A guide to making a submission on the Treaty Principles Bill

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David Seymour’s dog whistle Principles of Treaty of Waitangi Bill has now been introduced and has been referred to the Justice Select Committee for the consideration of submissions.

The right will no doubt be rallying their supporters making sure they put submissions in. They will hope to persuade wavering Nats to change their minds.

Hobsons Pledge has set up a website accusing Christopher Luxon of being a scaredy cat. The site is pretty lame but no doubt will cause lots of submissions to be made.

And it is important for all good progressives to do the same. So get drafting and make sure you lodge your submission before the closing date of Januay 7, 2025.

Generic submissions do not have the same effect as a personally written submission. They tend to get lumped together and their effect is lessened.

Your submission does not need to be long. Sometimes the best submissions are succinct and to the point. And if you want to appear before the Select Committee mention this at the top of your submission.

It is best to break your submission into parts. Here is how I suggest you do this:

  1. Introduction
  2. Process
  3. Article one
  4. Article two
  5. Article three
  6. Conclusion

Introduction

First off introduce yourself. If you whakapapa Māori then give your background. If you align with Tangata Tiriti then say so. And if you have expertise, especially in history or law, then refer to this.

You could then talk about how the Treaty is the founding document of our democratic system and that it provides the basis for Parliamentary rule in the country.

Process

In terms of the process you could describe how appalling the current process has been.

When you are making changes to the country’s founding document you need to do it carefully and systematically and seek to achieve a consensus. As the treaty involves a pact between the Crown and Māori good faith requirements make it essential that the Crown sits down with Iwi to discuss the current situation, the issues and what may be the best way to progress resolution of any issues. After all it is an agreement. One party should not unilaterally change the terms of the deal.

You could quote passages from the Waitangi Tribunal whose decisions on the Bill should be compulsory reading.

Here are a few quotes from the first Judgment.

  • “[T]he Crown agreed to pursue the policy without any engagement or discussion with Māori”.
  • The bill is “a solution to a problem that does not exist”.
  • “[T]here is no policy imperative that justifies it”.
  • “[I]t is ‘novel’ in its Treaty interpretations”.
  • The bill is “fashioned upon a disingenuous historical narrative”.
  • The Bill’s “policy rationales are unsustainable”.

And here are some comments from the second judgment:

  • “… if this Bill were to be enacted, it would be the worst, most comprehensive breach of the Treaty / te Tiriti in modern times. If the Bill remained on the statute book for a considerable time or was never repealed, it could mean the end of the Treaty / te Tiriti.”
  • “The Crown’s process to develop the Bill has deliberately excluded any consultation with the Māori Treaty / te Tiriti partner.”
  • “The Cabinet paper rejected the duty to consult Māori as a ‘novel reading of the Treaty’ by the courts and the public service. The Cabinet paper also rejected the ‘partnership interpretation’ of the Treaty / te Tiriti. Thus, due to unnecessarily truncated timeframes and the Crown’s rejection of the Treaty / te Tiriti partnership, Māori have been excluded altogether from this Crown rewrite of the principles.”
  • “[T]there are two parties to the Treaty / te Tiriti, and the grant of kāwanatanga in article 1 is limited by the Crown guarantee of tino rangatiratanga in article 2.”
  • “We do not accept that the Crown’s duty to consult Māori is a ‘novel reading of the Treaty’; it would fly in the face of almost 40 years of jurisprudence and previous Crown acceptance of this duty.”
  • “[T]the Crown’s process to develop the Bill breached the principle of partnership, the Crown’s good faith obligations, and the Crown’s duty to actively protect Māori rights and interests.”
  • This exclusion of Māori from any say in a process to abrogate their fundamental rights is extremely prejudicial. The impacts will not fade for a long time even if the Bill does not proceed beyond the select committee. Any trust or goodwill earned by Treaty settlements is under threat. The Māori–Crown relationship is being damaged, as officials have repeatedly advised.”

