on the roading network at all In which case you will actually have no one died But would be bankrupt by by friday. I see on tuesday morning There's an article in the herald talking about at and how in point shev They're building some phenomenal number of these raised platforms I'm just going to try and find it now. It's I think it's 26 Yeah, I saw the email coming before it's a it's a large number. I don't remember But all I can say is that that's just got to stop this This is just ridiculous and what I loved about at is the number of projects where they've gone in We had one here at near our Primary school where they went and had built this massive big roundabout and put all sort you couldn't actually come through That the streets affected they were so badly blocked locked with lumps and bumps And then they tore it all out again And there's been many examples of they've put it in and then they've Pulled it all out again And that's one of my angers about money spend If you're spending somebody else's money You don't really care And I want to start caring about we are custodian of the ratepayers money The poor buggers have had rate increase on rate increase to a point that it's just obscene But I don't think they've seen the great Service delivery and our parks are not getting mowed any more than they used to in fact less The berms don't get mowed. We're taking away rubbish bins from the parks and so on now So you can just leave all your rubbish and pollute the waterways and so on I think there's a strong view out there Sadly, I have to say and I've been a counsellor now for eight coming up to the 18 month period and it's halfway through I don't believe we've yet Made the big hard decisions about staff rationalization About cost reductions and about service delivery That you can benchmark against some of the most effective and efficient Delivery mechanisms out there. I still think we're a bit of a lumbering organization. So Runs on the board pretty scarce at this point. Happy to admit that You mentioned earlier in the in our conversation about the government being a lender of last resort and I know Wayne Brown Last week was screaming Quite loudly that the government had taken away the Auckland Exize tax the extra tax that Auckland has paid on their fuel Because the Labor government decided that we should pay more tax on a fuel to fund A rail line to the airport that has not had a single millimeter built and we've paid Pretty much six years of this massive tax and Wayne Brown's now crying about it Because the money's been taken away and there's all these projects that at Was going to have funded by those taxes and it seems it even made a bizarre statement saying to the government ministers This is my city not yours Yet, he's got his hand out for other people's money And it kind of doesn't make sense to me that you you're saying it's my city But you everywhere else in New Zealand, you all have to pay for what's in my city Yeah, I mean, I think that's a dilemma that will always exist while we've got Local roads and government roads all the state highway network So in Auckland here s h 1 s h 16 s h 18 s h 20 They're all owned operated and built by central government And they sit in amongst the network of all of the local roads Now I did propose I put a document out in 1998 called better transport better roads in which We actually emerged and formed some roading companies that would own the entire roading network On a business like basis would have a proper balance sheet would fund appreciation and would actually manage those roads It didn't succeed because it got so much opposition from every one of the councils in New Zealand that would see They had no reason for being anymore. So that didn't happen. But but there is that issue that Mayor Brown says quite regularly on the radio I want to put a congestion charge on the the main southern motorway at green lane and at pen rows and And so on. I want to do it on s h 16 coming in from the Waitakere's and I want to do it on the north northern motorway You know up to sort of Green High or wherever you go Well, I just got to be a bit careful of that. Mr. Mayor. I've said to him We don't actually build own operate those roads. They are government's roads The government owns them it pays for them through your taxes And you can't under the current legislation you can't have a third party Charging you for access to something you don't know it'll be like you paying rent to somebody for a property. They didn't know You know what we're going to charge you rent for that house down the road. You said well, you don't actually own that house So I look I'm delighted the government got rid of the regional fuel tax I know that's not a widely held view among some of my council colleagues And what I'm more delighted about anything is to see a government promise to do something in the campaign if you vote for us we will do this and Auckland's vote is really worth doing some analysis on I've got the breakdown of the party vote for what is called Auckland and that is the 23 electorates 22 general and one Maori that is Auckland council And then I've got the breakdown of the what's not Auckland and listen to this National got a 38 party vote across the country It got 45 party vote in Auckland and 35 non Auckland So a huge percentage difference at 10 percentage points is massive. It is massive. So the people of Auckland voted We like this policy. We like what you're saying We're voting for you and they even voted Michael Wood out of his electorate in Ross school And he wrote to zero and other Labour members got voted out So imagine what the media would have done to the new national government and simian brown in particular if he said Ah, no, we're not going to do that. You can keep your regional fuel tax They would have torn them to shreds for being liars and cheeks. You promised you'd do it and so on But when they did do it and are refreshing change to see a government actually do what it said it would And promise the voters that would how refreshing is that? It's a dangerous president. I hope it doesn't catch on But instead we would do it. They did it their next