Free marketeers (and Rudman is not one of those) have long resorted to branding as racist anyone who opposes foreign ownership.  But I don’t buy it, and never have.

If Labour didn’t have a policy of opposition to rural land sales to foreign buyers and we opposed the Chinese bid, then yes that would look like xenophobia aimed at the Chinese. But during the last parliamentary term we adopted new policy in this area, proposing to clamp down on the sale of rural land to foreign buyers unless significant benefits to the national interest could be demonstrated. And as David Parker pointed out on Monday, we have criticised sales to German, US, Chinese and other foreign investors.

So is it xenophobic to oppose any measure that promotes the New Zealand economy and limits foreign ownership in our economy?  Is it racist of China and numerous other countries to place limits on the sale of land to foreigners in their countries? Of course not.

During the election campaign I did a talkback radio debate with National MP Jami-Lee Ross on the ethnic Indian station Humm FM. Jamie accused me of racism when I said National’s asset sales policy risked putting our most valuable SOEs in foreign hands.  Two callers responded: newly arrived Indian migrants who disagreed strongly with Mr Ross, both saying they were Kiwis and wanted the assets to stay in New Zealand ownership, and that the issue wasn’t about race at all.

Brian also seems to think that because so much of our economy is foreign-owned we may as well sell what is left:

With our banks and insurance companies and much else long sold off – $45 billion worth in the hands of Australians the last time I checked – it seems a little late in the day for Labour to espouse this particular principle.

I don’t want to sell what is left. Labour learned the lessons of the botched privatisations of the 80s and 90s. The challenge for our generation in politics is to build up New Zealand’s assets. That is why we need to make Kiwisaver universal to build our capital markets. It is why we need to build successful Kiwi firms through investing in research and development. It is why we should not be selling down our most successful state owned enterprises, nor KiwiBank. And it is why we should not be selling prime rural land to overseas buyers.

When National set up the Auckland super city they loved to say they were doing it so Auckland could speak with one voice. Well Aucklanders have spoken. They want a world class transport system, starting with the City Rail Link. But National is not listening.

Labour is. At a rally today at Beresford Square, just off Karangahape Rd and site of a future underground rail station, Phil Goff announced Labour in Government will contribute one-half of the cost of the City Rail Link ($1.2 bn). The other half will be the responsibility of Auckland Council.

The Rail Link is the centrepiece of the Auckland Council’s draft plan. It will double the capacity of the city’s rail network by making Britomart a through-station, and adding underground stations at Aotea (Wellesley & Albert), K Rd, and Newton. And as the Council’s internationally peer-reviewed study showed, it will transform the city centre.

To pay for it we will cancel Steven Joyce’s pet project, the Puhoi-Wellsford holiday highway, freeing up $1.69 billion, and quickly implement the $320m Operation Lifesaver plan to fix the highway’s crash black spots and bottlenecks.

As Phil Goff said at the rally to announce the pledge, the city rail link is the next step in building a modern Auckland public transport system. Without it, Auckland will never meet its ambition of being the world’s most liveable city. Aucklanders know we simply cannot continue building more and more motorways.

Aucklanders now have a clear choice: a vote for Labour is a vote for the City Rail Link, and a partnership between central government and the Auckland Council to deliver the world’s most liveable city. A vote for National is a vote for motorways and sprawl, and a Government doing its best to sabotage Auckland’s desire for a world class transport system.

More detail on the policy here.

I have been friends with Keith for about 25 years and I have to admit when I heard he was standing for Parliament I didn’t immediately think that with his activist and revolutionary politics he’d be suited for the place. How wrong I was. He has made a huge contribution.

He has been a dogged advocate on civil liberties and human rights, and a voice for a progressive internationalist foreign policy.

He put up with endless barbs from members of the House who wanted to paint him as an ultra-left nutter, and just kept plugging away, sticking to his principles, avoiding ad hominem attacks, and maintaining his dignity. And for someone whose politics are pretty far to the left, he has shown a great ability to work with MPs across the House.

Go well Keith. Thanks for so many years of great service to New Zealand.

