Speaker 1: Kiyota.
Speaker 2: I'm Chelsea Daniels and This is the Front Page, a
Speaker 2: daily podcast presented by The New Zealand Herald. A new
Speaker 2: report has suggested that the country's biggest city is going backwards.
Speaker 2: The second annual State of the City report, which compares
Speaker 2: Auckland's progress against nine major cities around the globe, has
Speaker 2: shown that things are on the backwards trend. While outside
Speaker 2: factors like the Anniversary weekend, floods, inflation and post COVID
Speaker 2: recovery contribute it to the worse than expected outcomes, the
Speaker 2: report highlights a number of longer term problem areas that
Speaker 2: the city really needs to address today. On the Front Page,
Speaker 2: ends At Herald's senior writer Simon Wilson joins us to
Speaker 2: analyze the state of Auckland and how the city can improved. Simon,
Speaker 2: what's the purpose of this State of the City report
Speaker 2: and how long has it been running?
Speaker 3: The report was set up last year and the first
Speaker 3: one came out in the middle of last year. It's
Speaker 3: the work of a group called the Committee for Auckland,
Speaker 3: which is civic leaders in the private and public sector,
Speaker 3: as well as the Council Agency Tatuki. Auckland Unlimited, as
Speaker 3: well as KOI TI, which is a think tank associated
Speaker 3: with Auckland University and the Council itself, So it's kind
Speaker 3: of kind of high powered pedigree, if you like. And
Speaker 3: the idea is to benchmark Auckland against nine other comparable
Speaker 3: cities places like Helsinki and Copenhagen in Scandinavia, Brisbane in Australia,
Speaker 3: Austin in Texas America, places like that, to see how
Speaker 3: well we're doing across a range of measures.
Speaker 2: And how did they pick those specific cities.
Speaker 3: Those cities are similar in size to Auckland and are
Speaker 3: generally cities that are quite highly regarded internationally as Auckland does,
Speaker 3: and have a similar ambition, if you like. They want
Speaker 3: to be cities that are working well in the modern world.
Speaker 3: They want to be connected through technology. They want to
Speaker 3: offer opportunities for entrepreneurs and everybody else to come and
Speaker 3: live and work and play. They want the same things
Speaker 3: that we want. So therefore they are our key competitors
Speaker 3: because they are the cities that are also saying to
Speaker 3: all those entrepreneurs and all those people of talent and
Speaker 3: everybody else, don't go to Auckland, come to Brisbane. Or
Speaker 3: come to Helsinki or wherever.
Speaker 2: What exactly does the report measure?
Speaker 3: The report measures a whole lot of different things, ranging
Speaker 3: from prosperity through the quality of the cultural experience through
Speaker 3: its sustainability, a whole lot of stuff about lifestyle, what
Speaker 3: it's like to live in the place, So that's everything
Speaker 3: from you know, when you want to get out in
Speaker 3: the weekend, is the something to do and of course
Speaker 3: in Auckland there's an awful lot to do, through to
Speaker 3: what's the transport like and how safe is it on
Speaker 3: the streets and those sorts of things as well the
Speaker 3: quality of education, the resilience of the city in relation
Speaker 3: to natural disasters and other three and the opportunities that
Speaker 3: people have, the economic, cultural, social opportunities that people have
Speaker 3: as well.
Speaker 4: The State of the City Report is a benchmarking tool
Speaker 4: that looks at how Auckland ranks against competitive cities around
Speaker 4: the world. The report can help us come together to
Speaker 4: forge a consensus on what our priorities for action should be.
Speaker 4: What the things are that are holding Auckland and by extension,
Speaker 4: New Zealand back.
Speaker 2: I guess the headline draw from this report seems to
Speaker 2: be that Auckland is slipping backwards compared to these other cities.
Speaker 2: Is that actually the case.