thing they get bombarded. You know, you can't do this Well, yes And in fact the Auckland council should have planned for this well in advance of the announcement last week Because it was always coming. I mean the polls showed there was going to be a change of government well through all of last year I mean, that's why just sin just sin to bailed in February not because there was nothing left in the tank It was there's nothing left in the polls. Yeah, and so We knew there would be a change of government whether it be a national government or a national government or a national act in New Zealand Whatever it was going to be going to be a change So any council putting its budget together last year with political eyes on it and I argued at a time You're going to have to know that these guys if they get elected will stick to their promise They promise to get rid of the regional fuel tax TV and zed must have hated it But they went out and did a vox pop of people at the petrol station the night it was all announced They couldn't find one person that was opposed They said, oh, this is great. Love this. I kept thinking they must be trying to find someone for an hour That you you must hate it. No, it's good. Okay. Well, what about you? You don't like it So they ended up with five or six or seven people and everyone said, oh, please. That's a great idea Good news. So we have to cut our cloth accordingly. And what I think Where's the council have to say is right? It's clear. We don't get that money anymore We've got to cut cut our spending cloth accordingly. And if that means cancelling those projects at eighties, you know Well acknowledged a guilt edge In fact, they're probably hammering the gold on to each of those things that they're doing on a daily basis And they have to go and let's stop building cycleways that are not used This idea of if you build it, they will come I'm sorry. There's good examples where it has already been built and they don't come You come down to that gold plated cycleway around the lagoon drive and onto the packer anger road that I was talking about earlier I've sat down there with my camera sitting on a tripod for an hour and 38 minutes, I think it was having my lunch and just listening to some news through headphones And my camera is running constantly And not one cycle come a sunny day lovely day Not one cyclist came along during the entire time I'm sitting there And yet I then spun my camera 90 degree around onto the packer anger highway And there's just cars locked blocked stopped and backed up as far as your eye can see and that's because the sort of The lunatics are running the asylum the the people who believe cycling is the way to solve it We need cycling and walking and we don't want these evil thing called cars I'm sorry. The priority has to be for a place like my ward We're 92.8 of people in the last sense to say that they use the motor vehicle as their main form of transport We've got to start putting the focus on to how do we get that flowing more rapidly? How do we remove the barriers not how do we build? There was a proposal under the previous government to put a speed bump on the packer anger highway This is three lanes in either direction That is a major artery to get people into and out of the city every morning and every night And then we're going to stick these big speed bumps on the packer anger highway And fortunately the local MP who now Fortunately is the minister of transport Said, you know no way and held public meetings and you know the poor old at people that attended them Got sort of a savage by the public saying what what is it that you guys are smoking because this is nuts And it got canned in the end So I'm hopeful that with the new government policy statement to come out and a whole lot of the emphasis moved on to getting people moving around the city quicker Getting better faster cheaper vehicle Passageways Getting rid of the nonsense of road to zero getting rid of the nonsense of building speed bumps on things like packer anger highway Cycleways where there's never going to be used. I was in Manukau the other day in Cavendish Drive in the Deep industrial part of it, you know like south of Manukau city center There's this cycleway they've put in that's about three feet wide And it's got a concrete edge, you know all these sort of raised things that are concrete like berms To protect the cycleways That's filled with detritus and rubbish and everything else because it can't be swept There's never been a single cyclist. I've ever seen and I'm there every week Going down that road It it would have caught it would have cost easily $2 million to do what they've done For no benefit. It's it's actually an inconvenience for everybody else Correct, but but it's also a little bit like I know what's best for you You don't yeah, and so I've decided that instead of you using a motor vehicle to get to wherever you work You'll use a bicycle I will make you use what they call is the sort of Mode of transport that's going you know the high intensity activity and so on well As I said in the packer anger ward and remember the ward that I represent just this one ward called howick ward We are bigger than any other city in new zealand just my ward Than other than willington or christ church. So we've got 157 158 thousand people It's a huge it's bigger than hamilton. It's bigger than It's bigger than tower over and so on and 92.8% say in the census that they need the motor vehicle And yet what is all of the focus gone on? It's how do we block off lanes? How do we stop you traveling? How do we actually reduce? That the arteries that you could move in in order to put big gold plated projects like cycleways which You can even if you were a keen cyclist you couldn't cycle from where I live into the city every day You take hours to get in there and hours to get back So when I hear the new chairman of at saying he's a big fan of cycling And he made big store of the fact when he spoke to our council that he's a mammal I didn't know what that was. I have to admit and I looked it up. It's a middle-aged man in lycra And he's he's why was he hired then he should