It wasn’t meant to be like this. Hide, backed by PM Key and Transport Minister Steven Joyce, set out to hijack the process begun by the last Labour Government when it set up the Royal Commission on Auckland Governance. Their plan was to go for a more highly centralised model, wrap up most of Council operations in corporate-style CCOs, and then win control of the mayoralty and council. They achieved the first two aims, but Len Brown’s resounding win derailed the bigger plan which would have seen the ACT Party’s current Epsom candidate preside over asset sales, dismantling of the metropolitan urban limits, and roads roads roads.

Instead Len Brown and the Auckland Council have developed a plan that is distinctly social democratic.  It assumes active government creating the conditions for and managing growth, reducing social inequalities, and putting people first, all under the banner of creating the world’s most liveable city. It builds seamlessly on the brilliant work done by the Royal Commission, and when implemented will herald big change for Auckland.

Which is why the Government now speaks about the draft plan through gritted teeth. Managed growth? Urban limits? Public investment in public transport? Hands on support for economic development? These things are anathema to the National Party. Not to mention ambitious education and health targets that invite central government to sign on.

The genius of Len Brown’s mayoral campaign was that he evoked an optimistic, inclusive, twenty-first century Auckland with a place for everyone, including the young, the brown, and the new arrivals. It had success stamped all over it. The demographics are all on his side, and John Banks was left looking like an angry old white guy.

National are now being wrong-footed in a similar way.  Aucklanders know the motorways and sprawl model imposed by National in the 1950s won’t do any more. We yearn for a vibrant waterfront and central city. Look at the crowds that descended on Wynyard Quarter’s phase one in recent weeks. We know a modern public transport system can be done. We see them everytime we visit almost any Australian state capital.

In a funny way I think Rodney Hide probably gets it. He is an urban liberal with an interest in what makes cities tick. But Steven Joyce and the National Cabinet are so imbued with an anti-urban, pro-motorways, anti-planning ideology. It is setting up an interesting choice for Aucklanders at this election, given that Auckland’s big ambitions cannot be met without funding and support from central government. If you support Len Brown’s vision for Auckland as the world’s most liveable city you are not going to get it under a National Government.

In the House today Transport Minister Steven Joyce was talking weasel words about his attitude to the draft Auckland Plan even though the Government is implacably opposed to Mayor Len Brown’s city rail link, and the plans to restrain Auckland’s sprawl.

The draft spatial plan hasn’t been released yet but cabinet ministers and the Council have been working away on the plan together for months now.

Differences came to a head at a joint meeting between Cabinet Ministers and the Council on August 26 reported by Brian Rudman in the Herald. Sources in the Auckland Council were quoted saying in a discussion on the issue of urban intensification National Ministers “couldn’t stop browbeating … councillors over the error of their ways”, and were “quite intimidating”.

Ministers at the meeting included Phil Heatley (Housing), Rodney Hide (Local Government), Nick Smith (Environment), Paula Bennett (Social Development) but undoubtedly the Colossus of Roads Steven Joyce would have been calling the shots on the Government side.

He won’t support the city rail link because he is hell bent on spending the transport budget on his Roads of National Party Significance. He won’t support Auckland Council’s plan for a compact city because he is an apostle of the motorways and sprawl model of urban development. On both these issues he is in open conflict with the aspirations of Aucklanders.

Mr Joyce pretended in the House today that he didn’t have a view about the draft Auckland Plan.

It all begs the question of why you would bother to set up a unified Auckland, supposedly so Auckland could speak with one voice,  and then block your ears because you don’t like what the city’s elected leaders are calling for?

I guess the answer is that from the National Party’s point of view the wrong guy won the mayoral election.

One of the highlights was a presentation by Australian transport expert Dr Paul Mees who you can hear interviewed on National Radio. Mees debunks the myth that Auckland is such a low density sprawl that public transport can never be economic, and argues that its linear geography makes it ideal for rail.

There was some good debate between transport activists who had come from around the country, and people like Lawrence Yule (mayor of Hastings Napier and president of Local Government NZ) and Stephen Selwood of the Council for Infrastructure Development.  Also excellent were Chris Harris, who has done pioneering work telling the story of Auckland’s 60 years of motorway madness, and Julie Anne Genter who has shown the enormous land resource our car dependent city invests in parking.

