Canterbury Mornings with John MacDonald

The Government's fast track legislation is shaping up to be a real cluster. Especially, in Greater Christchurch.

I think some of the projects it wants to get going here sooner rather than later are making its new legislation more ram-raid than fast track. 

So it's released details of 149 projects that will be included in the Bill which, it says, is being done to help rebuild the economy, sort out the housing crisis, improve energy security, and do something about the state of our infrastructure. 

But, here in Canterbury, it's going head-to-head with the Selwyn and Waimakariri councils over the construction of nearly 8,000 houses which these two councils have been trying to block for years. 

The reason they don't want them is that they don't think they can cope with the kind of rapid expansion these developments would lead to. And I agree. 

I think it's reckless and all part of this "get stuff done" mentality that can sound great, but that's about it. 

I think what we're seeing here is the Government going all "you can't stop progress" on it and not considering the wider implications. And they are riding roughshod over the concerns of two of our local councils. 

In Selwyn, for example, under the new fast track bill, a development by the Carter Group in Rolleston West would see 4,200 more homes built across four suburbs. 

Which would mean more than 12,000 new residents fast-tracked into Rolleston - which is already New Zealand's fastest-growing town.

That's on the basis of there being 4,200 extra houses, and an average of just under three people per house in Selwyn at the moment. That happens - and the population of Rolleston would increase by 41 percent. 

As Selwyn councillor Sophie McInnes is saying today, that would be "explosive growth".

She says, think about how many schools they would need in the area - where Rolleston College is already a capacity with 1,800 students. You bring another 12,000 people into the area and you're going to need more schools, aren't you?

What about health facilities? I don't see any new medical centres or a hospital on the Government's list of things to do. 

As Selwyn councillor Sophie McInnes is saying, they want Rolleston to grow at its own pace. In a sustainable way. 

For the local economy to grow and create local jobs, so they don't get these new developments popping up where people sleep at night and then leave in the morning to go to work and school in the city. 

And then there's Waimakariri. Where the Carter Group wants to build 850 houses and a commercial centre at Ohoka but the council's been against it - for the same reason as Selwyn has been opposed to the developments there - because of concerns about unsustainable growth. 

The difference is, though, that the Ohoka development includes a school and/or a retirement home. 

But, last year, independent commissioners decided not to give consent for the project because they didn't think it would fit with Ohoka's existing rural nature, and because there's a lack of local jobs and a lack of public transport. 

They said at the time, "Families with secondary school students, sporting interests and those working in Rangiora, Kaiapoi or Christchurch will travel to meet their day-to-day needs."

So, basically, the decision not to give the Ohoka project consent was for similar reasons as to why the Selwyn council doesn't want that massive 4,200 house development. 

These areas can't cope with that kind of growth and it would just turn them into dormitories. 

But, oh no, the developers with their noses out of joint have run to the Government and have said "pick us, pick us" and the Government has decided "yep, you're on the list".

And I think it is very short-sighted. I think the Government is being reckless. And I think it will do nothing to change the minds of people who think this whole fast track thing is the Government riding roughshod just to please its mates. 

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Today on Politics Friday, John MacDonald was joined by National’s Vanessa Weenink and Labour’s Tracey McLellan to discuss the biggest political stories of the week. 

On today's agenda was Health NZ’s nearly $1 billion deficit – how does the Government get them out of this hole? Are private-public partnerships the answer?  

Is it time to stop people building homes in 'dumb places' as the insurance council has this week asked?  

And will we start to see a conversation across all parties around the retirement age? 

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I don’t know whether Mary Richardson is a martyr or a mug. But, I tell you what, the acting chief executive at Christchurch City Council has shown outstanding leadership, not just outstanding leadership - she’s also shown outstanding political nous with this $100,000 pay cut.

She demanded it because of the financial pressures the council and ratepayers are dealing with, which I believe has gone down very well with staff. Not just because of that, but also because, generally people at the council like her, which is quite an achievement for someone working in senior management anywhere.

But there’s going to be a sting in the tail for everyone working at the council and the rest of us who use council services that’ll get to.

Mary Richardson has been acting chief executive since former council boss Dawn Baxendale quit suddenly late last year, and all along she’s made it clear that she’s not interested in the job full-time and would only be there until the council appoints a new person.

But they haven’t been able to, thirty-seven people applied for the job. It came down to a shortlist of three but Councilors didn’t think any of the candidates were what or who they wanted and so they went to Mary Richardson and said “How ‘bout it? Want the job.”

Mayor Phil Mauger obviously did a good job because she agreed to take it on but has told the council she doesn’t want to do a full five-year term and has agreed she’ll stick around until June 2026.

