Madness or genius?
‘‘As a purely financial transaction ... we’d do brilliantly ... But it’s not what we want.’’
For two years, a small team at Christchurch Airport plotted an audacious strike to create an international airport in their rival’s backyard. Mike White investigates how the company’s coup was kept secret, how it threatens people’s dreams in Tarras, why many predict it will never get off the ground, and why the airport raises critical issues for New Zealand– but the Government is washing its hands of it.
Malcolm Johns was nervous. For months, Christchurch Airport had been anonymously buying farmland at Tarras in Central Otago, to build a massive airport right under the nose of its biggest competitor, Queenstown Airport.
Time and again, its agent had gone back to the farmers and upped its offer.
Nearly 400 kilometres away, Johns, chief executive of Christchurch International Airport Limited (CIAL), was sweating the company would be outed before the last farm was bought and the deal closed.
If Queenstown Airport got wind of what its rival was doing, it might have tried to thwart it. If the landowners learnt the buyer was an airport company, they could have demanded double or triple the price – blowing the budget and killing the project.
To minimise risk, only a dozen CIAL executives and board members had any idea about the Tarras scheme.
The plan by the company (75 per cent owned by Christchurch City Council, and 25 per cent by the government) was codenamed Project Oscar because in aviation’s phonetic alphabet, Oscar stands for O, and O stood for Otago. It had been worked on for two years, after Air New Zealand and others stated Queenstown Airport could not cope with exploding tourist numbers, and Central Otago needed a new airport.
The idea wasn’t new. Alternatives to Queenstown’s picturesque but short and fraught runway had been mooted for 30 years, four separate reports written, and a new airport at Mossburn, 100km north of Invercargill, got consent, before being overturned on appeal due to noise and visual effects.
Queenstown Airport investigated numerous sites, and Tarras wasn’t in the top two, due to prevailing weather, fog, connection to the region’s towns, and the eye-watering cost. In the end, it decided a new greenfields airport did not stack up, and instead opted to increase flights into Queenstown, and develop nearby Wa¯ naka Airport, which it also operated.
But Johns and his team saw things differently. They believed only a brand-new airport would solve congestion problems at Queenstown Airport, and this would be more attractive to airlines flying into tourism’s heartland. It also gave them the chance to claw back passengers lost to Queenstown after Christchurch’s 2011 earthquake, and act as a bulwark against any expansions by Queenstown.
But it was something never before done in New Zealand’s aviation scene – stealing into another region, and trying to take their business from them.
All at a time when the country was arguing for fewer tourists, and air travel was vilified as one of the worst culprits for greenhouse gas emissions.
Christchurch’s plan was either ballsy or mad, but until it had sewn up the land it needed for a 2.2km runway that could handle bigger, wide-body jets (those with two aisles and three sections of seating across) everything was at stake. Adding to Johns’ nerves was the knowledge that several other consortiums were scouting sites for a new airport.
Johns remembers he was having dinner with his family in early May when he got a text from his project manager saying they’d reached an agreement with the last landowner they needed.
After spending $45 million, they now had 750ha of flat Tarras farmland between the Clutha River and mountains made famous by Shrek the sheep, to build an airport on.
Johns says they were still in limited lockdown, so there were no team celebrations, just relief and excitement they’d reached this first milestone without word leaking out.
He began preparing to announce the project publicly at the end of July. Crucial people were quietly contacted, press releases drafted.
But a week before, Peter Newport, the editor of Queenstown news website Crux, got wind of the land sales and contacted CIAL. ‘‘We got sprung,’’ Johns admits, and the airport hastily issued a public statement confirming the rumours.
Suddenly, the secret of Project Oscar was out, and all hell burst loose.
Just the latest speculator with dreams
John Harris was busy in the winery at Ma¯ ori Point Vineyard that morning, when Newport walked in and asked to interview him about the plan for a new airport across the road.
Harris had to ask Newport what he was talking about.
Billee Marsh was at the checkout in Queenstown’s supermarket when a friend called: ‘‘Have you heard? I’m so angry.’’
‘‘It was a bolt from the blue,’’ remembers Marsh, who bought her Tarras property, near the proposed airport, 25 years ago, because she thought Wa¯ naka was getting too busy.
Richie Pearce and his partner, Cynarra Ferguson, were watching TV that night when they saw a reporter standing in Tarras and heard about the proposal for the first time.
‘‘We thought it was an April Fool’s joke,’’ says Ferguson, from their house overlooking the airport.
That evening, locals’ phones lit up as bemused neighbours sought information and support, and a public meeting was organised.