Standing in for Shane Jones our transport spokesperson, I spoke for Labour. The forum showed there is a gulf between National’s obsession with the Roads of National Party Significance, and the centre-left’s plan for a more sustainable, more diversified, and more economically prudent transport system.

I argued the sharp end of the debate is happening in Auckland where the Government has set out to sink the city rail link promoted by Mayor Len Brown and the Auckland Council.

60 years of motorway madness in Auckland has made living in the city’s far flung car-dependent suburbs less liveable than it should be. Where I live in west Auckland there are many people who spend an hour and a half commuting to work morning and evening. It is not uncommon for it to take 20-30 minutes to make the mile-long journey from home to motorway on ramp.

There is a widespread transport poverty. People lose thousands of dollars out of their household budgets because there is no real alternative to running a car to get to work. And up to 10 hours a week sitting in traffic: time that could be spent with the kids, playing sport, going fishing, getting an education. I don’t need to tell you it is the poorest members of our society who suffer these things the worst.

This is a direct result of a stubborn insistence over six decades on building Auckland around motorways. The current scrap between Aucklanders and this Government over the Rail Link, and competing visions for the city – sprawl v compact city, public transport v more motorways – is a fight for the soul of our largest city.  The outcome will have huge implications for generations to come.

(full speech below)

If you want to hear more about this issue come along to ‘Keeping Auckland’s Transport on Track’, 6.30pm 25 August, at Trades Hall, 149 Gt North Rd, Grey Lynn.  Speakers include Mike Lee, chair of the Auckland Council Transport Committee, Cameron Pitches from the Campaign for Better Transport, Wayne Butson of the RMTU, and me.

Phil Twyford
Labour spokesperson on Local Government,  and Auckland Issues
Opening remarks to Smart Transport forum hosted by Labour and the Green Party, Parliament, 19 August 2011

Tena koutou e hoa ma. Haere mai ki tenei hui.
I want to welcome you all to Parliament.
I want to pass on apologies from the Hon Shane Jones our Transport Spokesperson who as one of our senior M?ori MPs has been called away to an event at Turangawaewae.
But I’m happy to be here. As Labour’s Auckland Issues spokesperson I’m very aware that transport is top of the to-do list for our nation’s largest city.
Transport is vital in so many ways: to our international competitiveness, to sustainability, to social justice, to building cities that work.
I want to thank Gareth Hughes and the Greens for the initiative and work they’ve put into this event. It is very timely.
I think you’ll see over the next two days that in the area of transport the Labour and the Greens have a vision for the future of New Zealand, that stands in stark contrast to the approach of the National Government.
I believe New Zealanders are ready for change, and together we can deliver it.