Her other provision was that she be paid $100,000 less than the money Dawn Baxendale was on. I reckon most people in her position would milk it for what they could, I’ll be honest, I would.

If I was Mary Richardson and I had Phil Mauger come to me saying they bombed-out in the recruitment process and would you please take the job, I’d be saying “I’ll do it - but I want to be paid at least as much as the last chief executive". In fact, I’d probably push my luck a bit because if you don’t ask, you don’t get.

Not that Mary Richardson is denying herself too much, because she’ll still be on a salary of $450,000 which is still a good wicket by anyone’s means.

But here’s the sting in the tail I mentioned earlier and here’s why I think she has shown outstanding leadership and outstanding political nous. It has been made very clear that local councils up and down the country are on notice from the Government to cut costs.

Time-and-time again, the Prime Minister and the Local Government Minister have said councils need to look and learn from what’s been happening in government departments and agencies. Councils need to do the same and live within their means.

Mary Richardson has obviously heard that, then she’s put a stake in the ground starting with what she herself gets paid as head honcho. It’s not an act of goodwill, it’s a statement of intent, a statement much more powerful than any new vision and mission statements that might have been trotted out by the 37 people who thought they should be chief executive.

By insisting on a $100,000 pay cut, Mary Richardson has signalled a period of austerity at the Christchurch City Council. If she has any of her people coming to her between now and mid-2026 saying they want to pay their staff more, what do you think her attitude is going to be? When the chief executive takes a $100,000 pay cut, what does that say to the rest of the organization? It says forget about pay rises.

When Mary Richardson has people saying they can’t do things any differently or more cheaply because it’s all been tried before - she has given herself license to demand that they try again. That’s what happens when the person at the top takes a $100,000 pay cut.

When someone says they need more staff - No sorry, that’s what happens when the person at the top takes a $100,000 pay cut. When the person at the top takes a $100,000 pay cut explicitly because the council and ratepayers are under financial pressures, that makes it very clear that you and I can’t just keep on demanding more of this and more of that from the council.

So while Mary Richardson will be admired today and respected, inside and outside the city council for taking a significant pay cut, we need to see it for what it really is .What it really is, is the beginning of significant belt-tightening at the Christchurch City Council.

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I think the hospitality outfits trying to shut down the Arts Centre’s plans to have more food trucks on-site need to pull their heads in.  

Annabelle Turley from the Central City Business Association has made the bold demand that the council pull its funding from the Arts Centre if the food truck thing goes ahead. 

This all goes back to the city council not providing as much ratepayer funding in its 10-year budget as the Arts Centre had asked for. And so the Arts Centre accepted that and got on with the job of working out what it could do to generate more revenue itself.  

So it came up with a plan to get more food trucks on site. The idea being that it would bring more people into the arts centre and get people spending more.  

Which I think is a great approach. A great attitude. Because the Arts Centre could still be banging on about not getting adequate support from the council. But it’s not. Instead, it’s showing some entrepreneurial spirit and working out how to bring more money in the door itself by having more food trucks there. As many as 25, potentially operating up to 12 hours a day, seven days a week.   

Which has upset the hospitality businesses in town no end. They say the Arts Centre is going to compete head-on with their businesses with all these extra food trucks.  

Which I think is nonsense. And here’s why.  

If I’m planning to have a nice meal at, King of Snake say, just by the Bridge of Remembrance, do you think the food trucks at the Arts Centre are going to put me off doing that? Of course they’re not.  

If I’m in the mood for King of Snake’s Natural Oysters with Nashi Pear and a Black Pepper Vinaigrette; or if I’m in the mood for their Wild Venison Carpaccio with Chilli Black Bean Dressing - do you really think I’m going to cancel at the last minute and go for a wiener sausage from the back of a truck at the Arts Centre instead?  

Of course I’m not. But tell that to the hospo operators in town.  

Annabelle Turley from the central city business association says —instead of dozens of food trucks— they’d be happy if the number of food trucks at the Arts Centre was more along the lines of Little High Food Court. Which, by the way, would have to be the coolest food court in the world.  

But, to be honest with you, I think Annabelle’s argument is a bit all over the place. She says that Little High is the model the Arts Centre should be using, with just eight food outlets.  

She says the Arts Centre is being hypocritical because it’s always banged on about how it’s an important heritage site but now wants to cheapen it with extra food trucks.  

She says, because central city businesses pay rates, they are effectively subsidising the Arts centre to set-up in competition with them.  