While there had been previous chatter about an airport at Tarras, everyone thought it had been ruled out. Nobody suspected Christchurch might move in on their area, not even the farmers who’d sold the land.
Because this was Tarras: a place most New Zealanders couldn’t point to on a map; a place so small that State Highway 8 only slows to 80kmh, yet just big enough for gossip to get skewed before it reaches the town boundaries; a place of corrugated iron sheds, stone walls, and quaint gardens.
There’s a cafe, store, school, vintage homeware shop, merino shop, two toilets, and 24-hour petrol pumps for those arriving over the Lindis Pass from Mt Cook.
On the side of the store is a blackboard with ‘‘Welcome To Our Lovely Little Village’’ on it, where visitors have chalked their names. Svetlana from Moscow. Josh from Wa¯ naka.
For years, people have come to the area trying to eke a living from dry soil and brittle rock – from goldminers in the 1860s, to the farmers who followed them. Christchurch Airport was just the latest speculator with dreams.
John Harris was similar in that sense. The 80-year-old former Otago University science professor bought 28ha of useless farmland beside the Clutha River in 2000 and expanded it into a successful vineyard with his wife, fellow Otago professor Marilyn Duxson.
Just months before the airport announcement, the couple shifted into a new house on the property, imagining they’d live there for the rest of their lives, making pinot noir, planting natives, and eventually handing it on to their children.
‘‘Now, we’ll have a nice view of the airport from our bedroom and bathroom,’’ says Duxson.
‘‘If it went ahead, we would go, we wouldn’t stay. As a purely financial transaction, all those people coming for tastings at the winery, we’d do brilliantly. The land values will probably go up because there will be demand for things like petrol stations and takeaways and quarantine facilities.
‘‘But it’s not what we want. And I don’t think it’s the kind of experience our high-level tourists want.’’
The couple felt caught in a ‘‘pissing contest’’ between two antagonistic airport companies, and were astounded the government and Christchurch council remained silent on something with enormous ramifications for the whole country.
Afew kilometres downstream on the Clutha’s edge, Billee and Wayne Marsh have turned 20ha of willow and weed jungle into a beautiful home and farmlet.
‘‘We came here for the peace and quiet and to get away. And here we are, minding our own business, and this happens,’’ says Billee, 67, a past president of Rural Women in Tarras.
‘‘And now we’ve got it hanging over us, and we’ve got all this work to do to battle against it.’’
Wayne is sceptical the airport will ever happen – bringing more tourists into an already stressed region, more greenhouse gas emissions from more planes, the cost of building it, of upgrading roads and bridges leading to it, the difficult council consent process, all seemed stacked against it.
But Billee remains concerned. ‘‘I don’t think they’d spend $45 million without doing some homework.’’
If it did go ahead, ‘‘we’d have to leave,’’ she says. ‘‘We know it as this,’’ she says, sweeping an arm in an arc over the snow-streaked Pisa Range and the path of the Clutha, ‘‘and the change would be so extreme. So we couldn’t accept going to that.’’
On the other side of the valley, amongst schist tors and wild thyme near Bendigo Station, Richie Pearce and Cynarra Ferguson’s living room window frames the proposed airport. At worst, the flight path will be directly overhead; at best, it will go down the valley just west of them.
A year ago, they opened two tourist cabins, and Pearce says there’s no way their guests’ experience and sense of isolation would not be affected.
Pearce believes most locals oppose the airport, and he’s willing to help fight it.
‘‘You just won’t recognise Tarras. It’s really the fact it can just come and destroy a community like that. I think it’d be a travesty if it could get bulldozed through.’’
Yvonne and Neill Martin shifted from Christchurch to the Queensberry Hills above Tarras two years ago to run a B&B and dog daycare. They’re still Christchurch ratepayers, and are astounded the $45m isn’t being spent improving Christchurch as a destination, at a time the city is desperate for tourists.
‘‘I can’t understand why the hoteliers and hospitality industry in Christchurch aren’t up in arms about it,’’ says Neill. ‘‘I’d be going to the mayor, asking, ‘What’s going on? Why are you allowing this?’ What’s Canterbury’s tourism agency doing about it?’’
He argues that every small town south of Christchurch would suffer if tourists flew into Tarras instead of Christchurch.
‘‘Nobody’s going to say, ‘Oh, let’s backtrack to Geraldine.’ ’’
Yvonne says visitors they hosted felt Central Otago was already overcrowded and it was spoiling their experience, yet Christchurch Airport intended funnelling even more tourists here.