Speaker 3: That is the case in some key indicators. So they
Speaker 3: had ten key indicators, and we are getting worse in
Speaker 3: four of them. We're the same in three, and we're
Speaker 3: better in three, but in the four that we're getting
Speaker 3: worse in. That's the quality the experience of being in
Speaker 3: the city. It's connectedness, everything from how well we get around,
Speaker 3: but also broadband connectedness and generally how well connected to
Speaker 3: the rest of the world. In sustainability and especially in prosperity,
Speaker 3: we are falling.
Speaker 2: I can certainly see that from everyday life. And I
Speaker 2: mean I often see people like those massive tour buses
Speaker 2: in Auckland, you know, those double decker ones, and I
Speaker 2: often think to myself as I'm walking to work, what
Speaker 2: are they seeing?
Speaker 3: Yep, Well, those buses, those tour buses. They people have
Speaker 3: got off a cruise ship. They're on their way to
Speaker 3: rip Rure or possibly to somewhere up north to bare
Speaker 3: Of Islands for a day trip. They'll see something pretty good.
Speaker 2: You mean, they'll see the sky tower on the way
Speaker 2: past past.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So if you get off your cruise ship and
Speaker 3: get onto a bus and off you go. That's fine.
Speaker 3: But the larger question in terms of what this report's
Speaker 3: done is said, well, if we want people of talent
Speaker 3: and opportunity to come and live and work here, and
Speaker 3: if we want people to invest here, then how good
Speaker 3: is the offer that we're making. And this report says
Speaker 3: that from the middle of last year to the middle
Speaker 3: of this year it's got worse.
Speaker 2: So what are some of the main reasons for Auckland
Speaker 2: slipping or slowing compared to those other cities.
Speaker 3: House prices one of the key factors. House prices are
Speaker 3: high in many of the cities that we're compared against,
Speaker 3: but they're not as high or they haven't risen as far.
Speaker 3: And that's partly because New Zealand economy and the Auckland
Speaker 3: economy are so dependent on house prices continuing to rise.
Speaker 3: That's how we are structured. You know that there's a
Speaker 3: theory that Auckland is a housing market with an economy
Speaker 3: tacked on, and that is a problem for us in
Speaker 3: terms of attracting people to come here. So that's the
Speaker 3: key issue. We've got better at resilience, which is one
Speaker 3: of the interesting things because of the terrible floods and
Speaker 3: storms we had at the beginning of twenty twenty three.
Speaker 3: We scored low and resilience a year ago, but there
Speaker 3: have been a range of things, including how we mitigate
Speaker 3: against that and plans like the Council's plans for making
Speaker 3: space for water, things like that, which are making the
Speaker 3: city more resilient. So that's a good mark if you like.
Speaker 3: But there's still a lot more to do.
Speaker 2: And you mentioned transport as well. How are we doing
Speaker 2: in that department.
Speaker 3: Well, we're not doing well at all, and I think
Speaker 3: everyone would agree there. One of the underlying factors that
Speaker 3: is highlighted in the report is a disconnect between city
Speaker 3: planning and national planning, and Auckland's Mayor Wayne Brown says
Speaker 3: the same. I think government probably says the same, and
Speaker 3: the attempts to integrate the planning are fraught with difficulty
Speaker 3: because there are different priorities involved. But the cities that
Speaker 3: we're compared against, by and large have much stronger public transport,
Speaker 3: much stronger and safer cycling networks and walking networks, those
Speaker 3: sorts of things which take the pressure off the roads.
Speaker 3: They have often better freight on rail, which again takes
Speaker 3: pressure off the roads, and that's the key to improving
Speaker 3: Auckland's transport, but we're quite a long way from achieving it.
Speaker 6: We're at a three year low in terms of traffic performance,
Speaker 6: and that measures the satisfaction that commuters have. It measures
Speaker 6: the network efficiencies around Auckland. We have improved in terms
Speaker 6: of work life balance in Auckland and also we're back
Speaker 6: into the top thirty in the world in terms of
Speaker 6: student appeal. So look, there's some great news and things
Speaker 6: we should be proud of.
Speaker 2: Well, you know Auckland better than most people, I'd say,
Speaker 2: do you agree with this report's findings.
