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Posts Tagged ‘wellington’

Time to re-think govt office space

Posted by Chris Hipkins on June 4th, 2011

I see yet another brand new high rise building is being planned for the lower end of Lambton Quay, with a government department, reportedly the Ministry for Social Development, signed-on as the anchor tenant. Frankly I’m getting a bit fed up of seeing massive amounts of money spent on brand new buildings in the Wellington CBD for government departments and agencies. Why does every government employee need to be located right opposite the Beehive in some of the most expensive real estate going? Why is it important for a call centre operator to be located across the road from the Minister they are never likely to meet?

Out here in Upper Hutt, we’ve got plenty of office space going that would be ideal for government employees, and it would cost the taxpayer about a third of what it costs to keep them in CBD offices. In this era of greater austerity and cost-cutting, surely we should be looking at whether or not we need to continue to prop up a bunch of central city property developers when there is plenty of office space on the periphery and in the suburbs that’s already available (not to mention the economic, social and environmental benefits of allowing people to work closer to where they actually live).

Public servants are entitled to work in comfortable surroundings, but that doesn’t mean they have to be accommodated in brand new CBD offices. It’s time for a major re-think about how government procurement of office space is handled. Having different government agencies bidding against each other for new office space is just stupid, and I understand that has happened in the past. Perhaps it’s time for a more centrally coordinated approach, with an increased emphasis on de-centralisation?

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Filed under: public services, wellington
27 Comments

Wellington rail upgrade

Posted by Chris Hipkins on March 10th, 2011

Today the government and the Greater Wellington Regional Council have announced another major upgrade of the commuter rail network, completing a project started under the last Labour government to deliver Wellingtonians the quality, reliable public transport options that they deserve.

The latest package includes $88 million from government to complete the upgrade of the signalling and tracks, and a commitment by the Greater Wellington Regional Council to takeover and refurbish the 30 year old Ganz Mavag trains at a cost of $80 million. GW will then own all the trains, maintain all of the stations, and pay a fee for access to the tracks, offset by a central government subsidy.

For the past couple of years, residents of the Hutt Valley, Johnsonville, Porirua, and the Kapiti Coast have put up with frustrating delays, breakdowns and cancellations as the upgrading work has been going on. Some of it was avoidable, but some of it just reflects the fact that under privatisation our rail services were badly neglected and there is a huge backlog of upgrading and maintenance work to get through, a task made all the more difficult by the need to keep the trains running while it happens.

I’m pleased that the rail upgrade is going to be completed, but I’ll be very concerned if GW increases fares in order to pay for their share. Wellington rail commuters have already been hit with increased fares and the improved service they have been promised hasn’t yet eventuated. I don’t think commuters should be asked to stomach another fare increase until the problems are fixed and the service is more reliable.

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Filed under: Rail, privatisation, transport
12 Comments

The Coolest Capital City in the World #2

Posted by Grant Robertson on November 1st, 2010

And just to make the point, Wellington hosted a very cool musical weekend this past couple of days. Saturday saw Rufus Wainwright and Sunday (and again tonight) Leonard Cohen. I did not make it to Rufus, but I did see Leonard last night. He was simply stunning. I would not class myself as a fan, at least until last night. I have heard plenty of Leonard songs over the years, and spent many of my Friday nights as a student warbling along to So Long Marianne played by the house band (Bits of Spaghetti) at the Robbie Burns, but seeing him in person was something else. A fitter 76 year old you would struggle to find. Intense, captivating, amazing.

In any case, to celebrate, here is Rufus playing Leonard. I dont class myself as religious in any sense, but this song has it all.

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Filed under: Arts and Culture, wellington
6 Comments

The Coolest Capital City in the World

Posted by Grant Robertson on November 1st, 2010

Far be it from little old Wellington to rain on the parade of the first day of the Auckland Super City, but it is worth celebrating Wellington’s fourth placing in Lonely Planet’s Cities to Visit in 2011. New Zealand has made a habit of fourth places at the Olympics, but this is one we should welcome!