have been told to sling his hook We should have got a taxi driver to to be the chief executive of at he's proud of this is the new chairman He's proud of being a mammal and he lives in parnell And I thought actually, you know if I lived in parnell I could probably cycle into the city It's all downhill, isn't it you just drop downhill onto the flat go along the tamaki drive and turn into Commerce street or whatever in you there But that's not Auckland Auckland starts at the bomb bay hills in the south goes up to walkworth in the north And people work everywhere and they live everywhere else We had a particular guy who had a company in glenfield when I was a member of parliament here He lived up on music point on the tip of that peninsula at buckland's beach But his company was based in glenfield and every day he had to work his way down the back Buckland's road and then across the packer angle highway Then on the state highway one and try to get across the other group and so on and If you were in north Korea, you would just say well We're moving you your house is sold today and we're going to put you in the house next to we It's not your house. Anyway, we're going to move you to a new government house in glenfield He then stops being the chief executive of that job a year later and he moves somewhere else Well, we'll move but you can't do that. We live in a country. We're afraid of where you want and so on So I'm I'm really hopeful at this point I've heard nothing but good signs come out of the new government about what they're going to do with Road user charging for vehicles what they are going to do with Things like getting rid of the ridiculous road to zero stuff and so on and start having safety at reasonable Cost, we want to see the road toll come down But it has to be not at the expense of the total economic operation of the country Just a final point Harking back to at again I see on monday they shut down the rail network because apparently It was too hot in Auckland And the the tracks could buckle on the on the rail network And they didn't think that we could actually look up what the temperature was in Auckland for the previous five days When four of those five days were higher temperatures than what monday was and they didn't shut the network down on those four days So what's going on at at and um February who would have thought it would be hot in february? What I've heard and I can't verify this so they might have a bit of pushback But I was told last night by somebody who I think knows pretty much what the Kiwi rail briefing said It was some tracks south of otahoe on the southern line for the next four stations They were concerned about the condition of the of the curves and the train being able to cable because of the expansion But at Didn't say okay. Well, we'll stop the trains at otahoe and we'll bust you for the last four Bust the five people that are on the train I don't know what it was five, but well, I was talking about the conductor in the driver Assistant as well include those. Yeah, that's fine. But there was evidently they shut it down all around the place Well, it was you know lines on all over the place got closed and it was chaos and so on and I kept thinking well Actually, that's not Kiwi rails fault at overreacted Now at might come back and say not true We only did it on that little bit of line on the south where there was a problem But I think not and I think at carry a bit of a can for the overreaction They cancelled trains left right and center and Kiwi rail were only saying it was that southern Line south of otahoe. You could even still go to otahoe from the city. No problem But trains should stop there for today. But I mean, you know, who knew that it got hot in February Well, it wasn't even that hot. It was out of the week before but you know, this is a problem with public transport It seems that public transport Picks you up from somewhere You're not at yep, right and takes you somewhere That you don't want to go to Yeah Well, let me tell you the I cop a lot of flak while I was transport minister I copped it and I still cop it at the council You just take public transport And I don't and I tell you why I can prove that I work for british airways in London And the entire time I was working for british airways. I never owned a car Because I didn't need a car. I could go from anywhere to anywhere Either in the the underground which was the most used for me Or I could use one of the red bus networks the big double or I could even use a black taxi if it was needed And the cost of owning and running and storing a car was prohibitive But here where I live in packer anger Even when they build this eastern busway, which remember just crosses the panure bridge and then dives south Won't come out to where all the population it doesn't come out to Buckland's beach and how it can a cockle bay and melons bay It doesn't come out to where the population is it dives south of moment It's crossed over and heads down through botany going out down towards flat bush and so How do you get to use that if you want to when you live where the vast bulk of the population out here lives? Oh, I know you drive your car to a park and ride Well that may be but there's only build one level of the park and ride. It'll be full instantly I know no no there is no plan on the eastern busway because I asked them yesterday I met with the eastern busway people yesterday And I said is there any plan for even any one maybe Park and rides and they said no unlike the northern busway where there are parking rides And they said the problem is that once we built them they were full within minutes and you you know, they're packed So Public transport, how about we make it convenient if I I actually started because the motorway got so chocker at the hours. I was trying to get in and out of town I decided I would park around Glen Innes and jump on the train And for my first three or four weeks at council it worked brilliantly I could be in downtown and sort of 10 15 minutes go to the council meeting jump on the train get back But guess what happened? It was only well, I don't know three or four