You may also want to mention the 40 Kings Counsel who wrote to the Government urging it to not continue with the bill or the estimated

As well as this there are some conservative heavyweights who have condemned the bill.

Like Jenny Shipley:

The voice of Māori, that reminds us that this was an agreement, a contract – and you do not rip up a contract and then just say, ‘Well, I’m happy to rewrite it on my terms, but you don’t count’.

I would raise my voice. I’m proud that the National Party has said they will not be supporting this, because you cannot speak out of both sides of your mouth.

And I think any voice that’s raised, and there are many people – Pākehā and Māori who are not necessarily on this hīkoi – who believe that a relationship is something you keep working at. You don’t just throw it in the bin and then try and rewrite it as it suits you.

And Chris Finlayson:

I think David’s got to understand that while he may want a nice, rarefied, intellectual seminar on the principles of the Treaty, it’s a lot more than that.

“It goes to the heart of what tangata whenua aspire to and so on and it can’t be seen as a mere debate. It’s a lot more than that.”

“We were on such a good path in a bipartisan way, over many years we’ve been working toward trying to undo the burdens of the past so that we could move to the future together as one, and a lot of that’s being undone now. It’s most unfortunate.”

And Christopher Luxon:

“You do not go negate, with a single stroke of a pen, 184 years of debate and discussion, with a bill that I think is very simplistic.”

And even the goddamn Regulatory Impact Assessment prepared by the best brains in the Civil Service which said this about the rushed nature of the introduction of the Bill:

The lack of consultation with Māori on policy development is likely to leave Māori feeling alienated and excluded from meaningful participation in the direction of Aotearoa New Zealand’s constitutional arrangements.

Article one

This says:

Ko nga Rangatira o te wakaminenga me nga Rangatira katoa hoki ki hai i uri ki taua wakaminenga ka tuku rawa atu ki te Kuini o Ingarani ake tonu atu – te Kawanatanga katoa o o ratou wenua.

Loosely the Māori Chiefs ceded kawanatanga to the Crown which is essentially governance not sovereignty. Just remember that at the time there were an estimated 80,000 Māori in Aotearoa and only 2,000 Pakeha. Do you really think that Māori would have willingly ceded sovereignty to the Crown?

This is the finding of the Waitangi Tribunal which in 2014 concluded “the rangatira who signed te Tiriti did not cede their sovereignty. That is, they did not cede their authority to make and enforce law over their people or their territories. Rather, they agreed to share power and authority with the Governor. They agreed to a relationship: one in which they and Hobson were to be equal – equal while having different roles and different spheres of influence. In essence, rangatira retained their authority over their hapū and territories, while Hobson was given authority to control Pākehā.”

Seymour’s bill would replace article 1 with the following principle:

The Executive Government of New Zealand has full power to govern, and the Parliament of New Zealand has full power to make laws … in the best interests of everyone; and … in accordance with the rule of law and the maintenance of a free and democratic society.

The result would be the obliteration of rights to Māori reserved by article 1. As the Waitangi Tribunal has commented:

Principle 1 is a statement of a new principle that bears no relation to article 1, overstates the kāwanatanga of the Crown, and ignores the two spheres of Crown and Māori authority that the Treaty / te Tiriti established, where overlaps must be resolved by good faith cooperation between the partners.

Article Two

This states:

Ko te Kuini o Ingarani ka wakarite ka wakaae ki nga Rangatira ki nga hapu – ki nga tangata katoa o Nu Tirani te tino rangatiratanga o o ratou wenua o ratou kainga me o ratou taonga katoa. Otiia ko nga Rangatira o te wakaminenga me nga Rangatira katoa atu ka tuku ki te Kuini te hokonga o era wahi wenua e pai ai te tangata nona te wenua – ki te ritenga o te utu e wakaritea ai e ratou ko te kai hoko e meatia nei e te Kuini hei kai hoko mona.”

