State of Wayne's Auckland: No easy fixes

Newsroom

a day ago

It's going to be a difficult job 'fixing' Auckland.
Just ask the fixit mayor, Wayne Brown, whose city seems to be drifting lower against its international peer cities on important measures of productivity, opportunity, innovation and knowledge.
A new survey does show Auckland performing ahead of overseas centres on culture and experience, sustainability and resilience, although it is losing ground on the 'experience' factor.
The latest State of the City report from the Committee for Auckland, Deloitte and the Auckland Council finds the 'prosperity' measure has dropped the most this year of three years of monitoring. That equates to Brown's first term in office, although there are lags between political change and subsequent data.
It highlights a range of challenges that in reality would be beyond any individual mayor or council.
'While this reflects the cumulative effect of economic and pandemic headwinds that have hit Auckland, the gaps that have opened up also point to more long-standing and systemic issues that are now acting as a handbrake on progress,' the report says.
Brown accepts the findings, telling political, business and community leaders the report 'highlights an urgent need to lift Auckland's economic performance and competitiveness'.
But early in his speech he delivered a confronting reality about just how much of that improvement can be influenced by Auckland itself. He dropped the 'R' word and told his audience not to believe central government 'spin'.
'While the economy has improved over the last couple of years, it started off a pretty low base. Auckland like the rest of New Zealand is still recovering from core financial decisions made following the Covid thing by the previous government.
'Despite the spin from Wellington, the Reserve Bank's real time measure of economic activity shows GDP is already sliding back into recession.'
That stark prediction cannot have been a comfortable message for the Minister for Local Government, Simon Watts, who also spoke at the State of the City event.
Brown said at the heart of the problem was productivity. 'We're simply not producing enough with the resources we've got.'
The State of the City report focused hard on the P word. 'It is clear Auckland's own version of the productivity puzzle is long-running, multi-faceted, and requires both national and local focus to fully leverage Auckland as an escalator for productivity nationwide in the way other cities do for their nations.'
It says Auckland ranks 99th globally for productivity and last among the peer cities the report has compared it with over time. Peers were Copenhagen, Fukuoka, Vancouver, Austin, Tel Aviv, Dublin and Helsinki.
'Across different studies, Auckland's productivity – at least in terms of economic output per person – is now rated in the region of 15-20 percent lower than comparable cities. As Auckland is the engine of New Zealand's economy with a nearly 40 percent share of national GDP, this lower productivity seriously impacts overall national growth.'
On productivity, Brown did not duck the responsibility of Auckland to improve on behalf of all New Zealand.
'You fix Auckland, you fix New Zealand,' he said, quoting his own political slogan since assuming the office in 2022.
'The solution to New Zealand's productivity problem is right here.'
Brown said Auckland had made progress since his election on council costs, rate increases, reform of council-owned organisations and winning back transport policy functions from Auckland Transport. He had just announced an innovation taskforce to drive research, knowledge, entrepreneurship and jobs.
But he showed some sensitivity to challenges he faced to 'fix' issues faster and more broadly.
The mayor told the audience: 'You have to have the right direction, but nothing's easy.
'So when you put your hand up and say [adopts a whingeing voice] 'Why haven't you fixed that problem?' … Just think how difficult it is. How did it get to where it is now? That's an even bigger question.'
Brown believed the Government was trying its best, and praised RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop and noted a good working relationship with Watts.
But his mission to get Wellington out of Auckland's affairs as much as possible remained. 'You've created a regional government. You've got to treat us like that, and don't expect it to be otherwise, not while I'm in charge, anyway.'
In true Brown style, there were some pithy put-downs of central Government officials – Ministry of Transport people 'weaselling away trying to find something negative' about the changes to Auckland Transport; other initiatives agreed at a high level in Auckland 'have to go down there and be fought through a multitude of morons'.
And the benefits of applying AI to transport, for example, was frequently countered by what he called NS – natural stupidity.
'So it takes a lot of strength, on both sides. We are trying to show we are trying to lead for the rest of New Zealand. There are some important messages we have to sell to the rest of NZ. There's a lot of votes in Auckland but there's a hell of a lot of votes elsewhere as well.'
He welcomed Auckland being one of the three first cities or regions to advance to the next phase of applications for the Government's City and Regional Deals – where a 10-year plan of development would be agreed with aligned planning and economic goals.
The Western Bay of Plenty, based on Tauranga, is expected to be the first to get the go-ahead later this year.
Brown: 'We've got to turn the city deals from a slogan into something that actually works. I'm not in a rush to be first, or second, or third, but we are the biggest.
'It does require a conversation of two grown-ups. It's not [a case] of a school teacher telling me as a pupil what you are going to get. It's got to be … serious grown-up conversations with the Government.'
Watts said there was a high degree of alignment between the Government and Auckland Council.
He cited his 'having architected the City Regional Deals while in opposition and now having them signed', the Government's water reforms, RMA reform, as being helpful but 'probably not starting to be felt until next year or the year after.'
Another benefit from Government could be to 'just get out of the bloody way. Get out of the way of business, get out of the way of local government, acknowledging that sometimes the biggest challenge is we get in the way and we are not the best party to be involved.
'It's just that maturity of perspective.'
Watts had lived in Vancouver, London and Singapore and recognised a global perspective was needed. 'Yeah we are great and there are so many things that make us better than so many of those other cities. But there are so many things that we could be and should be better than what we are.'
He challenged attendees to step up. 'It's not just the mayor or the minister. It's the people in here and sitting in these seats. You have more power to influence, to affect that change than anyone sitting up on the front stage.
'The concern in the report is that we might fall back. And that would be intolerable.'
Acknowledging the State of the City's concern about Auckland lagging in some areas and the risk of falling still further, the minister claimed 'we have got the pillars in place and now need to move into the delivery phase'.
'Auckland is the economic powerhouse of this country. It does drive our success or our failure. I think I would give [Auckland's performance in] the report a solid B, with room for improvement. That's not a bad place to be, where we are, but we shouldn't be satisfied with a B.'
The State of the City report summarises the implications of its findings.
Report author Tim Noonan, of the Business of Cities urban intelligence and policy group in the UK, said dozens of cities worldwide had held a mirror up to themselves and honestly asked what it would take to improve.
Auckland's issues were not insurmountable but were connected and needed an integrated response. It should be a national endeavour, private and public sector, corporates, institutions, and innovators, on behalf of existing and future citizens
The State of the City report indicated, through the three years of surveys, that Auckland found itself 'stuck'.
Auckland outperforms peers on what he called acquired attributes, things that take generations to develop like natural and physical capital – place and culture and resilience. But in pillars that really drive growth it is not doing well.
'Opportunities remain below par throughout this period of time. Other cities internationally have now moved in some cases quite substantially ahead on investment, business appeal, job outcomes, wages versus costs.
'On balance, more capital, more talent is consistently flowing out to larger and better places.
'Prosperity clearly stands out as the biggest drop across the three issues of the State of the City.'
Auckland's productivity problem was more 'vexing' than other cities and had both city-specific and national origins.
'Auckland's not performing as the escalator of productivity as other equivalent cities do for their nations.
'The concern is that the levers for turning the productivity tide are not yet ready to pull.'
Noonan said Auckland was now at an inflection point. 'There's a moment here. The ground being lost in important areas is too sizeable to be ignored.'
And he had a telling caution: 'The risk that other cities' experience tells us that Auckland has to avert is the slow drip in opportunities elsewhere, a waning of visibility, a softening if you like of ambition and appeal.'