Govt needs to step up to solve Queenstown crisis

I SEE that Donald Trump has declared his border wall a national emergency.

Closer to home, I can think of a more genuine national emergency: Queenstown.

Less than 1% of New Zealanders live in Queenstown Lakes. Yet half New Zealand’s overseas visitors pass through the district, which has to pay for most of the necessary infrastructure out of its rates. Queenstown also has the country’s most unaffordable housing.

In May 2016 , it was reported that nearly 10,000 consented sections were sitting vacant in Queenstown alone, partly because the council can’t afford the infrastructure needed to develop them. In the same month, Phil Twyford declared that ‘‘I don’t think council or the [Queenstown Community Housing] trust have the balance sheet or assets to do this on their own. It needs central government to be part of the solution.’’

Nearly three years on, and 450 days in office, does the minister have a central solution for Queenstown — other than KiwiBuild?

Mary Jane Walker

Queenstown [Minister for Housing and Urban Development Phil Twyford replies:

‘‘KiwiBuild is only part of the Government’s comprehensive plan to fix the housing crisis in the country’s most unaffordable areas such as Queenstown.

We have changed tax settings to discourage speculation, banned foreign buyers and are reforming the rental market to make life better for renters.

This year, we will progress legislation to set up the Housing and Urban Development Authority, a new agency that will cut through the red tape to build largescale housing projects.

However, land is just one barrier we must overcome. We will be making announcements soon about how we will free up the planning rules to allow our towns and cities to grow. Infrastructure provision is expensive. This is why, in addition to opening up more land, we are developing new infrastructure financing and funding tools to enable alternative ways of financing largescale infrastructure for housing. The Government recognises Queenstown, because of the small number of ratepayers and large number of visitors, faces acute challenges when it comes to infrastructure. We are working with Queenstown Lakes District Council on how we can address these challenges together.’’]

Local body elections

THERE is a problem with our election of local body councillors.

We generally elect people whose names are ‘‘familiar’’ , which tends to support incumbent councillors, irrespective of abilities. Little performance information is available regarding potential new councillors, and the old adage of ‘‘the devil you know’’ tends to apply. This must be discouraging for prospective new nominees, and does not ensure the city gains from the best skillset available.

About 50 years ago, a large South Island company, based in Dunedin, was suffering from a similar malaise with respect to its aged directorate. To break this cycle, a small minority of new and progressive directors were concerned enough to persuade the directorate to bring in external expertise to assist in a critical board decision — the appointment of a new chief executive.

The external expertise came in the form of Prof Phillip Rossall, of the University of Otago. The upshot of this strategy was the appointment of an extremely competent chief executive. The company went on to become an unparalleled success story.

If we accept that occasionally democracy needs a helping hand to avoid inertia, could a 2019 equivalent to Prof Rossall be persuaded to apply an objective ‘‘skillset suitability criteria’’ to those councillors and prospective councillors who are prepared to participate?

This assessment might assist the public in making better democratic decisions at election time and perhaps encourage relatively unknown people to participate. Ken Lawson

Oamaru

[Abridged]