Mount Roskill

I know that's a far bigger project than a small upgrade, but how do you feel about this?

I think we need rapid transit at some form to meet the needs, not just the airport, but actually the southern isthmus, the places like Mount Roskill, things like that.

I think that we could be connecting these places a hell of a lot better.

It's a shame what happened with the airport light rail situation.

Where would you take me and why?

Look, I think the project we'd take you to is our Te Aoanga project in Mount Roskill.

So for those that don't know Te Aoanga, it's also known as Oakley Creek.

And we did a really, really large blue-green network project there, and it was really leveraged off the affordable housing project that Kainga Ora was doing in Wesley, which is one of the suburbs in Mount Roskill.

So we've done this really, really huge park and stream restoration project, naturalised 1.5 kilometres of stream.

We planted 120,000 natives.

So give us an example of where they went.

Goodness, well, if we go to the North Herne Bay with the northernmost tram route in Auckland, and then we work our way on an anti-clockwise direction around the city isthmus, Point Chevalier, Avondale, Wairaka, Avondale, gosh, I'm losing it myself, Dominion Road, Mount Roskill, Three Kings, Onihanga, and of course rugby's on everybody's mind at the moment and of course a lot of people probably don't realise there used to be a loop behind the old grandstand at Eden Park and on big rugby games they'd have 30-odd trams all lined up on that loop while bringing people in and then lined up ready to take them all home back into Sandringham Road and back to the city again.

Hang on, they would have 30 or 40 trams waiting outside Eden Park in a loop to take fans away?

They turned off Sandringham Road into this loop.

Well, no, most of it was.

So if you go to Mount Roskill here in Auckland, I was there last week.

There's a whole lot of land sitting empty now where there used to be state houses because they were demolished because they weren't fit for purpose anymore.

They were worn out, demolished, ready for new builds.

I'd be more of a manual kinda guy myself.

I'm gonna say Mount Roskill.

Mount Roskill?

Yeah.

Mount Roskill.

What have we got, Aaron? Where is it?

It's Takapuna.

Former MP Michael Wood says what happened to him in twenty twenty-three is rarely raised with him when he knocks on doors.

Labor leader Chris Hipkins has been out campaigning with Michael Wood in the Mount Roskill electorate today.

In twenty twenty-three, Mr. Hipkins stood down Mr.

Wood as Transport Minister after he failed to properly disclose his shareholdings.

What I've always said is that nearly any MP going into Parliament would like the opportunity to be a minister and to serve because you can make a real difference there.

Um, but you've got to be a little bit humble, take one step at a time, and ultimately, those are decisions for your leader.

National's Carlos Cheung won Mount Roskill by nearly sixteen hundred votes in twenty twenty-three.

A food expert says young people are eating too much junk food because too little progress is being made on food policies.

But also that southern isthmus to the airport, I think that's such a crucial place.

Places like Mount Roskill, we need to be looking at that and how can we service that a lot better so it's not just an airport conversation.

I think it's a southern kind of isthmus of Auckland conversation.

But, yeah, I'm well up for that personally.