‘‘There’s just no national vision, no national leadership about where New Zealand needs to go with its tourism. Local communities want to control and manage their growth. They don’t want a corporate raider coming in and saying, ‘This is what you’re getting.’ ’’
Commercial egos at play
News of Christchurch Airport’s strike into Central Otago shocked almost everyone.
‘‘It was like, whoa, didn’t see that one coming,’’ says Dunedin Airport chief executive Richard Roberts. ‘‘It’s unprecedented and it kind of put a lot of people on their arse, like, ‘Where did that come from?’ ’’
Roberts struggles to understand
why another airport is needed, given there are already three internationalcapable airports within three hours of each other: Queenstown, Dunedin and Invercargill.
‘‘Is there already capacity? The answer is, yes. OK, so why are we building this airport? The answer is, I don’t know.’’
He blames the culture of competition in New Zealand’s tourism sector for what’s happened, with 31 regions encouraged to battle each other for visitors.
‘‘I think always, always, everybody is better together. I see the lone wolf as an inefficient way of doing what we need to do.’’
While Tarras might steal passengers and flights from Dunedin, Roberts says he’s never been approached or had any discussions with Christchurch Airport – despite Johns insisting they have.
Nor has Colin Keel, Queenstown Airport’s chief executive, who heard about its challenger’s plan via the media. Having considered Tarras and other greenfields sites, Keel was perplexed by Christchurch’s decision. Even now he won’t call it a proposal, preferring ‘‘proposition’’, because ‘‘it just doesn’t stack up’’.
Keel says the lower South Island is well served by its current airports, and he points out that new airports weren’t on the Government’s list of shovel-ready infrastructure projects, indicating national transport priorities lay elsewhere, such as roads and rail.
Aviation entrepreneur Ewan Wilson, who established Kiwi Air and is now a Hamilton city councillor, says the Tarras proposal is ‘‘a survival strategy’’, given the business Christchurch Airport has lost to Queenstown.
‘‘This is commercial egos at play. This is aero-political, geo-political manoeuvring. Ten out of 10 for the first strategic move. But by gosh, before you start doing anything, you’d better be willing to invest heavily in a very well-thought-out business plan. And you don’t want to get that wrong.’’
Four reasons to build the airport
Malcolm Johns was 29 when he took the plunge in 2000 and set up his own tourism business, organising tours to Canada for Australasian couples.
Then 9/11 came, and people got scared of flying. Then Sars came, and there was an outbreak in Canada.
In 2003, with the writing on the wall, he sold his house to pay his debts and avoid bankruptcy, and closed the business.
But by the following year, he’d been appointed chief executive of tourism and transport group InterCity, then, in 2014, shifted to Christchurch to head CIAL.
At that time, Christchurch Airport was on its knees after the earthquake, with a huge drop in tourists and flights, most of it bleeding away to Queenstown.
But the earthquakes allowed CIAL to shake up its business, cut staff, cut costs. It invested heavily in developing the commercial area around the airport, which includes the Novotel hotel, a supermarket, a Bunnings Warehouse, and a large New Zealand Post hub, leading one Christchurch councillor to label the airport ‘‘a property developer in drag’’.
When calls came for a new Central Otago airport, Johns felt a unique opportunity was being presented.
The more they looked at it, the more it made commercial sense, from four angles.
Central Otago’s population was booming and the new residents were frequent fliers.
Secondly, there was a strong productive sector which relied on air freight, but 90 per cent of it was currently being trucked out of the region at significant cost because Queenstown’s planes were too small.
Thirdly, Christchurch was missing out on surging tourist numbers. In the ski season, airlines with limited departure slots at congested airports in Sydney and Melbourne were replacing flights to Christchurch with extra Queenstown flights.
And with their forecasts suggesting that by 2040 there could be 2.5m passengers coming to Central Otago for whom Queenstown Airport wouldn’t have capacity, Christchurch Airport wanted a slice of that pie.
And, fourthly, the inability to fly bigger, more efficient planes into Queenstown meant higher carbon emissions, at a time when airlines were desperate to reduce this.
After speaking with airlines, Johns and his team were convinced only a new airport would solve Central Otago’s problems.
They came up with two possible sites – Ha¯ wea Flat and Tarras. But Ha¯ wea was much closer to a dense population, and flight paths were more constrained by mountains.
‘‘So we opted for Tarras as the optimal site, and we set about purchasing that land on the open market,’’ says Johns.
At best, it will be 10 years before planes are flying into Tarras: three years to plan it, three years to get consent, three years to build it.
At any of these stages, there might be things that make the project unviable or impossible – tourism might not pick up, they might not get consent from Central Otago District Council, construction costs could balloon past the estimated $400m-$600m.