Speaker 3: I do. This is a great place to live if
Speaker 3: you have a decent job and you don't live too
Speaker 3: far away. Otherwise it starts to get problematic, and we've
Speaker 3: got to make it a greater place to live for
Speaker 3: a whole lot more people and simply that category if
Speaker 3: you like. One of the things that the report says
Speaker 3: that's interesting is that the objective measures are one thing,
Speaker 3: and that's what they've done, but they've also tried to
Speaker 3: assess perception and they've said that the perceptions of people
Speaker 3: from around the world looking at Auckland, if they've had
Speaker 3: something to do with it, here, they can be quite
Speaker 3: favorably impressed with it, But if they're just hearing about it,
Speaker 3: what the hearing is slipping that the city has more trouble,
Speaker 3: more problems than it deserves, if you like. And that's
Speaker 3: really because we've had a great deal of trouble positioning ourselves.
Speaker 3: You know, we like to say we're a high tech economy.
Speaker 3: We're actually not. We like to say that we're a
Speaker 3: place where it's torrific to bring up kids. Well that's
Speaker 3: clearly not true as well relative to other cities, and
Speaker 3: the things we like to say about ourselves kind of
Speaker 3: get in the way a bit of actually making progress
Speaker 3: in those areas. So there's a problem there. It is
Speaker 3: a good place, but it ought to be an exceptional place.
Speaker 3: It has everything going for it in terms of its location,
Speaker 3: it's climate, it's natural beauty, and stable democracy and relatively
Speaker 3: strong economy compared to many parts of the world. It
Speaker 3: ought to be a terrific place, and we're not making
Speaker 3: the most of it.
Speaker 2: Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown describes in the press release that
Speaker 2: came along with this report that Auckland is more of
Speaker 2: a city state than a local council, and it needs
Speaker 2: an Auckland deal in order to improve what's your response.
Speaker 3: To that, Well, the government says the same thing, but
Speaker 3: the Auckland deal will be made not made, particularly around transport.
Speaker 3: Wayne Brown is pushing for an Auckland integrated transport plan,
Speaker 3: but he's also made it clear that he doesn't share
Speaker 3: the government's priorities for where the main transport money should
Speaker 3: be spent. So how you get an Auckland deal in
Speaker 3: that way will be pretty problematic. In addition to that,
Speaker 3: while it's true that the New Zealand economy is largely
Speaker 3: dependent on exports from the rural sector, food and fiber,
Speaker 3: trees and meat and dairy in particular, we need to
Speaker 3: be able to grow our tech sector and we need
Speaker 3: to do that in agriculture as much as everywhere else
Speaker 3: in Auckland has potentially a much bigger role to play
Speaker 3: in doing that than it currently shoulders now So there
Speaker 3: is disconnect with the universities's disconnect with some of the
Speaker 3: specialist institutions, and they all need to be working much
Speaker 3: more closely with government, with Council, with the city, with
Speaker 3: money in the city to exploit their potential.
Speaker 5: Auckland is special nowhere in Australia or New Zealand as
Speaker 5: any council looking after a third of the Now I
Speaker 5: am the representative.
Speaker 3: Of a third of New zeal And.
Speaker 5: We're treated as if we're just a horror for neur
Speaker 5: council wherever that is. This is a driver of the country.
Speaker 5: If Aukland does well, the country does well. We are
Speaker 5: forty percent of the economy, we produce forty percent of
Speaker 5: the packs, and we don't get our share back well.
Speaker 2: Brown's tenure as mayor has been dictated largely by what
Speaker 2: the city has done wrong. I suppose do you think
Speaker 2: he's championing the positive sides of Auckland.