We can debate endlessly these kinds of lists and where the old, great cities of the world might rank, but the truth is that this is a very popular publication from Lonely Planet and can only be great Wellington’s tourism. The fact that the Rugby World Cup is on here next year will have figured somewhat in the thinking, but the descriptions of the capital’s arts, cafe, music and natural attractions are spot on.

So as ever, we Wellingtonians will take it all in our stride, order another coffee, ignore the wind and bask in the glow of global recognition.

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Filed under: wellington
5 Comments

Help with home insulation

Posted by Chris Hipkins on March 10th, 2010

I’ve been a pretty vocal critic of aspects of the National government’s home insulation programme, but I’m willing to give credit where it is due. The Greater Wellington Regional Council (GWRC) have announced a new scheme that lets people spread their share of home insulation costs over 9 years as part of their rates. If the home owner sells up, the next owner picks up the extra rates bill. This is a good idea.

Under the government’s current deal, someone can get up to a third of the cost of home insulation paid for through a subsidy but they have to stump up the other two thirds (those on lower incomes can get up to 60% subsidy). If the GWRC scheme helps people to cover their part of the cost then that’s good.

I think there are huge benefits in having kiwi homes properly insulated. My critiscism of the Nats scheme isn’t because I think the goal is a bad one. I’m concerned they’ve cut too many corners and are jeopardising quality and fairness. There is more capacity in the market to insulate more homes, but because of the way the government have set up the existing scheme people are missing out unnecessarily, are getting a sub-standard job, or they’re missing out on the full value of the subsidy. If they fix those problems up, then the scheme would be well worth backing.

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Filed under: Energy, housing
7 Comments

National’s neglect of rail

Posted by Chris Hipkins on March 9th, 2010

Wellington commuters who regularly use our local trains live with the day to day realities of the last National government’s disastrous decision to privatise what was then NZ Rail. Between its sale and eventual buy-back in 2008, very little was spent on upgrading or even maintaining rail services. Some of the trains running on Wellington’s rail lines are literally museum pieces.

The last Labour government started to repair some of that damage. For example the new trains that will start arriving in Wellington later this year were purchased only after central government stumped up most of the cash. The problems that have plagued our local trains over recent months are largely due to the huge backlog of maintenance and upgrading that’s now being done. Had it been done over the past decade and a half we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in now.

Like a lot of Wellingtonians, I’m disappointed the new National-led government seem to have so little faith in rail. From the outside looking in it seems as though they want it to fail so that they can carve it up, sell it off, or close it down. They’re now talking about closing down regional lines, what a sell-out. Freight within NZ is expected to increase by up to 75% in the next 20 years – does National want to see all of that going onto the roads?

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Filed under: privatisation, public services, transport, wellington
22 Comments

Unitary authorities for Wellington?

Posted by Chris Hipkins on October 8th, 2009

The Dominion Post has been continuing an interesting series of columns on possible local government reform in the past few days with former Wellington Deputy Mayor Alick Shaw arguing in favour of amalgamations yesterday and current Lower Hutt Deputy Mayor Roger Styles arguing today for an amalgamation of the two Hutt councils and the abolition of the regional council.

I’ll start with Roger Styles, who makes some interesting and valid arguments against replicating the Auckland model here in Wellington. In particular I was interested in these figures he quotes:

Both Hutt councils are more conservative when it comes to debt. Lower Hutt’s debt is around $80 million and Upper Hutt’s just $18 million. One hundred million dollars across a population of 140,000 is around $700 per person. Wellington City residents, on the other hand, have a more relaxed attitude to their council building up debt. Currently $323 million, debt is projected to increase to $363 million in the next decade. That’s almost $2000 per person – almost three times as high as the Hutt councils. Wellington City Council’s interest payments are more than $20 million a year – almost the same as Upper Hutt’s entire annual rates income.