Just weeks before he announced the Tarras project, Johns admitted: ‘‘There’s no doubt, this is a risky time for aviation and tourism.’’
But he’s adamant that, some time in the next 50 years, the numbers and need will align, and an international airport at Tarras will be built. ‘‘We’re not going anywhere, any time soon,’’ insists Johns, with the plan being to own the land for at least 75 years, until the project is viable.
‘‘Let’s say Queenstown reaches capacity in 2030, and you go ahead and develop Wa¯ naka, and that reaches capacity in 2035, what do you do after that? We’ll still own our land. At some point in the next 50 years, Tarras will hit a trigger point where it makes sense to invest in developing it into an airport.’’
As a company worth nearly $2 billion (if listed, it would be among the top 20 New Zealand companies), having $45m of land (now leased back to farmers) banked isn’t that significant, Johns stresses.
He has always insisted Tarras can co-exist with Queenstown Airport. But there’s no doubt CIAL’s plan is calculated competition.
Its situation was clearly laid out in its 2020 statement of intent: ‘‘Christchurch International Airport’s position within the New Zealand aviation market remains under pressure, with our growth not keeping pace with national growth, therefore we are losing market share.’’
Bad blood between airports
But the Tarras plan also has roots in bad blood between airports, and outward corporate bonhomie is belied by bitterness.
In 2010, 25 per cent of Queenstown Airport was sold to Christchurch Airport’s biggest rival, Auckland International Airport, the rest remaining with Queenstown Lakes District Council.
‘‘There’s no question that if the good folk of Queenstown had put their shares in Queenstown Airport on the open market, we would have bid for those shares,’’ says Johns. ‘‘That didn’t occur. It was a private sale to Auckland Airport.
‘‘And had there been an invitation to co-invest in new infrastructure in that part of the world, would we have been interested? Absolutely . . . But there wasn’t.’’
Snubbed, Christchurch Airport kept Queenstown in the dark about its Central Otago plans, then sprang the Tarras project on a stunned opponent.
Queenstown Airport believes booming tourist numbers can be soaked up by expanding Wa¯ naka Airport to take jets, at a cost of up to $400m. But everyone agrees there’s no room for Tarras and Wa¯ naka, 20km from each other.
‘‘If you build both airports, one or both of us has to be dumb,’’ states Johns. ‘‘And we’re saying, we’re not dumb. Look, I’m not sitting here saying we made the right decision and someone else made the wrong decision. I’m saying we made an informed decision, and we have a plan.’’
Having spoken extensively with the 11 airlines currently flying into Christchurch, Johns says nothing is keeping him awake, thinking he might have made a $45m blunder. (Local wisdom is that CIAL paid roughly double the land’s value.)
‘‘Right now, there’s a competition of ideas in play. I think as a country we should embrace that, not resile from it.’’
The need to find $600m, or more, to build the airport isn’t keeping him awake either. They could fund it themselves, partner with someone – it’s too early to think about that, he says.
However, since announcing its land purchase, Johns says the company has received numerous approaches from the capital and airport sectors, offering to invest in the project.
‘‘But I just want to be clear – there are no deals in place with any foreign officials or any foreign banks, or any foreign anything, in respect of Tarras.’’
Moreover, claims that CIAL was in financial trouble were plain wrong. True, Covid-19 would have a ‘‘severe’’ effect on its revenue: it had cut operating costs 25 per cent, implemented a wage freeze (including Johns, who received almost $900,000 last year in salary and bonuses), and still forecast an after-tax loss next year.
And true, its debt had risen significantly from $407m in 2018 to about $600m now, primarily to continue investment in its Christchurch airport campus, where the company has spent $750m in the last decade. But the levels were completely reasonable for a $1.8b business, and still left $1.2m of equity.
The fact it won’t pay a dividend to its shareholders ($40m in 2019, and $20m this year) for several years was because of Covid-19 savaging its profits, and had nothing to do with the Tarras purchase.
Johns acknowledges negative rumours were occurring because they don’t have a business plan yet. It might seem extraordinary to spend $45m without this, but he says all the company has is 750ha of farmland and a good idea, and now it wants feedback on how an airport at Tarras could work.
Already it had spoken with about 100 residents, and hoped to come back to the community early next year with details on things like runway layout and flight paths.
But winning over Tarras locals is hard, due to the belief that the farmers who sold their land thought the buyer was a horticulture operation looking to grow cherries. Some of these landowners are distraught that they’ve now helped bring an international airport to the district.
Johns is confident their agent didn’t mislead anyone, as the person dealing with the farmers did not know Christchurch Airport was the buyer.
