In accordance with our, I'll be starting our evening with a, but first, I would just, uh, like to acknowledge, uh, our guests, our politicians, uh, who have come here, uh, who are, who we are all here, uh, to listen to and to hear debate. Uh, as we've seen in recent weeks, uh, the political game is an unforgiving one. The political game is, uh, a tough space to be in, in a very tough arena. Um, I acknowledge, uh, all of you for embracing, uh, this difficult arena for the benefit of those, uh, that you represent and our distinguished guests arena to hear the exchange of thoughts than here in a tertiary institution, uh, and wa better venue within our institution, uh, than the warmth of re with the cold of winter outside, uh, ra. And I'll now bring up Jemima to lead our, And welcome to Ro New Zealand's. I am Jermaine Math, uh, the university's I pro Vice Chancellor Pacific. Um, welcome to the Magnificence. That is our, that this first Auckland issues focused debate of the general election campaign is taking place within our fle is powerfully symbolic Tamaki Makoto is the world's largest Polynesian city, where in fact, one in four Pacific babies are born in Tamaki, Makoto, and of course, Al Ro. New Zealand being a beautiful Pacific Nation, Wapato is a proud part of the Tamaki Makoto community. Tonight we are joined by an audience from that community, including alumni, students, and staff. We also have my amazing colleague, our Vice chancellor, professor Dawn Freshwater with us. Um, Dawn, would you like to stand so we can acknowledge your leadership? And I'm very grateful for that. Um, we are deeply committed to educating people throughout their lives. Equally, we are dedicated to conducting world-leading research, which with peers around the world seeks to resolve global issues. At the same time, we seek to inform and resolve issues at home. Through our research and kickoff startups, our university is committed to pursuing excellence while acknowledging that we do this in a time of uncertainty. Which brings me to our debate today. The general election this year takes place at a time of global uncertainty. There is ai, geopolitics, and climate change. There are global issues, yet they reach right into the lives of each one of us. I saw this firsthand as the relevance of my own research on the nexus between climate change and mental health and wellbeing came into sharp relief following the devastation of the anniversary day floods and cyclone. Gabrielle. Many of the issues to be discussed here today are not new. I'm thinking about transport, congestion, housing, and how the city is funded. These issues have, however, all become more urgent. Then, of course, you can add to that the catastrophic impacts of climate change that we have all experienced as well as safety and crime. These are serious issues that we must all consider as we prepare to vote is dedicated to the city, the region, and New Zealand. We are committed to supporting the democratic process. We are very privileged today to be joined by four prominent and successful members of Parliament. We who are contesting seats in Tamaki Makoto. I would also make the observation that they are all alumni, Shannon Brook, Chloe and Simeon. Thank you for returning to your Alma mata today. A word about these four members of Parliament Labor's Shannon Hel was elected to the seat of North Co in 2020. He chairs, Parliament's, transport and Infrastructure. Select committee has a background working in tertiary education. Brooke Van Valdon is Acts deputy leader and has been a list MP since 2020. She's contesting the Tamaki seat and has a strong policy interest in health, housing and building construction. She sits on Parliament's Business Select Committee and on the Health Select committee. Chloe won the Auckland Central seat for the Green Party in 2017. During her six years in Parliament, she has focused on youth issues and Auckland issues that takes in just about everything. She's a member of Parliament's Finance and Expenditure Select Committee. Samian is National's spokesperson for Auckland and Transport. He is a member of the Transport and Infrastructure Select Committee, and has represented PGA since 2017. We invited Te Maori and New Zealand first to be represented here. Voting opens in just seven weeks with election day only nine weeks away. As most of you in this fale know, a lot can happen in politics in just one week, let alone nine weeks. Yet, what we do know is that among the four mps, that mps that we have here with us tonight, we can expect two of them to be part of the government that has formed. After New Zealanders have voted, there could well be cabinet ministers among them. Let's now get this debate underway for Thank you Jemima Heter. Uh, thank you all for being here this afternoon. Um, a quick word about the format. First, I'll introduce myself. My name is Tim Murphy. I'm the co-editor of newsroom.co nz. Uh, we've worked since we, uh, were founded six years ago with Auckland University, uh, as a partner for content from your academics, uh, and scholars and research people. And it's been very good right through. Uh, in a moment, all four of the mps will have a one moment, one minute, uh, chance to set out their connection and hopes for this city. We'll then move to four areas of, I think, strong public interest. Uh, they're not new as Jemima said, but they're the ones that keep coming up when we get to voting, both for central and local government, uh, how we run and fund Auckland climate change, uh, and manage retreat housing and transport. And we're very happy for each of you to challenge, uh, and query what you both, you all say, uh, we're