Windbag: The waterfront fences debate isn't really about fences

The Spinoff

a day ago

Wellington City Council rejected a proposal to build these fences on the waterfront.
What looks like a fight about safety, cost and aesthetics is really about something bigger.
Windbag is The Spinoff's Wellington issues column, written by Wellington editor Joel MacManus. Subscribe to the Windbag newsletter to receive columns early.
Roger Calkin, whose son Sandy drowned on the Wellington waterfront in 2021, stood up in front of Wellington City councillors on Thursday last week and told them they had a moral responsibility to stop further unnecessary deaths. 'It is our perspective as a family, having sat through five days of full coronial inquest and listened to evidence given by various experts from all sides, that these social and moral responsibilities have never been met,' he said.
It set up the awkward position in which councillors found themselves. Seven people have drowned on the waterfront since 2006. A grieving family is begging for change. A coronial inquest told the council it needed more edge protection.
On the other hand, the general public absolutely hates the idea of fencing the waterfront. It's united left and right, young and old. The fiscally minded hate the cost, and the design-minded hate the aesthetics.
In Thursday's meeting, councillors voted on a paper that proposed spending $7 million on fencing around Kumutoto and Queens Wharf. The mayor's office had previously made it clear they wanted a public consultation with multiple options. But that's not what council officers presented. They recommended a direct council decision, with no consultation. The proposed design, released just one day before the meeting, was a heavy steel monstrosity that cost more than $3,000 per metre.
Council officers have a conservative instinct. They want to put up the safest fences possible. Cost and popularity are not their top priorities. If officers had provided councillors with a middle ground – say, a cheaper and prettier chain-link fence – they might have got the council's support. But they sent a signal that the council needed to act now, and this was the only option.
The proposed fences around Queens Wharf.
With Calkin in the room, councillors voted the paper down emphatically, 13-4. The vote sent a clear message: councillors are not happy with council staff.
The 13 votes against included mayor Tory Whanau and all the committee chairs bar Laurie Foon. That's notable. Whanau and her chairs have generally put a lot of trust in officer advice and rarely push back (Rebecca Matthews being an occasional exception), but there's a growing frustration that officers are attempting to steer councillors by forcing rushed decisions, withholding information, or giving all-or-nothing options.
The worst example this term was the town hall cost blowout. I remember sitting in the meeting where a team of staff told councillors they needed to cough up another $130m, taking a project initially budgeted at $30m to $330m.
Councillors reacted with shock at having this info sprung on them with little warning. They frantically asked questions. Could they pause construction? Mothball it? Would getting the heritage listing removed help? Could they have some time to deliberate and assess what's happening here? The answer from the staff was, basically, no. They told councillors that any delays would just increase the cost of the rebuild. There was no time to think. They needed to write a cheque right this minute. Even in the eyes of an untrained outsider, the whole thing looked sus.
There was a similar spat over the airport sale, where councillors complained that staff wouldn't let them see relevant legal advice. The Reading Cinema sale, too, was a case of officers promoting an idea. They managed to get Whanau and several other councillors on board, but it was a political miscalculation.
Temporary fencing around the Wellington waterfront.
Officers and councillors each have important roles within the council. Usually, officers know more than councillors do; they're subject matter experts, while councillors spread their focus across a broad range of topics. But there's a reason unelected bureaucrats aren't responsible for the final decisions: they don't have to think about public opinion.
Good politicians need to know how to use the expertise of the public service without being led around by the nose. Being too trusting of advice is a classic pitfall of left-wing politicians, who see public servants as their natural allies, while the right is typically more suspicious of bureaucrats.
This is one area where a former minister like Andrew Little has an advantage over other would-be mayors; he knows how to deal with the public service, and when to give them a firm smack-down.
So what's going to happen with the waterfront fences? It's not entirely clear.
Councillor Ray Chung had planned to bring an amendment calling for public consultation, which would have been only the second amendment he proposed during his entire term. But Chung instead used his time to give a rambling speech, completely forgetting about his amendment. By the time he remembered a few minutes later, the deadline for new amendments had passed.
With no formal direction from the council, staff will be scrambling. It's still possible they could come back to the table with a new paper offering a broader range of fencing options and a proper public consultation. Or, they could punt it to the next council and hope they can convince a new batch of inexperienced councillors to make a rash decision.