And this is the one that really sticks in my claw. Because, ever since the earthquakes, a truckload of ratepayer money has gone into supporting these central city businesses. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you.  

I haven’t been able to put my hands on a figure, but millions and millions have been spent. The council and its agencies have done all sorts of things over the years to get people back into the central city so that these businesses that are complaining about the arts centre have a better chance of getting customers through the door and surviving.  

Then there’s all the ratepayer money that’s gone into things like central city security patrols to make the place more inviting.  

Yet these hospitality businesses and the central city business association have the gall to tell the council to pull its meagre funding for the Arts Centre, on the basis of some wishy-washy argument that a few dozen food trucks are going to put them out of business. 

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Christchurch's Mayor isn't swayed either way on a clash between city hospitality and food trucks.  

The Arts Centre Trust is applying for up to 33 food trucks to operate on the site.  

The Central Business Association says that's unfair, given businesses subsidise the centre and commercial rates are higher than residential. 

Mayor Phil Mauger told John MacDonald he sees both sides.  

He says with the museum closed the Centre will want to get money, but 7 days a week is a big shift. 

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Stop building houses in dumb places.  

That’s the message the Insurance Council is giving the Government.  

That bit about “dumb places” isn’t me paraphrasing, by the way. They’re not my words. They’re the exact words the Insurance Council is using after the Government confirmed that changes to the Resource Management Act are one of the 43 things in its final quarterly action plan for the rest of the year.  

And when I heard that, the first dumb place I thought of was New Brighton, in Christchurch. In fact, pretty much anywhere along that eastern coastline, but especially New Brighton and South Brighton.  

Because I can’t understand for the life of me why the city council has allowed building just to keep on keeping on in those areas when it knows that up to $14 billion worth of properties in Christchurch and Banks Peninsula could be at-risk from sea-level rise.   

We learned about that figure in October last year when the council made a submission to parliament’s environment select committee, which is leading an inquiry into climate adaptation.  

So, the Christchurch council says on one hand there are truckloads of areas that could be inundated because of sea level rise —about $14 billion worth of property— but, on the other hand, says yep, you can build that new house you want to build at Southshore. Or tells developers they can build apartments at New Brighton.  

And it’s just nuts.  

You’d think we would have learned not to do this years ago after the quakes.    

Because remember all the head scratching that went on back in 2011 after the big earthquake about why the council had historically allowed building to happen in certain parts of town? Parts of town where things really went pear-shaped after the quakes.  

But it’s coastal suburbs like New Brighton, South New Brighton and Southshore where there’s been a lot of talk about inundation because of how the coastal land dropped after the earthquakes.  

It seems to have been something the Christchurch City Council has preferred to pussy-foot around over. Increasingly so, as time has gone on.  

I remember speaking to Dr Bronwyn Hayward from the University of Canterbury, who has written some of the reports that have come out from the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change, and I asked her if she could understand why we’re still putting houses in New Brighton and South Brighton.  

She said she couldn’t understand it at all. Especially, when you consider that the council itself knows that there’s $14 billion worth of properties at risk of being inundated.  

On top of that $14 billion, the council also reckons road and water infrastructure worth about $3.2 billion is at risk of being taken out because of sea level change.  

But, despite that, the consents department will probably dish out approval for more building in those areas today. 

I remember meeting a guy who came around to do a TradeMe pick-up a couple of years ago. He’d moved down from the North Island with his family, and they were building a new house in New Brighton. He was really excited about it and I just didn’t know what to say to him. So I said nothing.  

But what I wanted to say was: “Why the hell are you doing that? Don’t you know it’s going to be underwater at some point?”  

And we know it is, because the city council has told us. The same city council telling people it's ok to build there. 

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I’m glad I’m not a teacher today.

If I’m honest, I’m glad I’m not a teacher every day. Couldn’t do it.

But I’m especially glad after this ham-fisted announcement by Associate Education Minister David Seymour that, if schools want to have teacher-only days, they’re going to have to have them outside term time.

Which is essentially telling the teachers that if they want to have any sort of professional development or training, they need to do it during their own time. They have to chew up some of their annual leave or other leave entitlement to do it.

Can you imagine any other employer trying to get away with that? “Oh yeah, looks like a great course, Shona. But you’ll have to do it during your holidays.” As if that would happen.

But that’s what David Seymour wants principals to tell their staff. And what makes this approach by the Government so ham-fisted, is that they’re only doing it for the people screaming on the sidelines.

The people who like to bang-on about teachers having 10 weeks holiday a year. The people who bang-on ignorantly about teachers only working from 9 ‘til 3.

They’re also doing it to grease up to all the parents who like to whinge about teacher-only days.