happy for debate. In this debate. Uh, we'll have around 15 minutes for questions, uh, which will be via the Slido app, uh, that you've had instructions, um, at your seat. Um, I'm anticipating high caliber questions from an audience here at a university that's 68th and the qss rankings globally. Uh, and with so much research and scholarship here into these areas that we are addressing, uh, the questions will be selected and passed to me, and I'll ask them on your behalf. Uh, we do, uh, ask throughout these proceedings that everybody respects, uh, the speakers, uh, their views, their presence here, uh, in the way that the university always has done, um, and obviously engage in the spirit of this beautiful f Pacifica. Uh, before we get started, uh, just one matter of, um, administration. I'm told that on behalf of his party, uh, Simeon Brown would like to come down off the stage and confiscate all your phones. Thank you. Uh, no, seriously, please, can you put your phones to silent or off now and we can all have an undisturbed hour in a bit. Thank you very much. Send that off somewhere. Um, I'll now welcome the speakers in alphabetical order, uh, to address you on that one minute on what they personally want for Auckland. Um, I've gone alphabetical with surnames, so Sime and your first off, first cab off the rank. Great. Do you want me to? Well, uh, good afternoon and evening. Thank you very much for the opportunity to be here, and it's great to be here on the behalf of the National Party. Uh, my name's Simeon Brown, member of Parliament for PGA in East Auckland. I'm a proud Aucklander, someone who's lived here for 20 years, but this city is going backwards under this government and needs change. We've got crime which has increased significantly wait times at our hospitals are going backwards. Congestion on our roads, uh, is getting worse. And the public transport projects, this government said the pipeline has become a pipe dream called Light rail National will get Auckland back on track by delivering the infrastructure we need, getting, restoring law and order, and making sure that we have the public services that we need as citizens of the city. So this city can get back on track. While I'm asking for your party vote for National on October 14th. Thank you very much. Thanks, Shannon. Uh, Auckland is, are finding it tough at the moment, post pandemic. And of course, uh, some of the challenges are sitting at the cost of living with families too. But we all know that for many, many years and decades, we've been impacted by congestion in the city in Tamaki Makoto. And that's exactly why our government has invested in a lined up integrated transport network from one end of Auckland to the other. That's gonna change the way that we get around the city. That's gonna reduce the emissions, uh, that we make through our transport fleet. When we come to the cost of living that is impacting our fa our families. We've got to continue the work that our government has done. We've got to lift wages. We've got particularly got to continue to lift the minimum wage to lift benefits so that people can operate, can put good food on the table for their children. And lastly, I come back to crime. Recently. We have, of course, all been concerned about the law and order challenges that our city faces, but what we can't do is go backwards and focus on locking people up at this university. What I learned is that we've gotta focus on rehabilitation. We've got to focus on the drivers of crime in the first place and what we're gonna do to prevent it. Thank you, Chloe. We're all standing up. Uh, my name's Chloe Swarbrick. I am very proud to represent my home and community of Auckland Central for the last three years. And I put my hat back in the ring to do it again for the next three, if you'll let me. I, I also am very proud to represent the Green Party of Turtle in New Zealand. Um, I'll keep it relatively short and say that the reason that I got involved in politics just after actually graduating from this university and running a small little art gallery, coffee and donut shop in Mountain Teter. And I was working out in 95 B F M, uh, and really upset at the fact that so many of my friends were moving overseas where they could earn 22 bucks an hour to bag supermarket groceries, find the time to do the things that they loved on the side, live in a city that had functional public transport, and affordable housing. We can have all of those things here. We have the people, we have the talent, we have the capacity for innovation, but we have not made the decisions over the past few decades that have enabled those things to flourish. That is why I am super proud of the fact that we continue to advocate for evidence-based policies for people and planet. And I'm looking forward to getting into it. Thank you. Thank you. And Brooke, please. Oh, thank you very much. It's wonderful to Be back, back at Auckland University. Look, I've been spending a lot of time out on the streets talking to people recently. And one thing that I feel is everywhere in our society is a feeling of anxiousness and hopelessness because our country is going backwards. I know too many people who are going overseas. A lot of people from the generation above mine are really worried because their kids are threatening to move overseas as well. And we have to have more hope that we can be an aspirational society where everybody can own their own home, have a good paying job, have access to good education for their kids, and have access to a GP when they actually need it. The biggest concern that I hear, though, is a feeling of lawlessness. People do not feel