 Styles concludes, and I am inclined to agree with him here, that the Wellington City view is likely to prevail in any capital city Super Council. I’d be concerned that could lead to the rates paid by Hutt Valley ratepayers being siphoned off to service debt, rather than upgrade local services and infrastructure.

However while I agree with Styles on those issues, I disagree with his proposed solution, which is to do away with the Greater Wellington Regional Council and replace it with up to 3 unitary authorities (eg. Wgtn City, Hutt, Porirua-Kapiti). In my view that could lead to more fragmentation than we have now. One of the GWRC’s biggest responsibilities is regional transport infrastructure and that’s best planned on a regional basis. Take the trains for example - they cover the whole region and couldn’t easily be broken up into 3 pieces.

Alick Shaw makes some interesting arguments in favour of amalgamation, although it is by no means the most compelling case for a Wellington Super City I have ever read, and some of what he writes is simply wrong. For example, he claims that if Wellington had a super council then the old CIT site in Upper Hutt would have been turned into a university. Never mind the fact that we barelyhave the student population to sustain the two we have now, let alone a third. Never mind the fact that the establishment of universities and polytechnics is a central government responsibility, not a local one.

Although I’m a super city sceptic, I think the series of columns the Dom Post is running are useful contributions to the debate. As I have said in previous posts, and in replies to commenters, I’m not opposed to local government reorganisation in Wellington, but it needs to be supported by the communities affected. If there is a compelling case for change, and I’m not yet convinced, then some robust discussion will draw that out.

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Filed under: local government, wellington
10 Comments

More on the Wgtn Super City

Posted by Chris Hipkins on October 6th, 2009

Chris Turver, former Wellington Regional Councillor, has a column in this morning’s Dominion Post arguing that the time is not right for a Wellington Super City. He makes some good points. Wellington is geographically different to Auckland and we don’t have the sprawling communities that are slowly merging together that Auckland does. Even here in the Hutt Valley Upper and Lower Hutt are separated by a geographical ‘throat’ in the valley.

Turver also notes that Wellington councils already work well together on shared services (water being the notable biggie) and suggests that the acid test should be whether a Super City would be considerably cheaper to run, and if so, at what cost to service levels. I think perhaps his best argument is this one:

So, the loudest squeaky wheel at the regional level would inevitably get priority funding and a muted squeaky wheel on an issue of community importance would tend to be relegated towards the bottom of the super-council priorities. With the present system, outdated as it may be, communities have more direct “say” on their priorities and they determine how much to spend on them.

That’s the major concern people here in Upper Hutt commonly raise when discussing possible local government reform. They’re generally pretty happy with the responsiveness of the Upper Hutt City Council and like the fact that it is unquestionably local. They can chat to their mayor and councillors in the supermarket or when they are out walking the dog. If they want to discuss something with the council they can go into the office and generally speak to the person responsible. The bigger the bureaucracy, the more that would be at risk.

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Filed under: local government, wellington
10 Comments

A Wellington Super City?

Posted by Chris Hipkins on October 5th, 2009

This morning the Dom Post ran a couple of interesting articles on the possibility of a Wellington Super City to match the behemoth being created in Auckland. Not surprisingly most of the mayors were cautious or sceptical, with the notable exceptions of Kerry Prendergast and Fran Wilde who no doubt love the idea that decisions affecting the entire region could be made at the Wellington Town Hall.

Personally I’m a bit annoyed that the Wellington City Council seems to think that it is their role to unilaterally plan for local government amalgamation in Wellington. What right do they have to determine how the rest of the region should be governed? Local support for any change will be critical and a top-down scheme dreamed up by WCC isn’t likely to get it.

Last year I attended a forum on public transport where a Wellington City Councillor argued public transport services to the Hutt Valley shouldn’t be improved because people should be encouraged to move into inner-city apartments instead. If that’s the kind of ignorant thinking that we’ll see from a so-called ‘super council’ I doubt residents of the region’s suburbs will want a bar of it.