This preserves to Māori tino rangatiratanga or full control over their lands and estates and forests and fisheries and other things of importance to them while creating rights of preemption for the Crown.

This underlines the limited devolution of power contained in Article One. If Māori had intended to cede sovereignty then that article would have referred to “tino rangatiratanga” and not to “kawanatanga”.

Seymour wants to replace this article with the following provision:

(1) The Crown recognises, and will respect and protect, the rights that hapū and iwi Māori had under the Treaty of Waitangi/te Tiriti o Waitangi at the time they signed it.

(2) However, if those rights differ from the rights of everyone, subclause (1) applies only if those rights are agreed in the settlement of a historical treaty claim under the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975.

Basically all treaty rights that have not been the subject of the settlement of a claim would be cancelled. Even pending applications to the Waitangi Tribunal would conceivably be affected.

As stated in the Regulatory Impact Statement:

This option is inconsistent with the Treaty/te Tiriti. It does not accurately reflect Article 2, which affirms the continuing exercise of tino rangatiratanga. Restricting the rights of hapū and iwi to those specified in legislation, or agreement with the Crown, implies that tino rangatiratanga is derived from kāwanatanga. The Tribunal made a similar statement in their report when they referenced expert evidence that stated rangatiratanga was not something “the Crown has the power to bestow”. For the Crown to assert that “overstates the kāwanatanga powers of the Crown”. It reduces indigenous rights to a set of ordinary rights that could be exercised by any group of citizens.

It is bizarre that a party that was formed to respect and protect private property rights should be so willing to destroy those rights just because they are owned by Māori.

Article Three

This states:

Hei wakaritenga mai hoki tenei mo te wakaaetanga ki te Kawanatanga o te Kuini – Ka tiakina e te Kuini o Ingarani nga tangata Māori katoa o Nu Tirani ka tukua ki a ratou nga tikanga katoa rite tahi ki ana mea ki nga tangata o Ingarani.

This grants to all Māori rights as British Subjects.

This is what Seymour wants it to say:

(1) Everyone is equal before the law.
(2) Everyone is entitled, without discrimination, to—
(a) the equal protection and equal benefit of the law; and
(b) the equal enjoyment of the same fundamental human rights.

Seymour’s principle essentially reasserts rights that already exist under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 or the Human Rights Act 1993. My view is that it is essentially a smoke screen. Who could possibly argue that everyone should not have equal rights. Given that the effect of Article three is essentially spent I can’t think of any adverse consequence of this particular proposal.

Conclusion

It is important to have a strong conclusion. Tell the Select Committee that the Bill has to be voted down.

You could comment that a discussion about the importance and the future of the treaty is important. But the way that Seymour has done this is disrespectful, unilateral and of itself is a breach of the treaty. The treaty relationship is long standing, fundamental to our country and based on good faith between the parties. Proceeding with Seymour’s bill is an anathema to all of this.

Good luck with this. And remember the right will be clogging up MPs inboxes with submissions urging the bill to proceed. We need to balance this up. Otherwise National may get cold feet. And this would be disastrous for our country.

About Auckland Council’s Shoreline Adaption Plans

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Council has recently been consulting on the draft Manukau North Shoreline Adaption Plan and the draft Whatipu to South Head Shoreline Adaption Plan.

The intent is to let locals have input into the designing of plans to deal with Council facilities threatened in the future by raising sea levels.

I think it is fair to say that discussions about the shoreline adaption plan have morphed into something much bigger that what was originally intended.

By definition the plans deal with Council assets only.  But the discussions about the plan have suggested that local communities wish to talk about the future and about how we are going to adapt to the effects of climate change.

A recent Piha News posed these questions which are a good summary of the questions that are being asked.