safe, and I think that's wrong. I talk to too many people who say they no longer let their kids go to the park by themselves. They don't even catch public transport anymore to go to their jobs on the weekends, go and meet their friends because they don't even feel safe at the bus stops. People do not feel safe. And we've got to have a victim centric society. We've got to rebalance crime and law and order so our streets are safe again. That's the biggest concern that I think we have to face, making sure we have a safe society and one where people actually feel like they have a place. Thanks, Brooke. And I, I should say that law and order and public safety is already on the agenda from the Slido questions, which won't be a surprise to any of you. Um, which, so we will get to cover those issues again later on. Uh, turning to topic one, which is fixing Auckland, um, Auckland Super City formed 12 years ago. It was a combination of a lot of councils and a regional environmental council onto one body. Uh, it has, as we know, a number of high profile commercial CCOs of which Auckland Transport will be the most, uh, not notable, probably. Um, it has no direct Maori representation. It has an independent Maori statutory board, and its options for raising money, uh, are limited. And for the future of Auckland, uh, it has said, and the various mayors and regimes, it needs to break out of the current ability only to rate or to charge and fees and charges. So Auckland, according to the current mayor, is broken. Uh, he's going to fix it. It's living beyond its means. He also says that central government should ask Auckland what it wants, provide the money, and then get out of the way. Shannon, as Labor's representative and a government representative. Now, are you going to get outta Wayne's Way? No serious question. Have you met me? A serious question. What can, um, the government do about the structure and the funding? What can any government face with Auckland's constraints bring to the table that that will make a difference? Yeah, I'm, I'm highly aspirational for Tam Makoto Auckland to be the, the productive, best, uh, global city that we can possibly be. We need to work in partnership between central and local government, uh, ordering, uh, central government and dictating to them what they can and can't do in New Zealand's largest city is just not realistic. I think certainly a partnership approach is required, and I think the majority of councilors around the table are up to working, uh, with both central government, but working with community and businesses to plan for our future. Auckland transport's a really good example where we need to take up to, uh, when we start to look at the Integrated transport network, that we've got some congestion challenges and emissions challenges that we've gotta get on top of. That requires actually for both central and local government to take a step back and for us to agree on an overall plan together on how we're gonna, uh, achieve those two things, and particularly how we're going to fund them. That's gonna have to be a growing up conversation together to say, uh, yes, new Zealanders and Auckland is, we've got really high expect expectations around what we want to see from our transport network, but we haven't quite had the honest conversations with ourselves on how we want to fund that. And I think the regional fuel tax is one example of some of the kickback that comes in there. So we need a mayor who is able to work with central government that's important and vice versa. That is the way forward. And when we talk about water infrastructure in our largest city too, that's another example where we've gotta work in partnership because 9% in our in increase in our water rates just isn't gonna, uh, cut it for most families here in Tamaki. Okay, thank you. Simeon National wanted an inquiry into Auckland, uh, in 2020 at the election saying that it was broken. Is it still, and what's wrong? Or is this mayor and the path he's going down sort of answering some of your concerns back then? Well, I think what we've seen in the last, um, six years under this government, as the government's frankly ignored Auckland, they've talked a big game around, um, this integrated transport, uh, network. I haven't seen light rail yet. I've seen $140 million being spent on consultants and contractors and working groups and advertising. But actually, this government hasn't been able to make those big decisions. And we've had six wasted years. We haven't had the transport investment. We need EastWest link, canceled Mill Road, canceled. Uh, we, we haven't had the progress on the Northwestern Busway we should have had under this government. So Shannon can talk big game, but they've had six years when nothing's actually happened. So what we are saying is, uh, we fundamentally respect Auckland Council. Um, we are open to working with them, uh, and working with the mayor. And what we are proposing is to enter into, uh, city and regional deals with local government to have a mature, uh, 10 year plan focused conversations where central government lines up their funding with local government, uh, so that we can actually get things done or have a shared idea around what the priorities are, and then back that up with the funding to be able to actually deliver. And so that's what we are proposing. Uh, we're open to working with the mayor around the conversations around Auckland Transport. I'd say most Auckland is would say Auckland Transport is an organization which is not, uh, benefiting Auckland in the way it could be. Um, so we need to work around the structure, and that's what we proposed at the last