The future of the Wellington region’s local councils is a matter for the local communities concerned. Everyone needs the opportunity to have their say. A recent Shape NZ poll found that around half of New Zealanders do not want a ‘super city’ in their area. Even more telling, 70 percent of New Zealanders say that any ‘super city’ plans should be put to a referendum or vote before being implemented. That clearly hasn’t happened in Auckland. We must not allow the same mistakes to be repeated here in Wellington.

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Filed under: democracy, local government, wellington
13 Comments

How we can believe Bill English.

Posted by Trevor Mallard on September 9th, 2009

Bill English has a major problem. He has told New Zealand that he didn’t change his family trust arrangements to rort the accommodation allowance system.

His suggestion is that the timing is co-incidental. Officials however went to the Prime Minister before accepting his claim.

I’m yet to meet anyone who believes him and can give a credible explanation that does not involve a rort.

It is vital that the Minister of Finance not have this problem overshadowing him. Any suggestion of lack of veracity causes the country international problems. It certainly doesn’t help our credit rating if we look like a number of countries where this sort of issue is commonplace.

And in NZ he is trying to make cuts. How can he do that under this cloud.

There may be a good, but personal, reason for the change. I can’t imagine what it might be.

I have an offer for Bill. He can brief me. I undertake to keep his reason confidential whether or not I think it is reasonable. If it is reasonable I will say so publicly and apologise. If not reasonable I will say just that.

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Filed under: by-election, democracy, economic, finance, parliament, wellington
17 Comments

Key to decide where English has his primary residence

Posted by Trevor Mallard on September 8th, 2009

One of the interesting quirks of Key’s decision on the funding of ministerial residences is that he will now have to decide where Bill English has his primary place of residence.

We know that English has lived in Wellington since at least 1996 and for a period before that when he worked for treasury, went to university and before that went to secondary school.

Key’s call is going to be interesting.

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Filed under: Budget, Pay Equity, democracy, economic, finance, history, inequality, justice, national, public services, redundancy
26 Comments

Quinn auction

Posted by Trevor Mallard on August 27th, 2009

Paul Quinn originally said he wanted to be MP for Wellington Central, he still lives there, he ran in Hutt South but now appears to be sniffing around Rimutaka – though some of us doubt that he could find parliament from that far out.

I want him to be the candidate for Hutt South again. I enjoyed going to meetings with him during the last election and I have been encouraging my constituents to get to know him.

So I’ve decided to put up $200 – $100 for Paul’s campaign and $50 each for Grant and Chippie if he is the Hutt South candidate.

Hearing this in the House Paul said he wanted an auction. Well he has got one.

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Filed under: national, parliament, redundancy, wellington
39 Comments

Let’s give Kiwirail staff a break

Posted by Chris Hipkins on August 13th, 2009

I see in the DomPost this morning that Kiwirail are taking another pasting regarding ongoing problems with the Wellington train system. I can understand why our local commuters are getting frustrated and fed up with the whole thing, but I also have a lot of sympathy for the staff at Kiwirail who are literally working around the clock to keep the trains running.

Between the time NZ Rail was sold in 1993 and the time when the Labour govt bought back the tracks in 2003, very little was spent on basic maintenance and there was no upgrading at all. There was then a bit of a lag time between the tracks returning to public ownership and serious investment in upgrading taking place. We’re now right in the middle of a major upgrade but because the whole system was so badly run-down it’s pretty fragile.

Speaking to some of the people involved in the upgrade I know that they’re facing a lot of unforseen challenges. They dig holes for new overhead power poles to find underground cables metres from where they should be. One mistake can grind everything to a halt for hours, as happened a few weeks ago. Then of course the trains themselves are all pretty old and break down frequently.

But there is light at the end of the tunnel. I catch the train into town on a reasonably frequent basis and have watched with interest as the power poles have been progressively replaced and new substations have popped up. I’m looking forward to the arrival of a bunch of new commuter trains next year and the year after that. Platforms and shelters are being upgraded, and I’m told a new ticketing system isn’t far away either.

