Blurred vision
Rod Oram on port plans
The Port Future Study gives us a glimpse of why we must and how we can make much better longterm decisions as a country.
The report, out this week, shows the power of bringing all vested interests to the table. By doing so it has broken useful ground on how to best meet Auckland’s longterm shipping needs.
The technique sounds so simple. But as a country we find it very hard to do. Command-andcontrol government capable of only incremental change holds fast to almost all the power.
It could have been very different.
The Royal Commission on Auckland’s governance recommended establishing strong institutional relationships and power sharing between city and government.
But the Key government rejected that. Instead, it persisted with adhoc instruments and endless negotiations between city and government. Housing and transport crises are the result.
The port issue is a classic example of this narrow, dysfunctional approach. The government refuses to work on a national port strategy, believing short-term competition between ports will deliver long-term strategic solutions for the most cost-effective, integrated freight system for the country.
Meanwhile Auckland council owns the port. But port legislation and council’s arms-length relationship with its commercial assets left the port company believing it had a largely free hand on strategy.
As a result, it was pursuing its own narrow commercial interests almost regardless of the economic, social and environmental context in which it has to operate. It was incapable of communicate adequately with the public.
As recently as last year the company was still arguing for growing far out into the harbour. It cited the report it commissioned from NZIER saying there was no alternative. Growing vertically by, for example, stacking containers higher and temporally storing imported cars on racks or in multistorey car parks were deemed unfeasible.
The public outcry forced the council to set up the Port Future Study involving wide representation. The group and its consultants, EY, rightly didn’t try to predict if or when economic, social and environmental pressures might force the port to relocate.
Rather they focused on how best to keep that option open, and by recommending further investigation of two potential locations in the Manukau Harbour and Firth of Thames.
But this is only a helpful start. The council, port and shipping companies, and business and other communities have a massive amount of work to do. The biggest priorities are:
Ensuring the port can make the most of its current location, over say the next 20 years. Choosing a new port location and safeguarding the option by, for example, designating transport corridors and devising a road map and monitoring process to ensure excellent, timely port decisions.
This is all exceptionally difficult and expensive.
Judging by past behaviour, everyone in the region will find these tasks far too daunting. Delay, division and deadlock will ensure nothing gets done. But that would only make life far harder and poorer for future generations as Auckland grows to some 2.5 million people, or possibly more, in 50 years’ time.
There is a vastly better way. We can embrace the terrific opportunity we have to build a city that’s sustainable in all senses of the word – environmental, social, cultural and economic.
To do so, we have to make the most of our current assets while planning, investing and building for the future.
The utterly critical framework for such city-making is the Unitary Plan. The council will have to make some deeply significant decisions about it over the coming weeks to meet the statuary completion deadline of August 19.
How well local politicians, the government and public work through this enormous challenge will determine the city’s future.
Growing vertically, by stacking containers higher was deemed unfeasible.