He acknowledges the sellers now have to live in a community largely opposed to the airport, but nobody had offered to give back the money.
‘‘It was an open-market transaction with a willing buyer, willing seller. Nobody got duped.’’
The man they didn’t count on
Despite not having a detailed plan for the airport, there’s no doubt Christchurch Airport did plenty of research on the Tarras site. But how much homework the company did on those whose properties surround the proposed airport, and whether they came across Chris Goddard’s name, is unknown.
Goddard describes himself as a reformed miner, having spent 26 years working for resources giant Rio Tinto, mostly in Australia. ‘‘I earnt my spurs turning loss-making coal businesses into profit-making coal businesses.’’
He’s mined uranium in Namibia and iron ore in Western Australia. And in that time he’s been involved in building two large airports, and knows all about community consultation.
On February 28 this year, Goddard was farewelled by his Rio Tinto colleagues at a leaving function.
The next day, he flew back to New Zealand and joined wife Donna on their 8ha section bordering the Clutha River, and began planning a sustainable life off the grid in what they thought was paradise. Now, an international airport at the end of their driveway threatens all that.
Given Christchurch Airport had been hard hit by Covid-19, Tarras was a gamble, Goddard says. ‘‘And if they’re gamblers, they’re gambling with someone else’s money – ratepayers and a consortium of bank debt.
‘‘In all the very big businesses I’ve worked for, investing $45 million without a plan is absolutely unheard of. The chief executive would have called me up and called me an idiot if I even tried to spend $1 million on a land acquisition with no plan, and I’d have been hauled into either the state or federal government for a ‘please explain’.’’
But Christchurch Airport appeared to have a different approach to other aviation companies, Goddard says, given how it had to fight to recover from the earthquakes.
‘‘They’ve developed a culture where they go and do stuff.’’
Goddard, 48, looms as a major barrier to CIAL if it wants to ‘‘do’’ Tarras.
Quietly spoken, well prepared, logical and passionate, he has emerged as the spokesperson for Sustainable Tarras, a grouping of those opposed to the airport, which has already held public meetings and presented its views in Christchurch.
Coincidentally, it includes former Environment Court judge Shonagh Kenderdine, who turned down the Mossburn airport proposal in 1994, and now has a house in Tarras.
‘‘It will take the heart and soul out of the Tarras village and school and turn it into just another truckstop on the way to Wa¯ naka or Queenstown,’’ says Goddard. ‘‘Christchurch Airport calls it the gateway to the south. I think they want to make Tarras the doormat of the south.’’
While it might seem easy for a big company to steamroll a sparsely populated Central Otago community, Goddard says his past life has prepared him well for the fight.
‘‘I’ve been the juggernaut, and I know the weak spots in that strategy. The court of public opinion is a real thing. And I have faith in my own capability of getting the court of public opinion to really make the airport’s life shitty if they take that path.’’
His experience with New South Wales’ Bulga people, who forced major concessions on a proposed Rio Tinto mine, gives him confidence. ‘‘They taught me that a David and Goliath battle still has David winning.’’
Not everyone in Tarras is against the airport, Goddard accepts, with some wanting more details. But CIAL’s secrecy in buying the land means locals don’t trust the company.
‘‘When you start with deceit, it takes a lot to claw back the community’s belief you’re a genuine, authentic organisation.’’
Goddard sums up his mood as ‘‘fearful’’. ‘‘The uncertainty is what
gets to you. The uncertainty of what to do next. Life’s for living, not for fighting airports.’’
Donna Goddard worked in IT for years and says she understands the need for change.
‘‘If there was a strategic decision, made across New Zealand, that this is the right thing, then we’d say OK, and do whatever we had to.
‘‘But what we’ve got is an organisation driving a change into this region that doesn’t belong here, and it’s driving this change for the purposes of making money. It’s just such a kick in the guts.’’
Locals in support of change
On the other side of the airport’s land, three kilometres up the Ardgour Valley, Beau Trevathan is scornful. Not of the airport, but those who’ve leapt to oppose it, the newbies and nimbys.
He’s just come off the tractor after a day making baleage. ‘‘Got a little bit achieved,’’ the 69-year-old sighs.
His grandparents arrived here in a horse-drawn wagon in 1913, and he now farms 160ha of dairy support and deer.
When he went to Tarras Primary School there were 80 pupils. Now there are 14. ‘‘What I’ve seen in the last 40 years is a very strong community almost diminished to nothing.
‘‘Not long ago we used to have a tennis club, a rugby club, a cricket club, indoor bowls, a badminton club, smallbore rifle shooting.