Kiwirail have a heck of a job to do. They’ve got to keep the whole system running while also performing open heart surgery on it. They can’t exactly shut it down for 6 months while the work takes place. I know it’s been frustrating, and no doubt will continue to be, but we’ll all have to keep being patient. In a year or two we’ll have a worldclass commuter train system as our reward.

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Filed under: privatisation, public services, transport, wellington
21 Comments

Great chair from Hutt South

Posted by Trevor Mallard on August 10th, 2009

Most electorate MPs spend non sitting days visiting schools, community groups and businesses in their electorates as well as running clinics or visiting constituents.

I’ve been following a great company in Hutt South called Formway Furniture for years. They are morphing into a design company – partly pushed by the fact that it is hard to compete building furniture – and there have been job losses – but it is now real modern economy stuff. They work in teams involving marketing people, design people, material engineers, other engineers. They did the life chair.

Now it is the Be chair which has been designed around the acknowledgment that ‘task’ work is much more than sitting in the one ‘correct’ position throughout your working day, it’s the worlds first multi-postural, multi-mode task chair that lets me sit or lounge how I wanted to want to.

5 years in the making, the chair has already won the highly coveted NeoCon Gold award for Task seating in the U.S. competing against the worlds largest furniture businesses.

Very few moving parts. New material. Good for office or Cabinet Committee but probably don’t have decorum for Parliament.

Great for people who work online for longer periods. And for those of us with various back issues. You can keep an eye on developments at:  www.formway.com/be

We did take some photos of me on it but they didn’t look as good as these. Wonder why?

generation_pebble_duo knoll-05-06-09-092302-copy knoll-05-06-09-092283-copy knoll-2 chair

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Filed under: wellington
3 Comments

Not popular at Kensington

Posted by Trevor Mallard on July 31st, 2009

Not since I closed schools in Mosgiel have I been so unwelcome in Otago as I was cheering Wellington’s tries at the Kensington tonight. Game of two halves Lions kept it exciting.

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Filed under: wellington
12 Comments

Taranaki Whanui Settlement

Posted by Grant Robertson on July 31st, 2009

A great day at Parliament yesterday for the Taranaki Whanui ki te Upoko o Te Ika with the passing of legislation to finalise their Treaty claim.  It is well worth folks from Wellington and beyond reading some of the historical account of that lies behind the settlement.  There are some unique elements to this settlement.   One is that in additional to the Crown apology for actions that breached the Treaty, the Taranaki Whanui have offered a statement of forgiveness.  This is an incredible gesture, and gives a positive platform for the future relations between the city and iwi.  The legislation also contains an opt-out clause for one of the iwi represented (Ngati Tama). This is not something that anyone wants to see become a practice in settlement legislation, but is reflective of the unique nature of the settlement covering Taranaki iwi, Te Atiawa, Ngati Ruanui, Ngati Mutunga and Ngati Tama.

We in Wellington all owe a huge debt of gratitude to Ngatata Love and his team, as well as all the officials and Ministers who have worked so hard on this claim. I said in my speech in the Third Reading yesterday that I intend to send the full Deed of Settlement to all schools in the city.  I think this is something everyone growing up in Wellington will benefit from understanding.

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Filed under: M?ori, wellington
8 Comments

Pay Equity Challenge

Posted by Sue Moroney on July 2nd, 2009

I thought I’d share some photo’s of Tuesday’s successful rally challenging the government on it’s pay equity record. Enjoy.

Despite the cold weather a diverse and passionate crowd gathered to express their anger at the short-sighted decision of the National Government to close the Pay and Employment Equity Unit.

As the sponsor of the petition calling on the government to reinstate the Pay Equity reviews I was invited to speak to the crowd and I was buoyed up by their enthusiasm and commitment to a long-standing issue of injustice.

I’ve also attached the petition (in pdf. format), and the tv3 clip covering the rally.

