How is he going to be received, do you think?

It's a bit hard to imagine Jono being nervous.

But I think I'm nervous having put him forward as a good idea.

You vouch for

You're not connected, so why are you doing this?

Oh, because it's fun, and there's a lot of assaults on the sense of humour in New Zealand at the moment.

You're not allowed to be funny.

But I mean, faced with what we've got in the country, if you haven't got a sense of humour, you'd be absolutely...

Act, Act MP Simon Court's an engineer.

He's never done a subdivision in his own mind.

I don't even think he's even had a job as an engineer.

But, um, uh, so he has no experience at all in this.

And uh, this is where you understand the business side of it.

And so we're, um, the idea of fast-tracking is not a bad idea.

Some things have been done already, like the w- wave pool and the extension of the wharf, where they had fast-track to get on fast.

Do you think there'll be a back down from government around fast track post-election?

[laughs]

Um, uh, uh, when I f- first became the mayor, the, um, tourism industry, uh, assembled and got me and other mayors in front of them and told them that they felt that we were...

Well, they needed additional funding, and it was interesting across the country it varied for what they needed it for.

In Queenstown, which was kind of overrun with tourists, they needed some extra money to put toilets in public facilities.

And in Auckland, the, uh, accommodation industry wanted it to be able to fund big events and, uh, which have a feedback loop to them, and they usually increase their rates and make more money.

And they all wanted just a...

Uh, the suggested route was to add on a bit more, two and a half percent each time.

I- is the key problem here that, as you say, it has, it is a political issue, it's bouncing around, and you, uh, and other mayors in the tourism sector want a comprehensive national strategy that gets put in, put into law, and n- no more mucking around?

[chuckles]

Um, uh, uh, when I f-first became the mayor, the, um, tourism ministry, uh, assembled and got me and other mayors in front of them and told them that they felt that we were...

Well, they needed additional funding, and it was interesting across the country, it varied for what they needed it for.

In Queenstown, which was kind of overrun with tourists, they needed some extra money to put toilets and public facilities.

And in Auckland, the, uh, accommodation industry wanted it to be able to fund big events and, uh, which have a feedback loop to them, and they usually increase their rates and make more money.

And they all wanted just to a- uh, the suggested route was to add on a bit more, two and a half percent each time.

And, uh, and the, the... then the charter was about, and the essential, that we do get some money how we get it, 'cause we didn't really want the government in Wellington to decide what Rotorua or Queenstown or Auckland or wherever got out of it.

it is a political issue, it's bouncing around, and you, uh, and other mayors in the tourism sector want a comprehensive national strategy that gets put in, put into law, and n-no more mucking around?

What, what was he responding, and was that response, um, appropriate, or you, you're happy with what he had to say?

Well, um, he's just one of the ministers in the National Party, and they have a kind of a team approach, and they're all obvious.

It's an election period, and they're panicking.

And so we'll wait till afterwards and see what happens.

But at the moment it's, it's, it's a bit disappointing.

Well, the, the city deal was one of their slogans.

It wasn't my idea.

Is it fair for the government to step in?

What, what was he responding, and was that response, um, appropriate, or you, you're happy with what he had to say?

Well, um, he's just one of the ministers in the National Party, and they have a kind of a team approach, and they're all obvious.

It's an election period, and they're panicking, and so we'll wait till afterwards and see what happens.

But at the moment, it's, it's, it's a bit disappointing.

Well, the, the city deal was one of their slogans.

It wasn't my idea, and, um ...

but I thought we'd have a go at it, and we, we've honored it, and we'll continue to honor our side of it.

I- is it fair for the government to step in?

It's the last

thing.

But, I mean, I've still got more things to come.

I mean, I'm negotiating to buy a big mill up north, which I may or may not buy.

Right.

And I'm not going to do it again.

I'm sure if I did it again, I'd get voted in probably, but I don't want to do it again because the worst of it is you have to have these long days sitting in a room with all the councillors and they're down there to remind me, don't do this again, you idiot.

And surely our start-up community have some of those answers for local government.

And

we have to come and see you and have a handout for funding.

And I said, mate, what you do is you have to have a product and a service and you get customers.

You don't ask for money, you get customers.

And so the fact that we've got the influence here, just the fact that overseas people know that the Tech Institute is here and it's going to be down there next to the grid.

And when we have Tech Week, You know, we're bringing in the money from overseas and not just the money from America, because America tend to buy things and shut them down or buy things and milk you out of it.