I’ve been there, done that when it comes to dealing with the inconvenience that teacher-only days can be. Just like everyone else, I’ve been a bit cynical at times about teacher-only days being held on the first day of term or the last day of term.

But, deep down, I’ve known that they are held for very good reasons.

Like everyone else —especially when our kids were young— it meant that we had to juggle things a bit on teacher-only days. And —because I’ve been there, done that— I think I’m qualified to say that, sometimes, parents can be the biggest bunch of whingers when it comes to school.

I can’t remember specific examples, but I bet, at times, I whinged with the best of them when our kids were at school. Some parents are more inclined than others to whinge - but we’re all pretty good at it.

And this is what the Government is responding to with this directive to schools to not have teacher-only days during term time.

And what makes the Government’s approach on this even more ham-fisted, is that it’s doing this at the same time as it’s telling teachers that there are a whole lot of changes on the way, a new maths curriculum —all of that— and, at the same time, they’re telling teachers to forget about having teacher-only days during term time.

But did someone not tell David Seymour that these teacher-only days are when the teachers are going to get their heads around all these changes the Government wants happening from Term 1 next year?

Oh that doesn’t matter. Sod the teachers as long as we’re getting brownie points from voters who, when it comes down to it, don’t know a thing about teacher-only days but “goddam it if I have to get someone to look after the kids after school because of another blimmin’ teacher-only day”.

I see this is being described as “a kick in the guts” for under-pressure staff.

Peter Thorne is the acting principal of Belmont Primary School on Auckland’s North Shore and he’s saying that it’s a kick in the guts because teacher-only days are the opportunity for teachers to get-together and focus on their professional needs and the needs of their students.

And what’s the problem with that?

What this is, is an assault on teachers. And they have every right to feel that way, especially, when the Government is dressing this up as part of the solution to the problem we have with truancy.

Do you really think that the odd teacher-only day now and then is getting kids into the habit of wagging school? It’s absolute nonsense.

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Today on Canterbury Mornings, John MacDonald was joined by Duncan Webb and Nicola Grigg for Politics Friday.

On the agenda: how does National defend what has been labelled an attack on teachers with changes to teacher-only days? Was the Government too ambitious with its plans for the Dunedin hospital? How will this impact medical students in Otago?

And the Selwyn Mayor says his district will be bigger than Dunedin in ten years, and with Christchurch’s population set to boom - is our infrastructure up to the growth expected? 

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When you look around Greater Christchurch, do you look around and think “oh, we could handle another 100-or-so thousand people living here”? 

Do you think to yourself “our roads aren’t clogged up, our schools aren’t overcrowded, we’ve got plenty of houses”? Do you think that? 

Or does it feel to you like we’re just getting by with what we’ve got, with the population we’ve got? 

I think we’re just getting by and, if we don’t wake up, we’re going to be another Auckland before we know it.  

There are a couple of things today that have got me thinking about this. The first is this report from the Infrastructure Commission which pretty much says —when it comes to infrastructure— we kind of know what we need to do, and we just need to do it. 

And one of the key issues it identifies is population growth and how we’re going to deal with it. 

The other thing that’s got me thinking about how disorganised we are for having a truckload more people living here is what Selwyn mayor Sam Broughton is saying today about population growth in his area. He’s saying that, in 10 years time, the population of Selwyn will be bigger than the population of Dunedin. 

Dunedin’s population by the way is currently about 130,000. And Sam Broughton thinks there’ll be more people than that living in Selwyn in 10 years time. 

Rolleston, especially, is going nuts. As of last year, the population of Rolleston was 29,600. Almost triple what it was in 2013. As for the population of the wider Selwyn district - as of last year, it was 81,300, which was a 5.2% increase on the year before. 

Compare that to the whole country’s population growth over the same period - which was 2.1%. So nationally, 2.1% population growth. In Selwyn, 5.2%. And these are the numbers that have prompted Sam Broughton to say that, 10 years from now, there’ll be more people living in Selwyn than Dunedin. 

And it’s not just Selwyn. It seems to me that the whole of Greater Christchurch is going nuts - or not far away from going nuts, anyway. 

Let’s look at Christchurch city’s population. At the moment —according to the Christchurch City Council website— the population in the city is 396,200 – that’s as of June last year. 

After the earthquakes, the numbers went down by about 21,000 people. But things have bounced back - in fact, they had bounced back by 2017. And, it seems to me, that there’s no shortage of people wanting to come here from around the country. 

The universities —Lincoln and UC— are going off big time, which is such a change from how things were after the quakes. 