  1. Could your property value be affected?
  2. Will this affect LIM’s and and your ability to insure your home?
  3. The Plan ONLY addresses Council assets and does not consider Surf Clubs or other community Assets such as the Gallery, Library, Bowling Club, Post Office, Tennis Club, etc.
  4. No consideration is given to roads and bridges that could cut off access to much of Piha.
  5. There is no consideration given to land instability created by sea-level rise or a higher risk of flooding. 
  6. The accuracy of the modelling, on which the SAP has been based is questionable.
  7. What is the legal/statutory basis of the plan.
  8. Why has there been a lack of consultation with the community and opportunities for understanding of the plan by the community?  Local board has insisted on this.

My interim responses to these questions are as follows:

  1. The report should not affect house values although the doubts that it creates about road access are not helpful.  The report is intentionally designed to refer only to council assets.  What will affect house values is the data that Council collects and includes in LIM reports and in Council’s Geomaps viewer in the natural hazards section.
  2. LIM reports and the plan rely on the same data but I anticipate that LIM report data will be updated as circumstances change.  I do not think that insurance companies will rely on this report to make decisions about insurance but they will obviously look at the data relied on by LIM reports.
  3. The report does not look at community assets, only Council assets.  To review community assets will require a significant change in is obviously a bigger piece of work.
  4. Failure to give any certainty about roads is in my view one of the major weaknesses of the approach adopted and of the report.
  5. Land stability and flooding are bigger pieces of work that obviously will need to be done in the future.
  6. The data will be reviewed from time to time.  I note that the flooding data in Geomaps was remarkably accurate in predicting what would happen in last year’s storm.
  7. The report has no legal status as such.
  8. The local board has insisted on there being greater opportunities for locals to have their say on the draft reports and I am pleased that staff have allowed for this to happen.

The level of concern and the issues being raised makes me wonder if we should have a local climate adaptation policy.  Because the issues being talked about are primarily about seeking some certainty about adaption and planning.

The Environmental Defence Society has proposed a climate adaptation act.  The proposal is that there be legislative guidance setting out such things as a clear purpose for climate adaptation, mandatory regional climate change risk assessments, a National Environment Standard that requires that subdivision and that land use consents are not granted for new hazard-sensitive development where there is high natural hazard risk.

The proposal would require councils to collect information on the number, type and total value of buildings located in areas subject to high natural hazard risk. For locals EDS proposes that existing use rights are amended, with compensation so residential use can be excluded from areas undergoing managed retreat. It also suggests that a National Adaptation Fund be established to help finance the preparation and implementation of local adaptation plans as well as the acquisition of property for managed retreat.

The proposal anticipates local adaptation planning setting out the purpose of plans, when they are to be initiated, their content and the process to prepare them.

The proposal has merit. Given the response from locals I wonder if it is time for Council to prepare a localised climate change risk assessment as well as a local adaption plan for our area?

I sense a yearning for those big questions to be answered.  How are we going to adapt to the effects of climate change and what will our future look like?

The current Shoreline Adaption Plans are not this piece of work.

Perhaps Council should start this larger discussion.

So much for Localism and Devolution

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When I was a Waitakere City Councillor I had the misfortune of occasionally attending the same meetings with then Auckland Mayor John Banks.

It did not matter what the meeting was about, regional transport, environment, libraries or sport he always gave the same speech. He inevitably said that we should not use ratepayers as piggy banks. Of course his short term penny pinching meant that the long term investments in Auckland’s infrastructure did not occur and we are now playing catch up but that is a story for a different day.

I reflected on this when I reviewed Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s speech to Local Government New Zealand because it struck me that he, like Banks, was truly a one dimensional politician who had no idea of the importance of Local Government.

And his meddling could wreck Local Government.

There were a few jaw dropping aspects to the speech. He said Cabinet has decided to do away with the four well beings, which currently require Councils to focus on social, cultural, environmental and economic well beings of their communities now only now but also in the future.

Councils are expected to concentrate on “must-haves, not nice-to-haves”. The Government will investigate benchmarks for local councils based on similar measures in Australia and will also consideroptions to limit council expenditure of “nice-to-haves”, including revenue capping.