When it comes to transport, it is time for a paradigm shift.
We must equip our transport system for the shape of the 21st century economy.
It is essential we protect the nation against the challenges of peak oil and climate change.
And in our largest cities, we have to shift gear seriously invest in public transport with the same determination that politicians have applied to motorways for the past 60 years.
Unfortunately, in the face of these challenges, the current Government has regressed to a caricature of a roads-obsessed Think Big approach – that was portrayed so well by the Dominion Post’s cartoonist Malcolm Walker a few days ago.
But the obsession is not just with roads, it is with certain roads. Roads of National Party Significance.
The RoNS exhibit much of what is wrong with National’s thinking on transport.
They have the look of pet projects, hand-picked.
They cannot possibly have the inferred big effect on the national economy as on every route they are proposed there are already at least one, and sometimes several, unobstructed existing routes. These roads are gold plated duplicates. Regardless of the claims their impacts can only be marginal.
The age of ever more highway building is over. Money is not limitless.
The time has come to upgrade and maintain the assets we have, and not expand our dependency on uncertain and increasingly expense imported oil.
Labour will undertake a smarter and more transformational policy with a shift to public transit investments in the cities, maintenance and upgrade of roads in the regions, and targeted investments in rail and coastal shipping.
The country needs a vision for transport infrastructure that supports economic growth by increasing productivity.
This is essential if we expect our export-led economy to provide the jobs and wage increases as we recover from the recession.
If we want a prosperous society it must be underpinned with high quality, fit for purpose infrastructure.
It must be funded in such a way that multiple beneficiaries spread across many generations share the load.
The key choices cannot be delegated to the whims of traffic engineers.
Or the needs of the local MP to ensure his mates can get to their baches in double quick time.
One of the problems with the current Government’s approach is that it looks very much like it has been captured by powerful interest groups.
There has been a narrowing of the definition of stakeholders to include only the commercial beneficiaries.
I’m sorry but sub-contractors and transport companies are not the “clients” of the Ministry of Transport and NZTA.
It is time for a tougher more rigorous approach to defining the national interest, and what is in the long term interests of the people of New Zealand.
All transport modes should be looked at equally – not starting from a position that only one mode can be good for the economy or the quality of our lives.
Instead of the RONS we need Infrastructure of National Significance – IONS.  Positive IONS.
Government should listen, not only to the new elected leadership of Auckland about its transport plan, but also the regions.
Local councils are finding it very tough right now with cuts to the subsidy for local roads. That funding is being hoovered up to pay for the RONS.
Labour would listen to the regions, and be guided by their aspirations for development, while keeping a strategic overview.
It seems to have escaped the Minister, but cycling and walking are transport too – they are not just recreation options.
You see this in NZTA’s insistence on charging cyclists and walkers on the Auckland harbour bridge while the Government enthusiastically subsidises bankers on gardening leave lazily pedalling along ripped up rail lines built by the sweat of our forebears.
Labour will make a serious commitment to rail and coastal shipping.
Apart from wanting to close regional rail lines National has not come up with a single new idea to support rail since it came to office.
With the rising cost of petrol and the threat of climate change, New Zealanders know we have to think smarter. We have to keep our options open and use more efficient transport modes, where freight doesn’t spend hours in a log-jam on the motorway.
Our rail network is still struggling with the legacy of its botched privatisation, and decades of under-investment. It is time to turn this around.
The last Labour Government had an integrated policy of spreading increasing freight volumes across road, rail and coastal shipping.
National is pumping billions into the RONS in the hope they will cope with the projected doubling of freight volumes by 2030. That is quite a gamble.
Labour’s approach will be geared towards getting the best out of our existing assets by cleverly investing in improvements that unlock hidden value.
Equipping KiwiRail and coastal shipping to carry more freight is one example.
Another is the Auckland City Rail Link which will unlock a doubling of the system’s current capacity.
Another is the smarter intermediate option of improving the Puhoi-Wellsford highway which at a cost of $300 m will improve safety and travel times, instead of sinking a billion dollars into Steven Joyce’s gold plated option.
In the face of the challenges of peak oil and climate change. Given the opportunity to unlock the hidden value of existing assets. And the utility of a more balanced approach across the different transport modes, the Government’s obsession with motorways and particularly with the RONS looks more and more like a blundering and unsophisticated waste.
We can do better.
Finally, I want to say that it is time we properly recognised that our decisions on transport infrastructure shape our communities, and have a major effect on our happiness and quality of life.
60 years of motorway madness in Auckland has made living in the city’s far flung car-dependent suburbs less liveable than it should be.
Where I live in west Auckland there are many people who spend an hour and a half commuting to work morning and evening. It is not uncommon for it to take 20-30 minutes to make the mile-long journey from home to motorway on ramp.
There is a widespread transport poverty. People lose thousands of dollars out of their household budgets because there is no real alternative to running a car to get to work.
And up to 10 hours a week sitting in traffic: time that could be spent with the kids, playing sport, going fishing, getting an education.
I don’t need to tell you it is the poorest members of our society who suffer these things the worst.
This is a direct result of a stubborn insistence over six decades on building Auckland around motorways.
The current scrap between Aucklanders and this Government over the Rail Link, and competing visions for the city – sprawl v compact city, public transport v more motorways – is a fight for the soul of our largest city.
The outcome will have huge implications for generations to come.

We need a smarter, more diversified, more sustainable, fairer and more affordable transport policy that offers more choice for the movement of people and goods, more protection against the threats of peak oil and climate change.
And a better transport system for a better way of life.
In short we need a policy designed for this century, not the last one.
end

Solving these problems has become more urgent now we have a unified Auckland that aspires to building a world class city. Which is why the circumstances around the new Westgate development in Auckland’s north-west are particularly unfortunate. Two government agencies, Transport Agency NZ and Transpower, have been obstructing a new town centre development tipped to generate 10,000 jobs and increase the country’s GDP by $2 bn a year by 2051.

