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Speaker 1: Heather duple Zl.

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Speaker 2: Now Auckland Council's climate plan for cars is being called

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Speaker 2: delusional and the Council's being told to drop it in

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Speaker 2: order to meet its Paris targets. What the Council's decided

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Speaker 2: is that it wants to have Auckland's car use by

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Speaker 2: twenty thirty right to you half your car use in

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Speaker 2: six years, get us using public transport five and a

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Speaker 2: half times more than we do, which for me would

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Speaker 2: be still zero, and increase cycling by thirteenfold. Auckland Council

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Speaker 2: of Daniel Newman says there is no way that's going

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Speaker 2: to happen, and ain't he right? Let's have a chat

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Speaker 2: tohim about it, hy Daniel.

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Speaker 3: Good evening, Heather, what's brought this on from you? Well,

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Speaker 3: I think that it's time for us to fess up

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Speaker 3: to the fact that we have an unfunded mandate, one

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Speaker 3: of many and my colleagues either need to identify the

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Speaker 3: cost and have a conversation with Auckland is about paying

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Speaker 3: the cost for their aspirations, or we need to rethink

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Speaker 3: the strategy given that the pathway is largely unfunded.

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Speaker 2: What do you mean the cost? What cost is attached

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Speaker 2: to this. Is there a cost?

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Speaker 1: There is a multi billion dollar unfunded cost to the

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Speaker 1: sort of expenditure that would be required for re engineering

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Speaker 1: the city, reengineering the region, as well as the sort

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Speaker 1: of infrastructure that would be required for the stuff that

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Speaker 1: to give effect this transformation. That would mean massive rate increases.

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Speaker 1: My colleagues who talk about their aspirations for Auckland are

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Speaker 1: not prepared to hike the rates. So if they're not

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Speaker 1: prepared to do it, then we need to shelve the

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Speaker 1: option of this.

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Speaker 2: But Daniel, you're not talking about like, for example, of

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Speaker 2: the country New Zealand doesn't meet its targets, we will

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Speaker 2: have to spend I think off the top of we

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Speaker 2: hit is something like twenty four billion dollars or something

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Speaker 2: like that planting trees in other third world countries. We're

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Speaker 2: not talking about something like that, right. We don't have

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Speaker 2: a cost like that for Auckland, do we.

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Speaker 3: What we have is a multi billion dollar price tag

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Speaker 3: for the investment in public transport infrastructure, for the reallocation

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Speaker 3: of our road corridors, for cycle ways, for the kind

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Speaker 3: of intensive urban design and planning that would be necessary

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Speaker 3: to give effect to that. Much of this is unfunded.

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Speaker 3: It's all mandated in this unfunded pathway, and I think

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Speaker 3: that it's time that we had a debate about whether

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Speaker 3: we should be sticking to that.

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Speaker 2: We're not going to spend that sho though, are we,

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Speaker 2: because that's just crazy. Listen, So how close how close

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Speaker 2: to this are we going to come in terms of

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Speaker 2: having car use? What's realistic?

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Speaker 3: Well, firstly, this plan isn't realistic because we're going in

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Speaker 3: the other direction. The truth of the matter is, the

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Speaker 3: truth of the matter is is that what we have

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Speaker 3: is a budget setting program that is getting us significant

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Speaker 3: progress with the investment in public transport. But the kind

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Speaker 3: of stuff that we're talking about here in the Transport

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Speaker 3: of Missions Reduction pathway is completely unfundable. And at the moment,

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Speaker 3: what we're doing is we're holding ourselves to a target

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Speaker 3: for which we know that we're not going to meet

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Speaker 3: because we're not prepared to pay the price that. I

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Speaker 3: don't think we should pay the price that because my

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Speaker 3: constituents can't know for double the increases reular lives.

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Speaker 2: Okay, so do you know so instead of having our

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Speaker 2: cars car use, we're actually increasing are we?

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Speaker 1: Well?

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Speaker 3: You know, you could say in a COVID affected. Will

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Speaker 3: we have done better, but that's because all locked.

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Speaker 1: Up for years.

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Speaker 3: So you know, Look, Auckland continues to grow. Yes, there

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Speaker 3: has been some improvement, but the reality is we're not

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Speaker 3: even close to meeting this this target, and I don't

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Speaker 3: think given growth, that we're going to come anywhere close

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Speaker 3: to it in my lifetime or yours. The truth of

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Speaker 3: the matter is is that we can do certain things,

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Speaker 3: but this sort of transformational stuff is so nebulous and

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Speaker 3: unaffordable that we have to take a reality.

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Speaker 2: Check now, Daniel. I admire the fact that you're being

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Speaker 2: honest about it because obviously this is an impossibility. How

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Speaker 2: many others around the council table are as honest as

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Speaker 2: you are about it? Or are you alone?

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Speaker 3: Voice no?

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Speaker 1: I think it's a growing number.

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Speaker 3: Admittedly, last time when we had this discussion, I think

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Speaker 3: I think it was about eighteen to three. I was

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Speaker 3: in the minority on that one. But things have changed.

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Speaker 3: The government changed. The new government has its government policy

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Speaker 3: state on a land transport. The National Land Transport Fund

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Speaker 3: allocation for Auckland is very different to where we were

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Speaker 3: at the end of twenty twenty two, and obviously Mayor

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Speaker 3: Wayne Brown is working through options for discussion for his

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Speaker 3: next maror proposal, the Andual Plan. I think this is

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Speaker 3: an excellent time given what we now know the government

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Speaker 3: will and will not fund to put this pathway aspirational target,

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Speaker 3: which is we's the words runfunded mandate back on the

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Speaker 3: table and say to Auckland is do you want these

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Speaker 3: double digit rate increases for the rest of your life

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Speaker 3: or do we need to rethink this.

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Speaker 2: I think you know what the answer would be, Daniel,

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Speaker 2: Thank you appreciated. Daniel Newman, Auckland counselor. For more from Hither,

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