And, as for population growth in Christchurch, the numbers in terms of projections seem to vary a bit but there’s no doubt the city is going to have more people —not less— in the future. Numbers I’ve seen this morning say the population of Christchurch could be as high as 445,000 in 10 years time, and well over half a million in about 15 years time. 

So, a lot of variables, but there’s going to be more people here in a pretty short time. 

Are we ready for that? I don’t think we are. At least when you consider how things are at the moment. 

We’ve got someone here at work who says it can take her 45 minutes to get from where we are on Armagh Street by the Margaret Mahy playground - it can take her 45 minutes in the evenings to get from here to Brougham Street. And then she’s got the drive to Rolleston from there. 

I don’t think we’re ready when you consider the likes of Cashmere High School making its zone smaller and smaller in recent years because it’s struggling to cope with the number of kids living in its enrolment area. 

I don’t think we’re ready when you consider that we still don’t have properly functioning infrastructure like the fire-damaged wastewater plant and that organics plant that’s been making life miserable for people in the East. 

The traffic on Brougham Street. Do you reckon that piece of road is ready to cope with gazillions more people coming in from Rolleston? If Sam Broughton is right and there are more people living in Selwyn than Dunedin in 10 years time - then we’re going to need some pretty serious changes there, aren’t we? 

Especially when you consider that stat that was thrown around at the time of the big stadium debate, that 50% of the people who currently live in Selwyn travel into Christchurch everyday for work, school and other things. 

So I don’t think we are ready and we need to wake up.  

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What about all the weasel words we’ve been hearing from the Government about Andrew Coster? Who’s stepping down from the job of Police Commissioner to head the Government’s new Social Investment Agency.  

He’s leaving the police force a bit earlier than expected. He was due to stand down in April and, if I was a suspicious person, I’d see this as a win-win for him and the Government. Because, despite all the platitudes coming from the Beehive, the Government is going to be delighted that he’s moving on. But, unlike the Government, I'm not going to be so kind. 

Coster himself is describing the move as going from the bottom of the cliff in the police force to the top of the cliff running this new government agency, which is all about investing in people and supporting people to try and help them avoid getting into a life of crime in the first place. 

And I think “Cuddles Coster” —as some people like to refer to him as— is the perfect person to run this new agency. He’s been a lawyer, he was 2IC at the Ministry of Justice for a couple of years, he’s been a cop and, since 2020, he’s been commissioner. 

So he knows how the justice system works. He’s seen and understands some of the things that lead people into crime, he’s worked for a government minister, and he’s felt the heat when things haven’t gone right. 

So, hands down, he’s the best person for the new job.    

But, listening to Police Minister Mark Mitchell and Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, you would think they reckon he’s the best person to be Police Commissioner, as well. 

Let’s start with the Prime Minister. Here’s what he said yesterday about Andrew Coster: “He has done a really good job. Since we came to power, we made a really clear set of expectations, and laid that out really clearly. He has done an exceptionally good job.” 

The PM got a bit brassed-off when reporters reminded him that his predecessor Simon Bridges had described Andrew Coster once as a “wokester”, but Luxon wasn’t having a bar of that. 

And then there’s Mark Mitchell, who’s saying that the only reason he gave Coster a hard time was because the commissioner was working for a wishy-washy government back when Labour was in charge. 

But we all know that the reason they’re being so uncharacteristically kind about Andrew Coster is that, even though he’s leaving the Police, he’s still going to be working for them. And you can’t bag one of your honchos in public, because, if you did, you might get slapped with some HR legal action. And why would you make anything other than glowing comments about someone who’s still going to be working for you. 

In this new role Coster will still report to a government minister. Instead of Mark Mitchell it’ll be Nicola Willis, who is the Minister for Social Investment. But let me say what the Government isn’t saying. When it comes to Andrew Coster’s performance as Police Commissioner, I can’t let him away with the shambolic way he handled the anti-vax, anti-everything protest at Parliament back in February/March 2022. 

That was when we all started to learn about “policing by consent”, which Andrew Coster was big on. Which, in a nutshell, is about the police working in a way that encourages people to co-operate with them - instead of waving the big stick at them. 

Andrew Coster’s leadership of the police response to the Parliamentary protest two years ago was a shambles. There were all the shallow threats about seizing all the vehicles that were clogging up the streets. 

“If you don’t move those vehicles, we’re going to move them. We mean it. We mean it. Aww…maybe we don’t mean it.”  

What it meant is that by the time the Police did finally flush out the muppets who reckoned they were there for a genuine protest, the battle was lost. 

His policing by consent was in tatters and it was the beginning of the end for Andrew Coster. 

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