He did not specify what a “must-have” was but said that picking up the rubbish, fixing pipes, filling in potholes and maintaining local assets were things that Councils should be doing and that roads, rubbish and water were

He did not mention libraries, art galleries or community houses.  Nor grants to local groups to perform environmental works,

And certainly out west grants to local environmental groups achieve great results.

As an example last year the Waitakere Ranges Local Board funded the Pest Free Waitakere Alliance approximately $75,000. 

Thirty groups are affiliated to the alliance. They are responsible for an estimated 63,900 annual volunteer hours. If you monetised this at the living wage this represents $1,661,400 of value.

Hopefully the Alliance would continue without Council funding. But its effectiveness would inevitably be compromised. In economic terms Council’s investment produces an outstanding return, one which would cost the Council considerably more should it do this work itself.

It was not in the speech but in a press release put out yesterday by Simeon Brown this statement was made:

Council rates are increasing by around 15 per cent on average this year, which is more than four times the rate of inflation. This is unacceptable and councils must ensure they are doing everything they can to reduce pressure on ratepayers.

What Brown does not say is that the rates increase is because the Government did away with Three Waters. Councils responded by significantly increasing rates so that they could pay for infrastructure that Three Waters would have taken care of.

For years now Luxon has been talking about the importance of Localism and Devolution. Listen to this clip to hear him say those two words over and over again.

But clearly as far as he is concerned Localism and Devolution are not absolutes. As noted by Joel McManus in this article Localism and Devolution have their limits. From the article:

Auckland Council, the elected representatives of the largest local community in New Zealand, wanted a regional fuel tax to help it fund local transport infrastructure. Unfortunately, their opinion was wrong. That kind of localism makes car drivers mad, so the government had to get rid of it. 

Since 2021, 33 local councils around the country have voted to introduce Māori wards. That might seem like a great example of elected local representatives making their own decisions about democratic representation. Those councils had the wrong opinion. The government doesn’t like that kind of localism, so it will mandatorily require councils to hold a referendum to keep their Māori wards.

In the past few years, several councils reduced speed limits on central city streets or near schools. Some changes were required by Waka Kotahi, but many others were because local communities thought slower speed limits would lead to higher retail spending or fewer children being run over. Once again, that was the wrong opinion. The government is now stepping in to reverse every speed limit that has been lowered since 2020.

There are many other examples. Cycleways for instance are as far as this Government is concerned an absolute taboo for local government.

The Government’s proposals could cause carnage and chaos to local government. If you are a user of libraries or community houses, an artist or an appreciator of the arts, or a member of an environmental group you should be very afraid.

And this is such a shame because Local Government can achieve great things. As long as it is allowed to focus on the social, cultural and environmental well being of local communities and not only the economic well being.

Three Waters lite

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Yesterday the Government and Auckland Council announced the reaching of an agreement which will see Auckland’s water bills rise but not as much as previously anticipated.

Auckland Council has just finished consulting with the inhabitants of Tamaki Makaurau on what they thought about a 25.8% increase in their water bills on July 1 of this year.

The programmed increase was previously 9.5% but the ending of Three Waters meant that this was not going to happen.

The Government has gone to town with its rhetoric about the change, claiming that it has delivered on its election promise to provide a “financially sustainable model for Auckland under its Local Water Done Well plan”.

What it has done is ensured that Auckland Council and Watercare can engage in balance sheet separation, that is make it appear to the financial markets that these are two distinct entities which are separate from each other.

The Three Waters reform also proposed balance sheet separation although in Three Waters’ case the entities would have been larger and four of them would have covered the whole country.

Auckland is the easiest area to solve the funding of water issues because of its size. Other areas, particularly those with more spread out populations such as the West Coast, will not have this benefit.

There are no other magical aspects to the announcement, just balance sheet separation. There is no money tree, no Crown money and no way of ensuring that the entity has the long term funding needed to make sure that its infrastructure is repaired and enhanced so that the new water standards required by Taumata Arowai can be met.