election. We're open to those conversations because ultimately it's about outcomes. We need to reduce congestion, not just talk about it. We need to deliver projects, not just talk about them. That's what a national government will do. Okay, Brooke. Um, it was an ACT mp, uh, Rodney Hyde who gave us and brought us the Super City 12 years ago. Do you think it's still fit for purpose? Has it created a super city? Is it super, uh, what's X's view now on, on, on what the governing situation in Auckland is? Look, I, I find it really hard to be, um, accountable for things that happened when I was still at high school. Um, but look, I, I think we actually do need to have a good conversation about transport and congestion within Auckland. Um, we don't have good transport networks in Auckland, and we do need more investment. I mean, we need more investment in infrastructure throughout the whole country. But my real concern is it's very easy for governments and politicians to stand up at podiums and say, we want more roads and we want more highways. And then nothing ever gets built because it's easy to say, oh, that will happen in 6, 9, 10 years, and then nothing ever happens. Uh, so we've actually said we need to have proper regional partnerships with local government and central government for a 30 year plan that's actually taking into consideration consultation with the local community to then say, what is reasonable for government to help fund? And what else would you like that we could then go to open market and ask other infrastructure companies, whether they'd like to invest over a 30 year time period to build a new road that will get more roads built using tolls, um, but would make sure that there's always a publicly accessible alternative. But it would get stuff built rather than saying, we'll build it, but in 30 years, nothing actually happens. Okay. We're strayed a little bit into our transport topic there, but of course, it, it all rolls into each other, doesn't it? Uh, especially in the state of the city at the moment, Chloe, in terms of the governance and the structure and how Auckland can raise or be given from the taxpayer funding to help invest its way out of the problems it's got, what's, what's the green's position on this? Oh, so many things. How long have we got? This is a constitutional, uh, discussion as well. I mean, local government is a creature of statute, uh, local government act 2002. And we see that, uh, being politically vulnerable to the oscillation of political cycles with, you know, tinkering around the four wellbeings, for example, the last national government took it out, this government put it back in, and now we've got an Auckland Council that's kind of trying to figure out how to interpret that, and that as well is kind of vulnerable to the political cycle at a local government level. So I think first and foremost, uh, we actually have to fix the way that local government operates. And we've, uh, multiple governments across successive decades of commission reports like the Shan inquiry about a decade ago, which told us that we have to have a form of revenue sharing between local and central government. It was ignored. We then had a review of the Shannon Inquiry by the Productivity Commission tabled Parliament last term, which said exactly the same thing that was ignored. Uh, and we've just had the future of local government review chaired, I believe, by, uh, the former deputy mayor Penny Hols, who said that we need to have revenue sharing between local and central government. So there's a fundamental problem, I think, where local government's mandate has continued to grow. It's become the whipping boy of successive central governments, but its resources to actually deal with those issues has not grown. So there needs to be revenue sharing, whether that's in the form of G S T sharing or other options that are on the table. Absolutely, we should get into it. Uh, but then there's also the issues with the Democratic deficit at a local government level. We need to tackle the fact that right now we farm out our local government elections to private companies. Uh, they do not have an incentive to do much else than make the money outta facilitating those elections. Uh, and that in turn results in all of the issues that we see with, for example, the postal ballot system. Um, and yeah, I could, I could go on about that ad nauseum, but in a nutshell, um, I think that we saw all firsthand, uh, the challenges with the super city when confronted with the crises of the Auckland Anniversary floods. Um, yeah. Okay. Well, we'll actually move straight to that now because the, the next topic is climate change and manage retreat, uh, and how we deal with those. And they were obviously thrust into, into the faces of those, uh, who may not have been, uh, urgent about dealing with climate and, and flooding and, and the rest of it. Um, how do we act to reduce global warming and keeping with the, the council's climate action plan, um, Titi, how do we also improve the planning now to not end up in positions where, uh, Aucklands have been been living and, and now can't live anymore. Um, and also the, the, the, the whole area of payment for managed retreat and helping out Aucklanders who are affected by what will be more and more of these storms. Um, I'll start actually, uh, Chloe with you, did you think that climate pan plan that Auckland formed two or three years ago was enough? And how should the, the go central and local government now work faced with the financial kind of obligations we've discovered since January, February, A lot in that as well. So, uh, classic political panel where you're