‘‘Today we have two clubs in Tarras: a golf club with about 15 active members, and a collie club that meets twice a year.’’
People lived so much of their lives in Wa¯ naka or Cromwell that there wasn’t really a community to split when it came to debating the airport, Trevathan says.
In his mind, the airport would be a godsend, helping farmers export their produce, providing jobs, bringing young families into the district, boosting the school. ‘‘It’ll put it on the map. At the moment, who said it’s on the map anyway. It’s all part of an evolving world. We can’t stop the clock just because we live here and we like the way it was yesterday.
‘‘It’s very easy to jump on the bandwagon and say, don’t do it.
‘‘We went through it all when somebody suggested building a dam on the Clutha River. Now I can’t find anybody who says this valley’s worse off as a result of the Clyde Dam. The old days would still be today, if it wasn’t for the Clyde Dam, and we’d still be in the backwaters.’’
Trevathan’s son, Johnny, is on the farm now, and the fifth generation of Trevathans is due next year. But Beau (‘‘That’s what they called me when I was born, and by the time they came up with ‘Noel George’, nobody wanted to know about that’’) hopes to still be around when the first planes fly into Tarras.
‘‘The opportunities will just be enormous. And we’re not here building a wall, trying to stop something, just for our own selfish interests.’’
Is it what ratepayers want?
Christchurch Airport’s foray has consequences far beyond Tarras.
In Queenstown, mayor Jim Boult is clearly fuming, calling the intrusion ‘‘immoral’’.
Because both Christchurch and Queenstown airports are majorityowned by their councils, Boult says it means one local body is competing against another, ‘‘and I’m not sure that’s what councils are supposed to do. But we’ve been forced into it because our neighbour from a bit further up the island would like to have a share in what’s happening in our part of the world.’’
Ironically, Boult was chief executive of Christchurch Airport from 2009-13, and it’s his successor, Johns, who is now trying to foist widebody jets on a region, Boult says, that’s clearly shown it doesn’t want them.
Boult suggests Christchurch Airport should be making its own city more attractive for visitors, ‘‘rather than try to nick something from their neighbour’s patch’’.
The way he sees it, anyone flying into Tarras will still want to come to Queenstown, 70 minutes away by road, meaning hundreds of millions would need to be spent improving the two routes, over the Crown Range or through the Kawarau Gorge.
This tourist travel, along with workers commuting from Queenstown, Wa¯ naka, or Cromwell to Tarras Airport, would create significant carbon emissions.
‘‘I think it would be a financial and ecological disaster.’’
Even if they reached the limit of flights into Queenstown and Wa¯ naka, ‘‘there’s a perfectly good airport at a place called Invercargill. So why would you go and build another one?’’
(Invercargill has the country’s third-longest commercial runway, would need only modest improvements to regularly handle jets from overseas, and is closer to Milford Sound than is Queenstown – and an hour closer than Tarras.)
Boult predicts a new airport would cost close to $1 billion: ‘‘If you ask me whether I’d put my own money into it – not a show in hell.’’
And he was surprised there hadn’t been more reaction from Christchurch ratepayers, whose airport was spending money on ‘‘a high-risk venture out of their district’’.
Christchurch Mayor Lianne Dalziel, who has refused to discuss the issue with Boult, also refused an interview with Stuff, instead issuing a brief statement saying the council understood the plan, and Christchurch Airport was a standalone business.
Christchurch’s tourism and development head, Joanna Norris, also would not answer questions on the potentially dramatic effect of diverting tourists from Christchurch’s hotels, shops and restaurants to Tarras, saying she hadn’t seen any economic analysis.
City councillor Sam MacDonald understands there is concern about the Tarras proposal, ‘‘but from my point of view, and it’s probably a selfish view, it’s about driving the best return we can for the ratepayer of Christchurch’’.
While he appreciated residents’ frustration about $45m being spent in another province, when their water pipes needed fixing, MacDonald says they have to trust it will pay off.
The mayor at the heart of the controversy is Central Otago District’s Tim Cadogan. ‘‘At the moment, I’m being Switzerland on this one,’’ says Cadogan, who only learned of the Tarras plan 30 minutes before it was announced publicly.
His neutrality is because his council may well decide whether the airport gets resource consent, and also due to the range of views within the region.
‘‘I’ve got fruitgrowers saying to me, ‘Dreamliners flying into Tarras to get cherries to China – what a great thing.’
‘‘But if you’d bought your piece of paradise in Tarras, thinking you’d live an idyllic lifestyle, you’ll have a different view. And councils always get stuck in the middle – I’ve got 23,000 people and 23,000 different viewpoints.’’
A need for a national plan?