Huge thanks to the organisers!

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Filed under: Pay Equity
5 Comments

Hidden Treasure

Posted by Grant Robertson on May 29th, 2009

Budget documents are actually quite difficult to navigate around.  My experience working in government was that as we generally knew what was coming in the Budget and what to look for it was ok.  But it is hard if you are in opposition, the media or an interest group.  The government directs you where they want you to go, and does not make a song and dance about where they don’t want you looking.

An example, yesterday there were some in the research and tertiary education community who celebrated some increased funding for the Marsden Fund and HRC and some new PM Science Scholarships.  Goodo, important stuff.  But hidden within the documents are cuts to Centres of Research Excellence, the Encouraging and Supporting Innovation Fund, Enterprise Scholarships, and the biggie,  a $55 million cut to the  funding that would have given pay increases to university staff to help retain them in New Zealand.

Closer to home here in Wellington it seems that funding for the War Memorial Park in Buckle St has been cut, with perhaps a modest allocation to tidy up the vacant site.  Not a word from the Arts Minister about that yesterday.

So, that is how Labour MPs and many interest groups will be spending their long weekend. Trawling through the documents looking for the forgotten gems.  Wish me luck.

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Filed under: Budget
6 Comments

Civil Defence in Wellington

Posted by Charles Chauvel on May 15th, 2009

Peter Dunne went on Morning Report on Tuesday to tell Wellingtonians that their emergency services are in disarray. He has called a public meeting for tomorrow afternoon in Tawa (about the most seismically stable part of Wellington, btw) on the issue.

But Peter Dunne forgot to tell the Morning Report listeners that civil defence is about the community defending itself, and relies on volunteers to assist in an emergency. Yesterday, I asked for, and got, a briefing from Wellington City Council on the subject. I learned that the Wellington Emergency Management Office (WEMU) is not a first responder, something that Mr Dunne omitted to say on Morning Report. WEMU’s role is to educate the public and volunteers to be prepared for a civil emergency.

Households should be prepared for an emergency by storing water, having an emergency kit and an emergency plan. It’s also a good idea to get to know your neighbours. If Peter Dunne wanted to make a difference to civil defence in Wellington, he should have arranged for a briefing for Wellington MPs about civil defence needs, and what they could do to help publicise them, instead of going for media publicity and calling a public meeting. Civil Defence volunteers are particularly needed in the CBD and the Eastern Suburbs. I’ll be directing my efforts to encouraging volunteers to step forward and contribute to our emergency services, and monitoring the situation at WEMU, not scaremongering in an increasingly desperate search for relevance.

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Filed under: Uncategorized
15 Comments

Maurice’s attempt at humour

Posted by Grant Robertson on May 15th, 2009

As Parliament went into urgency on Wednesday night I missed out on getting to the Wellington Gold Awards – the premier business awards for the region. By all accounts it was a great night, and a huge congratulations to all the winners, particularly Park Road Post who took out the overall award.

I had heard some comments about an extraordinary speech given by Maurice Williamson, but until now had not been able to get details. Helpfully the Dominion Post Diary column today has them. The diary item (can’t find it on-line) is repeated in full below.

John Key’s ministers seem to be unable to grasp the concept of political correctness. Wellington premier business event the Gold Awards was subjected to a tawdry blurt from Statistics Minister Maurice Williamson, who, when asked to present an award, instead awarded himself a presentation. Starting out with a Mother’s Day tribute suggesting Mr Key frequently referred to his team using the term mother-something or other, the minister then attempted a “joke” about disabled people stealing non-disabled carparks. Apparently believing he was on a roll, he donned his customs minister hat and promised Wellington Mayor Kerry Prendergast a cavity search next time she travelled overseas for forgetting to mention his name in her address to the awards. With Mr Key reportedly seething in the front row, one wonders how a transition from being statistics minister to being a statistic might go.

Oh dear.

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Filed under: humour, national
3 Comments