weeks or five weeks into me being a counsellor That at announced that the eastern line was stopping for a year For a year not not for the afternoon Not for that week But for a year, it's only just started up again in january So what do you think people do they go to alternatives and you've got and they don't go back They don't go back. There's I mean, that's the thing if you have to I mean I lived in Whangapuraw for a number of years seven years or so and they had parking rides that were always full Yes, so If you have to drive your car to get on a bus you'll just carry on you just carry on and skip the bus part You'll just carry on and that's the so so i'm not anti public transport I I love the fact that public transport works and i've got a great quote for you I was giving a speech about the balance between public transport and roading networks and And how we get the state highways to all connect up so that traffic can flow Back in the 90s and a lady jumped up and she was a real greenie and she was angry at what I was saying and she said I'm telling you I've just been in Hong Kong and they've got the most fabulous underground rail system And that's what we need now remember at this stage Auckland was less than a million and New Zealand was less than four Said to her ma'am. I've got you a deal. I'm minister of transport I've got the power. I'll do you a deal here and right here tonight You give me Seven million people between Parnell And Ponsonby, which is what Hong Kong is. Yeah, and I'll give you a fabulous underground rail network But we've got less than the population of sydney in our entire country We've got less than the population of melbourne in our entire country And so these grandiose views of the world, you know, I've been to london look at their underground rail Jesus, I don't know what greater london is but it's 15 or 17 million people So let's stop being silly about it. Let's do the things that work Let's make sure the benefit cost ratios are really clearly identified Let's not build the gold plated cycleways because we are building cycleways that could be built for a tenth of that much In terms of how what we built and all these buddy road blocks along the side of them to As you said out in and cavendish just just a sit on eyesore If common sense prevails and i'm very hopeful that with what the new minister said is about his priorities and what the government was Then we'll actually return to let's start focusing on the biggest users of our routing network and that's motorists and by the way What contribution the cyclists pay towards their roads? None. None People accuse me of being a hostile to public transport. I'm a big fan of public transport. I'm seen on the back of a bus Constantly with the rca advertising and that's the closest you're going to get to me to public transport No, well, I'm different. I loved it in london. I loved it. I thought it was just fabulous And I could get to twicken them by the underground and I could go to down to To watch Wimbledon tennis It was and it was and it was rapid. You couldn't but it worked I never looked at the time tables I just whipped down the stairs at my local station stand on the platform And I knew within three to four minutes another train came through jump on Use the green line go to the circle line. Perhaps the picadilly Bang you're there and what made it even better in recent years is I tried to buy an oyster card and the guy behind the Counter at the station. I said What do you want an oyster card for? I said so I can use the train for a week because it's cheaper if you buy the car He said you don't need to I said well, he said just use your credit card And I said well, how do I do that? He said you swipe it across the terminal like you used to do the oyster So I thought oh, I bet my ASB card from New Zealand will work walked up to the turnstile Swiped and it did got on the bloody train got off at the other end swiped off and I looked at my ASB account the next day And there was a 38 pence charge for the use of the train So that's what changes it the convenience the speed and it comes when you need it And you don't have to worry about parking and you need a population base to support it The population base gradually grows and starts to make it work. I'm so lucky to ask cycle You know activists you say to them Well, give us some examples where cycle ways work and they always always without fail say Amsterdam Yeah, oh, yeah, so how are you going to get rid of all the hills in Auckland then to make it like Amsterdam? Yeah, but all sorts of other things that the history of how our country grew up and what I mean They've got lots more intense living in apartments than we've ever had We had the quarter acre section for so long and it's going to take a long time You you literally can't compare apples and oranges and the stuff We've got a specific percent of topography with hills and some difficult stuff Wellington's even worse in terms of how how the hell cycle ways will work around well You finish work and you've got to face the daunting charge of about an hour of going uphill into crippling But so look common sense should prevail Realistic benefit cost ratios should be taken into account and this idea of some I will decide On behalf of you what's best for you rather than you make that determination And on that no Morris. I think we've run out of time Good to be with you, mate Pleasure to have you back on the crunch and we'll have to make this a regular occurrence That's good to me. All right. Thank you very much. Okay. Bye. Bye. Bye Morris is a fantastic font of knowledge especially about transport Auckland council really needs to get on and start doing the things that they were elected to do Perhaps Wayne Brown might like to listen more and speak less Let me know your thoughts on this topic. Good or bad by emailing inbox at realitycheck.radio or text to 2057 Thank you for tuning in to RCR reality check radio If you like what you're listening to just like 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. That's 2057 Or email us at inbox at realitycheck.radio. We would love to hear from you to connect with us today