The plan to build a new airport, when international tourism has been shut down, has been branded ‘‘madness’’ and ‘‘bizarre’’ by commentators who predict it will be years before the industry recovers.
But do New Zealanders want tourist numbers to return to pre-Covid levels, or exceed them, which is what Christchurch Airport’s plan relies on? In the five years before Covid, there was a 40 per cent increase in the number of international tourists visiting New Zealand, to about 4m annually, with estimates that could grow to 10m-13m by 2050. Queenstown was creaking, with 3.2m visitors (New Zealand and overseas).
A 2019 tourism industry survey showed the consequences of this, with 43 per cent believing international tourism was putting too much pressure on the country, up from 18 per cent only three years before. In Otago that rose to 69 per cent of residents, and 76 per cent in Queenstown.
A majority of New Zealanders felt predicted increases in international tourists were too high.
In December last year, Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment Simon Upton issued a report clearly laying out the pressure tourism was causing, and how increased numbers risked killing the golden goose – the environment that tourists visit New Zealand to see. And last month, Tourism Minister
Stuart Nash strongly called for tourists of higher value, rather than backpackers, parroting the ‘‘value over volume’’ maxim that has pervaded New Zealand tourism discussions for decades, to little effect.
The second part of Upton’s investigation into tourism’s effects will be released in February, but he warns against thinking Covid-19’s pause on international arrivals has changed anything.
Instead, it provided the opportunity to rethink tourism long term. While not being drawn on the Tarras proposal, Upton says turning the tourism tap on again would disappoint him.
‘‘If you want tourism to continue, and you want also to protect the environment, and you want to keep the social licence, then you can’t go on doing it as you have been doing it.
‘‘But I can’t look you in the eye and say there’s not a large future ahead, wrecking the environment. It’s not as if we’re at the last beach or the last mountain, there’s an awful lot of New Zealand out there.’’
In June, the government established the New Zealand Tourism Futures Taskforce to advise it on these issues. But the country has seen a string of similar reports and strategies, full of talk about sustainability and co-ordination and dispersal and planning. And the result was 40-minute queues to take photos at Wa¯ naka’s Roys Peak.
Michael Ross, who has led opposition to Wa¯ naka’s airport’s expansion, says this example of the region’s over-tourism wouldn’t be solved by an airport at Tarras.
Instead, it would have ‘‘a dramatic negative effect’’ on everyone living between Cromwell and Wa¯ naka.
‘‘But the major elephant in the room nobody seems to be talking about is greenhouse gas emissions.
‘‘An airport can say, we’re going to be the most environmentally friendly airport ever built and we’re going to have electric baggage trucks and recycling bins. But by building an airport they enable and permit these great big aircraft to fly with these massive emissions.’’
And Ross laments the lack of any strategy or plan for such important national projects.
‘‘If this is just done on a piecemeal basis with different corporate interests battling for their slice of the golden goose, you could end up with the ludicrous situation where you have six international-capable airports in the South Island.
‘‘That would be utterly absurd, and logistically, environmentally, infrastructurally irresponsible.
‘‘It needs central government to take a strong interest, and work out what’s in the best interests of New Zealand, the best interests of tourism, and the best interests of climate management and environmental impact.
‘‘I mean, are we committed to sustainable tourism? Are we committed to a climate change emergency? What do we want for this precious part of New Zealand?’’
What the authorities say
It would be useful to know the answers to these questions.
However, requests for interviews with five Government ministers covering six relevant portfolios – tourism, infrastructure, transport, climate change, finance, and stateowned enterprises – were declined.
Instead, the ministers offered written statements effectively wiping their hands of the issue, saying it was a matter for Christchurch Airport’s board.
The fact the government owns 25 per cent of Christchurch Airport (and 50 per cent of Dunedin Airport, which could be hit by the Tarras proposal), and appointed two of the board members who approved the Tarras plan, seems unimportant.
It also seems to fly in the face of 2019’s New Zealand-Aotearoa Tourism Strategy, which said: ‘‘The government is taking a stronger role as the steward of the tourism system to improve co-ordination, planning and sustainable funding,’’ and even mentions its role in international air services.
It’s difficult to see how this handson promise fits with the Government’s decidedly hands-off approach when confronted with Tarras airport – one of the largest pieces of national tourism infrastructure proposed for decades.
Moreover, Nash’s statement that he ‘‘expects the wider tourism industry to work together on major structural issues facing the sector’’ appears wildly wishful thinking, given the outright competition between Christchurch and Queenstown airports, and the fact Christchurch hasn’t spoken with any of the three other main airports in the area, or Queenstown’s mayor.