Speaker 3: One of the great issues for all cities is that
Speaker 3: they need champions. The champion is the cheerleader who gets
Speaker 3: out there into the world and says, look at the
Speaker 3: wonderful things we do in our city, and gets among
Speaker 3: the citizenry and inspires us all to play our little
Speaker 3: part to make the city better and bolder and more
Speaker 3: terrific to be in. Which means that you've got to
Speaker 3: find a way to say this is wrong and we're
Speaker 3: going to fix it. But you've also really got to
Speaker 3: find the way to make people feel good about things
Speaker 3: and do better and set those benchmarks high. Many New
Speaker 3: Zealand politicians find it easier to complain, and in my
Speaker 3: own view, our mayor when Brown, finds it far easier
Speaker 3: to complain than actually make things better.
Speaker 2: Well. The Harold also recently reported that Brown wants to
Speaker 2: put elected officials in charge of Auckland Transport, bring ekir
Speaker 2: Panaku Auckland and Taratuki Auckland Limited in house. Do you
Speaker 2: think those changes are something the city needs and would
Speaker 2: that actually address the concerns raised in this report.
Speaker 3: It's a really interesting challenge. Firstly, I think the mayor
Speaker 3: is absolutely right we should have more democratic control over
Speaker 3: Auckland Transport and the other agencies of council. The Auckland
Speaker 3: Transport spends about half of the Council's income and yet
Speaker 3: it's an independent board and is not as answerable to
Speaker 3: Counsel to our elected representatives as it should be. So
Speaker 3: the Mayor is quite right about that. More democracy would
Speaker 3: be great. However, the bigger issue is the disconnect I
Speaker 3: was talking about between central government and low government, and
Speaker 3: Auckland Transport at the moment is kind of stuck in
Speaker 3: the middle a little bit between them and then the
Speaker 3: third factor is I don't know if Wayne Brown is
Speaker 3: fully aware of the danger of getting what he wishes for,
Speaker 3: because every Auckland council we've had since the super city
Speaker 3: was formed in twenty ten has been a council that
Speaker 3: believed in public transport, believed in lowering emissions. And there
Speaker 3: is still a council policy called the Transport Emissions Reduction
Speaker 3: Plan the URB, which calls for us really significant emissions
Speaker 3: reductions by twenty thirty in our transport in this city.
Speaker 3: That TURB is not being implemented by Auckland Transport. But
Speaker 3: if transport planning came under the auspices directly of Auckland Council,
Speaker 3: then most councilors would say, we've got to do much
Speaker 3: more to make that a reality, To lower our emissions,
Speaker 3: to increase public transport, cycling and walking, to make the
Speaker 3: streets safer and easier to be in for everybody. That
Speaker 3: is what the public consistently says they want when they
Speaker 3: are asked to vote or to make public submissions. It's
Speaker 3: very consistent and very clear, and yet it hasn't really
Speaker 3: been done. So yes, Brown's right, we need more democracy,
Speaker 3: but I also think he may not be fully aware
Speaker 3: that what he's arguing for is a lower emissions transport economy,
Speaker 3: which will make the streets safer and more pleasant to
Speaker 3: be on and will have those really big improvements in
Speaker 3: public transport well.
Speaker 2: The report's three main recommendations involving building up Auckland's competitive
Speaker 2: position in key industries, national policies to form a national
Speaker 2: local consensus on infrastructure, and conscientious and collaborative leadership about
Speaker 2: the city's direction, appeal and identity development. Now buzzwords aside.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll tell you it is really hard to say
Speaker 3: buzzwords aside because the report is an exercise in buzzwords.
Speaker 3: It's so riddled with jargon. One of the reasons for
Speaker 3: it is that you can describe a problem in jargon,
Speaker 3: which is theoretically technical language or professional language, and avoid
Speaker 3: talking about the politics. But the reason we have this
Speaker 3: and not that is political always because there have been
Speaker 3: political choices made to build that road, not to have
Speaker 3: those buses, to have mari wards or not have marrii wards,
Speaker 3: all those sorts of things. They are political choices. One
Speaker 3: of the things this report says is that Auckland is
Speaker 3: one of the most diverse cities in the world is
Speaker 3: right up the top. We really don't exploit the potential
Speaker 3: of that, and it is also founded on this remarkable
Speaker 3: relationship or a relationship with a remarkable potential between Mani
Speaker 3: Fenua and everybody else, and we don't exploit that. Well,
Speaker 3: those things are political, may require leadership, and if we
Speaker 3: had them, it's part of making Auckland really special because
Speaker 3: those provide us with our.