So I'm not doing that.

And surely our start-up community have some of those answers for local government.

Where's your $57 billion coming from?

It was one of the ones that was in the paper about what the range they could have.

$8 to $57 billion.

Well, they've never done anything at the bottom range before.

And...

They're short of dough.

People aren't spending.

What? I said you can die in September.

But previous reports, and including information from NZTA...

By whom? By NZTA, who have yet to do a single project on budget.

Not a one.

So...

I mean, and so...

And there are all sorts of various... stuff from various geotech engineers.

They didn't exist a long time ago.

So what should happen?

But you've got a bit of announcement to do with Jono because a couple of weeks ago we pitched you the town crier idea with Jono ringing the bell around the city and you've got a big announcement to do with

that.

I think that's a great idea.

I'm just going to have to force that on the rest of them out there when we open it.

And, I mean, we're in the days of AI, artificial intelligence, but it's in a battle with NS, natural stupidity.

That's what we come up with.

So I think we're going to back him, and we will have the count of cry going, hoi, yay, hoi, yay, hoi, yay.

I knew

know

Mia has powers but I don't actually have the ability to control the weather and if I do they'd forgotten to thank me when we had nice sunny days either And I kind of mocked them along those lines because it was so wicked.

And the public got sucked in by the media for a while until they realized that was actually a load of shit and I didn't actually control the media.

And we set about doing something about the fact that it was very poorly prepared and we set about doing some things about it.

And slowly we did some things about it.

And we spent quite a lot of money doing things about it, but we made sure that we did things like making space for waters and I discovered all sorts of nonsensical stuff where bridges had been built and when it got on the road of the flood and there was some very bad engineering and some worse approvals.

There was a lot of people who had houses in places which were absolutely going to get flooded and we had to endure several weeks of personal attacks and crap And you just had to kind of put up with that and go and do the work really and hope that eventually the number of people who were intelligent increased over the number of people who were stupid.

What do you say? I

The second case done after the NZTA case was done last, uh, in the last three months, is this wise?

They've done, they've done business cases that are laughable.

Look at the, um, business case for the, um, that they did for the transmission gully compared with what happened, and yet it was actually quite a good project.

The ...

Compare, look at their business case of, for the f- They're gonna spend three, over $3 billion, which in fact insiders at NZTA think will be five, for a short extension of the motorway north from, to just past Wellsford, all inside of my city without telling us about it.

And, um, and there is no ...

The justification financially for that is, is just about nonexistent.

so do you support the government in taking this away from NZTA and commissioning a second business case that's potentially more realistic?

The second case done after the NZTA case was done last, uh, in the last three months, is this wise?

They've done, they've done business cases that are laughable.

Look at the, um, business case for the, um, that they did for the transmission gully compared with what happened, and yet it was actually quite a good project.

The compare- look at their business case of, for the f- they're gonna spend three, over $3 billion, which in fact insiders at NZTA think will be five, for a short extension of the motorway north from, to just past Wellsford, all inside my city without telling us about it.

And, um, and there is no, the, the justification financially for that is, is just about nonexistent.

so, so do you support the government in taking this away from NZTA and commissioning a second business case that's potentially more realistic?

Well, if we're gonna be in paying for it, it'll be a, the government and, and us doing it.

So we'll make sure that we haven't got the usual suspects who take millions and millions of dollars off the government to design things that h- don't happen.

You're not happy about this?

Oh, I'm not happy about just what you said before either.

The government want, want to have rates caps, and they've...

And, uh, you know, we're running a lot tighter than they are.

And, um, the... all we increased the rates for was for that City Rail Link, which if it had been built, if I'd have been in charge, it would've been $2 billion cheaper, and we wouldn't have had to raise it by-

Yeah.

And so having said we shouldn't do it, everyone will say, "Oh, why don't you spend a whole lot of ratepayers' money?" I don't want to spend ratepayers' money on things that ratepayers m- shouldn't be spending money on.

And so I'm really angry at the whole fast track thing.

You're not happy about this?

Oh, I'm not happy about just what you said before either.

The government want, want to have rates caps, and they've...

And, uh, you know, we're running a lot tighter than they are.

And, um, yeah, all we increased the rates for was for that City Rail Link, which if it had been built, if I'd have been in charge, it would've been $2 billion cheaper, and we wouldn't have had to raise it-

Yeah.