Economist Shamubeel Eaqub says that, for more than 30 years, governments have been indoctrinated to avoid getting involved in such issues, and instead leave it to the market and competition to sort out.
‘‘But I think with Covid, what we’re seeing around the world is there’s a role for government to step in because markets aren’t perfect, because rules and regulations aren’t perfect.’’
While he could understand Christchurch Airport wanting a piece of tourism’s goldmine, Eaqub says New Zealand already has far too many airports for 5 million people.
‘‘If you were a central planner, would you want another airport being built in New Zealand? Of course not. If you took a wider perspective, is it good for New Zealand, is it good for net-zero by 2050? Of course not. So the joined-up thinking isn’t happening yet.’’
He says it’s impossible for the public’s values to be reflected in companies they ultimately own, if government and councils refused to exert any influence on their behalf.
‘‘So we’re disempowered as a population, the government is disempowered by its culture and political norms, and we’re left in noman’s land.’’
Rare opportunity for long-term thinking
Malcolm Johns has ready answers for the critics and doubters – and little doubt in himself.
The bigger, more efficient planes Tarras would allow could reduce carbon emissions by up to 30 per cent per tourist.
Covid-19’s effects would last only two years, and tourist numbers would grow rapidly again, especially given New Zealand was seen as a pandemic oasis.
Tourists will continue coming to Central Otago, and it doesn’t matter where they fly into, they’ll want their photo at Roys Peak.
New Zealand could either cap tourist numbers, or build more infrastructure to deal with them. But there was no industry like tourism that could boost regional employment and generate foreign-paid tax to help pay what’s been spent combating Covid-19 – and that’s always going to be very attractive to any treasury, reserve bank, or government.
While Tarras might suck some tourists from Christchurch, Christchurch Airport’s passengers would still grow as the conference, events and cruise ship market came back on line.
If the existing airports at Dunedin and Invercargill were such obvious alternatives to flying to Queenstown, why hadn’t tourists wanted to go there in the past? And anyway, considering existing airport infrastructure wasn’t his concern.
Of course the project is commercially motivated: ‘‘If there’s no money in it, we’re not going there.’’ It’s just part of growing a business.
It would be a bad look for government to intervene in the business, given Christchurch Airport was required by law and its shareholders to be a standalone company.
When his young tourism company went bust, Johns says he lost the fear of failing, and is now simply motivated by the possibility of succeeding. It has the ring of a Tony Robbins pep-phrase, but Johns says Tarras is a rare opportunity for longterm thinking – something New Zealand seemed scared of when it came to infrastructure.
‘‘I don’t expect to be there, unless someone remembers me and invites me, when the first plane lands there. But I’m damned certain if a plane never lands there, everyone will remember me.
‘‘I don’t have a custodial feeling over this – it belongs to a lot of people. But I’m fully prepared to be accountable for it if it turns out to be a dud.’’
Numerous factors would dictate the project’s progress, many of them beyond Johns’ control.
‘‘And yep, we’ll get flailed along the way and I’ll get called all sorts of different things. But what I know, and the thing that’s important to me, is that I had the courage to have a go.’’
Thinking outside the box
John Hilhorst says building an airport at Tarras is a brilliant idea – as long as you close Queenstown Airport.
For two years, the retired Queenstown teacher has been part of FlightPlan2050, a group calling for Queenstown Airport to be closed, the land used for high-density housing to stop urban sprawl along Lake Wakatipu, and a new airport to be built elsewhere in Central Otago.
The group had also identified Tarras as the best location, and Hilhorst says he was one of the few unsurprised by Christchurch Airport’s move.
The fact Queenstown’s airport company and council had failed to properly investigate this option astounds him.
But it was actually a godsend for them, he says: now, somebody else would pay for a new airport, allowing the council to sell the Frankton airport land and net close to $1b to invest in Queenstown’s infrastructure and services.
Additionally, they wouldn’t need to spend money expanding Wa¯ naka Airport.
Hilhorst likens it to someone needing to extend their house because their family was growing, but not having enough land, so they decide to build another house down the road, with duplicated kitchen and bathroom.
‘‘And then somebody walks in and says, ‘Hey, I’ll build you a house on a bigger section, and I’ll let you live in it for free, for life.’ And you can now sell your house for a s...load of money that you can do a whole lot of good with.’’
Having competing international airports at Queenstown and Tarras would be crazy, Hilhorst says.
But at the moment, decisions were being made by these commercial companies that would have farreaching effects for New Zealand, while the Government said it had no role in ensuring co-ordination and cooperation.
‘‘It’s an absolutely atrocious situation.’’