I have always wondered why balance sheet separation was required.

The up side is that if Watercare goes broke then Auckland Council does not have to worry about it.

Given that Watercare is a well run utility that sells water you would think that the chances of this are remote.

And the issue always is that if somehow it went broke then unless Auckland Council picked up the tab then the vultures of the market may be able to pick it up.

The down side is that Watercare will pay more for its borrowing.

As noted by Bernard Orsman in the Herald Watercare will have a lower credit rating than the council, and therefore pay slightly higher interest rates on its debt.

Council’s current credit rating is AA (Standard and Poors) and AA2 (Moody’s).

It should be noted that under S&P’s evaluation of the effects of the Three Waters Reform on Auckland Council’s credit rating would have increased from AA to AA+. Also that the credit rating for the water supply entities was anticipated to be AA. This presumed there was high likelihood of support from the Crown should the water services entity face financial distress.

National’s alternative approach means a lower credit rating for Auckland Council and a lower credit rating for Watercare. This will cost us over time because of increased interest charges and given the amount Watercare will have to borrow these will be significant.

This point has been emphasised by Labour’s Local Government Spokesperson Kieran McAnaulty. From One News:

Labour’s local government spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said the Government’s plan will still cost Aucklanders more in rates than if the Hipkins-era Affordable Water Reforms had not been repealed.

That plan would have seen the establishment of 10 regionally owned and led public water entities based on existing local authority boundaries.

McAnulty said water charges would increase by 7% under the coalition’s plan, as opposed to 2% if they had followed through with Labour’s affordable water plan.

“This is because the Auckland/Northland entity would’ve had a credit rating of AA, while Watercare will be BBB at best, so the cost of borrowing will be larger.”

And don’t take my word for it. Standard and Poors reported that the repeal of Affordable Water Reform legislation would be politically popular but financially detrimental for many New Zealand local councils. It said that alternative reform proposals, such as the voluntary formation of council-controlled water utilities, might not alleviate high sectorwide debt and based on this its net outlook bias on 25 rated councils is negative and downgrade pressure is said to be building.

Of course while the fiscal analysis suggested that Three Waters provided a much superior result compared to the status quo much of the opposition to the policy was based on thinly veilled dog whistling racism.

But Iwi already has significant involvement in Watercare’s decision making.

Tainui has a major say in the use of Waikato River water thanks to its treaty settlement which I note was completed under National.

ANd Watercare’s latest Statement of Intent states this:

Watercare is an active member of the Māori Outcomes Steering Group. The Māori Outcomes Steering Group reports into Council’s Executive Leadership Team and the Council Group Chief Executives and has oversight of the long-term plan funding for Māori Outcomes.

Watercare has identified initiatives within its Achieving Māori Outcomes Plan that it will advance over the next 3 to 4 years to improve social, economic, and cultural wellbeing for Māori communities throughout Auckland. The plan aligns to Kia Ora Tāmaki Makaurau, the Council group’s Māori Outcomes Performance Measurement Framework, and progress against the plan is reported to Council quarterly.

Watercare’s Te Rua Whetū – Māori Outcomes & Relationships Unit, has strong relationships with their counterpart teams at Council and other CCOs, and is committed to explore opportunities to improve the consistency between CCOs in how they contribute to Kia Ora Tāmaki Makaurau.

Watercare will continue to provide Council with regular updates on engagement hui with iwi and mana whenua including update relevant to Kia Ora Tāmaki Makaurau and Watercare’s Achieving Māori Outcomes Plan.

In terms of its relationship with Iwi the Watercare site said this:

We recognise the importance of the values held by kaitiaki (guardians or protectors). These include their environmental and spiritual ties to ancestral lands, water, sites, waahi tapu (sacred areas) and other taonga (treasures), and the wellbeing of the entire iwi.
Our engagement with mana whenua includes valuable input when considering the cultural, environmental, social and economic impact of projects.


