Cam Slater: Wayne Brown Needs to Stop Whinging

Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown is starting to sound like a cry-bully socialist upset that other people’s money has been taken away from ‘his city’. Instead of crying a river of tears why doesn’t Mayor Brown start doing that for which he was elected: cutting waste from council spending?

There’s more trouble for Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown on the horizon as the Government moves to scrap the city’s regional fuel tax, while Auckland Transport (AT) faces criticism for wasteful and overzealous spending.

Last week, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Transport Minister Simeon Brown confirmed the Government will end the city’s tax of 11.5 cents per litre of fuel on June 30.

Brown said this will leave a shortfall in transport funding for Auckland of $1.2 billion over the next four years and warned projects will be canned as he has ruled out increasing rates to plug the gap.

NZ Herald

Good, stop the whining, it’s annoying, can the projects, move on and stop bludging other people’s money.

New Zealand Herald Auckland SuperCity reporter Bernard Orsman told The Front Page, the Herald’s daily news podcast, Brown has troubles on several fronts.

“He’s got an issue with the Government in terms of axing the regional fuel tax and he’s got issues with Auckland Transport [regarding] the way they go about spending money.

“He’s been trying to sort of rein in Auckland Transport. He wants them to do things – I think the words he uses are ‘better, faster, quicker’ – but Auckland Transport just seems to have this habit of stuffing things up big time with residents and communities… they just keep on repeating the same mistakes.”

As Brown looks to the Government to help fund the city’s infrastructure, AT is ripping up a new raised pedestrian crossing designed to last 40 years that was only installed last year which has so far cost $600,000.

Meanwhile, a busy road linking the suburbs of Westmere and Point Chevalier will now remain closed until the end of April.

AT closed Meola Road on December 15 to coincide with the lowest traffic volumes and assured residents it would be re-opened no later than today, when school and city-bound traffic is back in full swing.

The continued closure has caused huge issues on side streets, with one resident describing it as a “s**t show”.

Orsman said AT had a habit of gold-plating many of its projects.

“Particularly in the inner-city suburbs, where the push to install cycleways has grown into full-blown road upgrades costing tens of millions of dollars.

NZ Herald

What Wayne Brown needs to understand is that AT aren’t in any way part of any solution. They are in fact a large part of the problem.

If I were mayor I’d cancel all those projects, and all the staff associated with them.

Then I’d issue a directive to actually get Auckland moving, faster than 30 km/h…and do it now.

Then I’d hire some students to sit near cycleways for a month, Monday to Friday, and record how many cyclists actually use them. A good case to start with would be the cycleway on Cavendish Drive, Manukau. I’d put good money that the scorecard for cyclists using that piece of road for weeks would look like a row of twenty doughnuts.

Wayne Brown was elected to deal to Auckland Council. So far he’s sat on his hands and maintained the status quo. Start sorting it Wayne, mate, or the voters will sort you out next year.

Cam Slater is a New Zealand-based blogger, best known for his role in Dirty Politics and publishing the Whale Oil Beef Hooked blog, which operated from 2005 until it closed in 2019. Cam blogs regularly on the BFD - where this article was sourced.