Speaker 2: Uniqueness in terms of buzzwords aside and I'm assuming you
Speaker 2: wrung them through perhaps AI to decipher what everything was,
Speaker 2: what everything meant, or it may make it worse. Does
Speaker 2: that sound about right to you? Or do you think
Speaker 2: we should look at other changes? Perhaps we do need
Speaker 2: to be more competitive in those key industries though, don't.
Speaker 3: We Yes, we do, Yes, we do.
Speaker 6: So.
Speaker 3: One of the elements of that is that A good
Speaker 3: example of the challenge for Auckland and for New Zealand
Speaker 3: is from Terra's recent decision to get out of value
Speaker 3: added milk powder products and other words, the cheeses and
Speaker 3: all the rest that its various brands are producing and
Speaker 3: simply concentrate on commodity production and export of milk powder.
Speaker 1: Here we giant Fonterra one of the largest dairy producers
Speaker 1: in the world, is changing the way it does business.
Speaker 1: It's looking at selling off some of our most well
Speaker 1: known brands, among them Anchor, Mainland Carpetsy, Fern Leaf and
Speaker 1: Mum Baby Formula and Fresh and Fruity. The consumer channel,
Speaker 1: your kitchen staples, milk, cheese, yogurt, butter earned a three
Speaker 1: point three figure and that is the arm being sold.
Speaker 3: Now, that's anti everything that we've been told for a
Speaker 3: long time. Now this country and its economy needs to
Speaker 3: be doing an exports. It undermines it completely. Fonterra is
Speaker 3: an Auckland company based here, and we'll find it very
Speaker 3: easy to tell you all about the high tech work
Speaker 3: they're doing and how sophisticated they are and blah blah blah.
Speaker 3: The reality is they are have decided not to lead
Speaker 3: in that tech area, but to just get back to
Speaker 3: that commodity production. That's a real challenge for the city.
Speaker 3: If the big dairy company isn't going to do that,
Speaker 3: how are we going to prosper and grow as a
Speaker 3: city relying on highly skilled people to generate money for
Speaker 3: us for the city economy. And it's you know, it's
Speaker 3: hard to know the answer to that when the corporates
Speaker 3: aren't doing their bit in this case font Era.
Speaker 2: And lastly, Simon, after reading the report, would you be
Speaker 2: staying in Auckland or would you be moving to Copenhagen
Speaker 2: or the like?
Speaker 3: I would stay in all. However, would I like to
Speaker 3: spend some time in some of those other cities us
Speaker 3: in Geek, Copenhagen, Austin which I've been to, Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 3: Dublin's another one, though. There are cities there that are
Speaker 3: doing exciting things and we could learn from and it
Speaker 3: would be great for us to have the chance to
Speaker 3: do that. The other things this report says is that
Speaker 3: even if you look at bigger cities, and it gives
Speaker 3: the example of Saint Paulo in Brazil and New Delhi
Speaker 3: in India, which are both enormous, enormous cities, they have
Speaker 3: really exciting things going on that we think of them
Speaker 3: as kind of just full of people and not doing much,
Speaker 3: but it's actually not true. And where cities in those
Speaker 3: developing countries are doing really fascinating things to build their economies,
Speaker 3: and we're sitting here Smokeley going it's isn't it nice
Speaker 3: to be here? The challenge just gets bigger and bigger
Speaker 3: for us.
Speaker 2: As we sep our twenty eight dollar cocktail on the waterfront.
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us, Simon. That said, for this episode
Speaker 2: of the Front Page, you can read more about today's
Speaker 2: stories and extensive news coverage at enzedherld dot co dot z.
Speaker 2: The Front Page is produced by Ethan Siles with sound
Speaker 2: engineer Patty Fox. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to the Front
Speaker 2: Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts, and
Speaker 2: tune in tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.