In 2012 we established the Mana Whenua Kaitiaki Forum to encourage discussion and guidance, and to share views on the management of water and wastewater. The forum’s focus has widened to all matters affecting the strategic interests of mana whenua across the Auckland region.


The Kaitiaki Schedule is regularly sent to the 19 tribal authorities. It sets out our planned work programme, most of which requires resource consent. Representatives are invited to express interest in projects. Whether they choose to join the project team or just make comments, there is an opportunity for iwi input throughout the process of developing infrastructure.

And like it or not there are unresolved treaty issues about Water. When the Crown promised to safeguard for Tangata Whenua their taonga it is hard to imagine how this could not include water.

I personally have absolutely no qualms about significant Iwi involvement in the future of water. Their role as Kaitiaki is important for among other reasons environmental and their sense of Manaakitanga will ensure that we are all looked after.

And there is involvement of Iwi in the selection Auckland Council selects Watercare’s directors. This role is delegated to the Performance and Appointments Committee. The Independent Maori Statutory Board has an appointee on this committee.

It is fair to say that Watercare is already subject to significan Iwi influence, which in my view is a good thing.

To the Anti Co Governance zealots out there can I offer the words of former National Minister Chris Finlayson. About Co Governance he said:

Co-governance’ has become a term that people don’t understand. They think it means co-government.

People who are frightened by co-governance think they’ll be locked out of access to our natural resources, for example. When what it really means is that involving iwi in a myriad of decisions can actually result in a better country.

The people I call ‘the KKK brigade’ are out there. They dream of a world that never was, and never could be. They are the people — and these words aren’t mine but are taken from a former British foreign secretary — that you can call the ‘sour right’. They don’t really understand tangata whenua. They don’t like change.”

The other aspect that has not been mentioned about the Auckland Council deal is that it will still be directly responsible for Stormwater and will have to fund this in the normal way.

Stand by as you get inundated with claims that the Government has solved Auckland’s water issues. What it has done is ensured water charges will continue to increase dramatically, interest rates for borrowing for both Watercare and Auckland Council will be higher, and the prospect of privatisation of water will be greater.

Aotearoa New Zealand you have been sold a dud.

Simeon Brown works to make transport system less sustainable

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Two pieces of news this week makes you wonder about the suitability of Simeon Brown for the position of Transport Minister.

First of all together with Christopher Luxon he announced the ending of Auckland’s Regional Fuel Tax.

It is clear there have been intensive discussions behind the scenes as Auckland officials attempted to persuade the Government that cancelling the tax would leave a rather large hole in the Council’s transport spend, about $1.2 billion to be precise.  But the representations have had no effect.  The Government could have delayed until it had an alternative funding system in place but chose not to.

Brown’s justification was that the money was being used on cycle lanes, red light cameras, speed humps, and lowering speed limits across the city. He clearly has a deep distaste of cycleways. This is a shame because if we are going to meet the country’s climate goals cycleways have a major role to play.

The history of the fuel tax is important as are the reasons for it being implemented. It arose because the Auckland Transport Alignment Project, started by National in 2016, had a rather large unfunded hole in it. ATAP was designed to address congestion, which at the time was getting out of control.

As I said previously there was an initially estimated $4 billion shortfall that ballooned by a further $1.9 billion in 2017.  About a fifth of the projects were not funded.  This is as sure fire a way of creating a transport crisis as you can imagine.

So the last Labour Government introduced the ability for Auckland Council to raise a fuel tax.  At the level that has been agreed to about $1.5 billion would have been raised over ten years.  With the help of NZTA subsidies and other funding mechanisms this would have filled in the funding gap. It also revised ATAP and in 2018 made an announcement that the following projects would be funded and constructed:

  • $8.1 billion in operational costs (especially more for public transport subsidy as more people take public transport)
  • $3.3 billion in asset renewals
  • $8.4 billion in rapid transit, which covers busways, rapid rail, and light rail
  • $3.8 billion on strategic and local roads
  • $1.3 billion on roads etc for green fields areas
  • $ 0.9 billion safety improvements, targeting a 50% reduction in death and injury
  • $ 0.9 billion walking and cycling
  • $ 0.7 billion bus and ferry improvements
  • $ 0.7 billion network optimization

As you can see cycleways and speed humps were very small parts of the program.