The development borders on the Te Atatu electorate where I am based. Those jobs and the impressive planned new town centre, will be a huge benefit not only to the people of Massey but all of the West.

I am amazed how NZTA has refused to build motorway ramps to service the northern end of the new town centre even though the Council has offered to pay for them. NZTA is stuck in the mindset that the new Hobsonville motorway and extension to Kumeu opened with fanfare on the weekend is fundamentally a bypass to allow people from the north to get to the airport more quickly, and bugger the idea that it should support the huge new commercial hub being built at Westgate.

Transpower has also been a nightmare for the development to deal with. The high voltage power cable obviously has to be underground but they have sheeted home the full cost to the development, causing numerous delays while refusing to sign a contract that gives certainty. Meanwhile the cost has gone from $5 m to around $20 m.

The developer NZRPG are the only NZ-owned  firm who do these big retail developments. They have spent more than five years putting together the plans in conjunction with the Council, not just plonking a new mall out there but designing a town centre based on good urban design principles. They have put $228 m of their own money into it. The least the Government could do is act supportive.

That is why I have written to John Key asking him to intervene and tell NZTA and Transpower to pull their heads in. After all, it is in his electorate.

In Question Time today Steven Joyce said NZTA was in talks with the developer and progress was being made on the question of the ramps. About bloody time after five years of obstruction.

The Bill is an attempt to deal with the problem of littering and human waste left by the large number of campervans in some of the country’s most scenic spots.  It makes it easier for Councils to declare areas off-limits to freedom camping, and gives them an enforcement regime that includes instant fines for both littering, and camping in the wrong areas.

Let’s be clear: there is a problem here. Noone likes to see toilet waste on the roadside in our scenic spots. But according to submitters it is mostly caused by international visitors travelling in campervans without self-contained toilet facilities.

Our objection is that the Bill is a sledgehammer to crack a walnut.  It gives DoC and Councils the tools to effectively outlaw freedom camping by declaring large areas out of bounds for freedom campers. Both DoC and Councils can levy instant fines on offenders.  Now DoC doesn’t have a record of predatory enforcement regimes for the purposes of income generation, but you can’t say the same thing about some Councils.

It amazes me that other more targeted approaches haven’t been tried first. Why not bring in instant fines for littering and waste dumping (and not freedom camping), have the option of levying those fines on vehicles (as is done with traffic fines) and then make it mandatory for rental companies to recover the fine from the client’s credit card.

Why not phase out campervans that don’t have self-contained toilet facilities?  Maybe as a country that encourages higher and higher numbers of tourists we should invest a bit more in visitor infrastructure like toilets, rubbish bins, and waste disposal facilities for campervans?

From an email just in:

Thanks for your common sense stand on freedom camping, I’m a kiwi – currently overseas.As a surfer being able to enjoy New Zealand, crashing where there are waves is worth more to me than any sum of money.This… bill represents a destruction of what I value most about New Zealand, and NZder’s tradition of camping next to lakes, the sea, enjoying what we ALL have as kiwis.

P.S. I should add that we voted for the Bill at first reading, recognising there is a problem and we thought the Bill deserved some select committee scrutiny. Having read and heard the submissions, we now think it is a dog.

John Gray is the go-to guy when it comes to the leaky homes issue. He is one of the smartest commentators on the issue. And over the last few years he and his organisation have helped countless distressed homeowners navigate their way through the financial, legal and bureaucratic nightmare of dealing with a leaky home.

He went through his own nightmare when he discovered his new Auckland townhouse leaked, and after taking his claim to court and winning a settlement, he was beseiged by other home owners in a similar predicament. He went on to form HOBANZ. And tonight on ONE he fronts an hour long investigative documentary about the leaky homes disaster which affects up to 89,000 homes and has left a repair bill estimated to be up to $23 billion.

(Tomorrow on Parliamentary TV we’ll be debating the committee stages of the Weathertight Homes Financial Assistance Package Bill which is the latest attempt by Government to tackle the problem.)