And so having said we shouldn't do it, everyone will say, "Oh, why don't you spend a whole lot of ratepayers' money?" I don't want to spend ratepayers' money on things that ratepayers m- shouldn't be spending money on.

And so I'm really angry at the whole fast track thing, not just this.

[laughs]

And there's no two ways about that.

On the...

I will insist that on the 17th of September, if I'm still alive when we open the bloody railway-

Jono, you get a job.

On the 17th, yeah, Jono gets to be the town crier, and I'm happy to follow him in as long as he's yelling out, "Oi, oi, oi, oi." And, um, and louder than Councilor Lee, and that's pretty loud, I'll tell you.

Yeah.

And to do that, we need to have intensified, um, living along the railway stations, and we've gone through an agonizing process with PC One Tweedy to get approval to do that.

And that wasn't that easy either, because various people, you know, wanted to keep the leafy suburbs undisturbed.

But m- modern cities, you can fly over them and see exactly where the underground railways are because there's big multi-story buildings around the railway stations, and that's what we've got to do here.

So that's our job now to fill it up to pay for it, and we'll do that, and it will be good, and it'll get a good few good runs when the next, when the All Blacks play Australia.

Soon, most people will go to the Eden Park on the train if they've got any brains.

And, um, that'll be good.

What's your sense of who's winning?

Now, how would you describe this, this, um, train system? Is this a game changer, do you think, for Auckland?

Oh, I think it is the right thing to do.

I mean, they first promo- they first came up with the idea that back in 1920, and then Mayor Robbie, who's more of our parents' generation, thought it was a good idea, but he couldn't get the votes around the table.

And it, so it is a good project.

It was just like a lot of projects, too costly and too slow, but it's still a good project, and it will be a good thing for Auckland.

It's n- up to us now as a council to make sure that instead of having a capacity of 19,000 people per hour, we actually have customers of 19,000 people per hour.

Are you worried that it's not gonna have that much patronage?

Well, that wouldn't be a good result.

Now, how would you describe this, this, um, train system? Is this a game changer, do you think, for Auckland?

Oh, I think it is the right thing to do.

I mean, they first pro- uh, they first came up with the idea that back in 1920, and then Mayor Roby, who's more of our parents' generation, thought it was a good idea, but he couldn't get the votes around the table.

And it, so it is a good project.

It was just like a lot of projects, too costly and too slow, but it's still a good project, and it will be a good thing for Auckland.

It's n- up to us now, as a council, to make sure that instead of having a capacity of 19,000 people per hour, we actually have customers of 19,000 people per hour.

Are you worried that it's not gonna have that much patronage?

Well, that wouldn't be a good result.

Oh, right

And there's another group that are doing it out of fungi.

And so the...

What we've got is smart people making good stuff out of stuff which is junk.

We, uh...

Amongst other things.

Not just AI stuff, but the, um...

Can you-

You divide

and survive, really.

LAUGHTER But I've got a business and sports are my kind of interests, so I tend to go to the rugby games.

I don't do cricket, though.

I'm not quite sure if that is a sport.

Oh, don't say that to

And now, now, now you've got the ticketing tanks that go around with the cameras on top.

That's not one of the problems I'll be worrying about fixing.

toSo, I mean, are you worried about where sort of how far people get moved on to?

Well, start...

Let's go back.

W- there is a problem, and the problem is that, that, that these people are affecting people's livelihoods, where people have invested significant sums in having nice shops and paying rates, rent, and other things.

And so, uh, and these people are economically, um, literate.

They don't sleep in your road in Mount Albert or wherever you are.

They, they happen to be where there are businesses, and that's the problem.

[laughs]

All

right.

You mentioned before the roads of National Party significance and now they've sort of come down to be a more realistic item.

That's all part of it as well because, I mean, some of those roads are in my city and they're roaring ahead, blowing money they haven't got on things we don't want or need.

So there is a lot of chat going on.

In terms of the relationship with India and what happened in the last few, there's nothing but good can come from that.

So I totally support what the government are trying to do there.

Where do you think they got

All

right.

You mentioned before the roads of National Party significance and now they've sort of come down to be a more realistic item.

That's all part of it as well because, I mean, some of those roads are in my city and they're roaring ahead, blowing money they haven't got on things we don't want or need.

So there is a lot of chat going on.

In terms of the relationship with India and what happened in the last few, there's nothing but good can come from that.

So I totally support what the government are trying to do there.

Where do you think they got