Brown was concerned that the Council had large amounts of money unspent sitting in a bank account. Although it is correct that $350 million will shortly be held in reserve this amount was fully committed to complete stage three of the Eastern Busway, important for Brown’s Pakuranga electorate, and to fund the purchase of electric rail units for the City Rail Link. You do not sign up to a significant construction project without the funds being held in reserve. This is like someone engaging in a major renovation of their home and hoping to fund the costs through income. Unless you have plenty to spare, which Auckland does not, then of course you have funds held in reserve.

Mayor Wayne Brown has said:

The money set aside has been fully allocated to projects that are under construction. It just isn’t spent until contractual milestones are met. That’s standard practice when you’re building something,” Mayor Brown says.

Auckland Council will have no choice but to pause any further work on projects funded by the RFT, including those already contracted, to see how we can fund them in the Long-term Plan.”

The projects facing cancellation include improvements to major roads such as Glenvar Road and Lake Road, as well as the fourth and final stage of the Eastern Busway and work to progress the proposed Airport-Botany Busway. The Mayor has indicated these could be cancelled permanently. Again from the Mayor’spress release:

I remain determined to keep rates under control and I’m simply not prepared to pass the cost of these projects on to struggling Auckland households. I’ve already proposed to cut spending on cycleways by $141.5 million and raised pedestrian crossings by $80 million.  I’m quite happy to talk with the government about what else we can cut.”

But this is a problem that can’t be solved just by making cuts. Every Aucklander agrees that our transport system is a mess and it’s going to cost a lot of money to fix. That money must come from somewhere. Unfortunately, the Government has just made it a lot harder for us”.

In my view the decision is deeply undemocratic and very disrespectful. Imagine trying to dictate to the city that comprises a third of the country’s population what sort of transport system it has.

Simeon Brown is working on a new Government Policy Statement on Land Transport and is promising to concentrate efforts on economic benefits and value for money. He is talking about a new East West link which brings up memories of the previous proposal which National was keen about but which was horrendously expensive. If he was interested in the economics he would pursue more incremental changes to the existing road which would provide greater economic benefits. Per kilometer this particular road was said to be potentially the most expensive road in the world. Brown has this rather myopic view that cycleways should prove themselves economically but not roads of National significance.

And unfortunately as pointed out in this Newsroom article addressing climate change does not appear to be part of his thinking.

Simeon Brown has interfered in other climate friendly policies. His axing of the clean car discount saw the sale of electric cars plummet. Previously one in four new cars entering the fleet were electric, one month after the change in policy the figure is now one in 26.

And the pending introduction of RUC for electric vehicles has seen a further startling statistic appear. It will soon be more far more expensive for an electric car to use the road that it will be for a petrol fuelled car.

From Thomas Coughlan at the Herald:

[I]n what looks like a bad April Fool’s joke, the Green Party has discovered drivers of EVs and plug-in hybrids will be paying more to use the road than people driving fossil fuel cars.

Someone driving a battery EV on a return trip between Wellington and Auckland (presumably with lots of charging stops) will pay $98.80 in RUC and a driver of a plug-in hybrid Toyota Prius would pay $94.78, comprised of $72.80 in RUC and $21.98 in petrol taxes.

These figures are more than double what a driver of a Toyota Prius, non-plug-in conventional hybrid would pay for that journey, which would be just $42.92 in petrol taxes.

More roads, less spent on public transport and walking and cycling and fewer electric vehicles. These are not the steps a responsible Government takes during a climate crisis.