gonna hear from all of us kind of excerpts and hot, uh, hot takes on these things. But please go and look at the devil in the detail of all of our policies on these things. So yeah, just at as much as we can do, yeah. Uh, in a few minutes. So the first thing that we have to do is investigate how we're building this city. Uh, over the past few decades, we have sprawled further and further outwards that has cost all the more in terms of the infrastructure that Simeon's been, um, kind of, you know, rightfully, I think pointing to, uh, not having been invested in at a national level. We have a hundred billion dollars infrastructural deficit over the last 30 years, and it's estimated another a hundred billion dollars in the next 30 years over that time horizon of 60 years, $200 billion. And we have to be honest with ourselves as a country, are we willing to pay for that? And if we are willing to pay for it, well, we have to look at a fair attack system, or we have to look at greater levels of comfort with regard to our debt to G D P ratio. And again, there's a lot that I could say on that. So, uh, what it looks like to build climate ready infrastructure means, uh, density and density done well, it means looking at sponge cities, and again, there's examples of this stuff overseas. Uh, it does not mean trading off adaptation versus mitigation because actually meaningful climate action is both. And here in Sar Makoto, half of our emissions profile comes from transport. We know that we are also wasting $1.25 billion per year in congestion in this city alone. And we are not gonna fix that with just another lane, guys, that is induced congestion. Okay? So what we need is evidence-based policies. And I cannot, for the life of me understand the peculiar exceptionalism that we hear from the National Party. We hear from Talk Back Radio that tells us we are different from every other jurisdiction in the world, regardless of cultural differences that has managed to implement these evidence-based policies, which in turn have reduced congestion, improved people's wellbeing. And also, guess what, it's great for business because when people are meaningfully meandering and engaging and not using spaces as a thorough fear, but moving throughout and within, it's great for everybody. And it builds community. That in turn, is also a massive co benefit for reducing crime. Very quickly over the, over the past six months, have you been encouraged or discouraged by the reaction of local and, um, central government to some of these issues like Room for Water for removing people from floodplains and some of the planning things that have come in? Has it, has it been enough yet? First thing I'd say about, uh, room for Water, I, I think that's the title of it. Uh, the Auckland Council Plan is, the really interesting thing there is that, uh, the, the Mayor's Promise was to stand against three waters. And my understanding is that it's paid for by the Three Waters transition. Uh, but anyway, that aside, uh, I actually think that it's, uh, has some really great ideas in it. The problem is how we are properly going to pay for it, and also how we're going to reign in the sprawl that we are seeing. And I'm really disconcerted by the consistent advocacy from both the National Party and the Labor Party for continual building of more and more roads. 'cause we heard from the Prime Minister on television the other week that money doesn't grow on trees. I mean, I would say it's been a fair tax system, but it turns out that money grows on roads. 'cause no one has to have a revenue plan to pay for it. Oh, we do. We'll come back. So do we. We will, we Can come back. But anyway, We've got a revenue system, system to pay for roads. We'll be talking, we are gonna talk roads, roads and, and fewer roads, if you like. Later on. Let's connect to houses too. Um, quickly, Brooke act probably is being less urgent on climate change than other parties at this, um, stage here. I, I disagree with you on that. Uh, well, certainly the impression has been that the, both the risks and the need for prevention and so on haven't been as front of mind. Are they more urgent and acts mind now since what we saw earlier this year in terms of Auckland? Look, I I think we've always been clear, uh, that we do need better infrastructure investment. And I think the flooding this earlier this year made it really apparent how poor our Auckland infrastructure is to cope with basic rain runoff. You know, um, I'm part Dutch and the way that I look at it is the Netherlands is literally called the lowlands. It's the translation. And the entire country's been under water for its existence. You know, if we are going to have cities where we're going to have more rain and more climate change events, um, we can actually invest in adaptation an infrastructure that works. It's, it doesn't have to be one or the other. I think it's more important for us to say, let's invest in infrastructure so our cities don't, um, struggle. Um, the way I look at it though is I've got a member's bill called the G S T sharing bill, and it says every time a new home goes into a local area, the council should get money from central government to help pay for infrastructure. And it's an enduring way for the councils to get a revenue stream to make sure that you do have more investment in housing in our areas. But it goes hand in hand with infrastructure investment as well. And I think that's what's been holding us back as a city. We haven't been investing in infrastructure at the same time. We've been allowing for more housing to, to build in our areas, and that's what's holding us back. Um, but I I, I do wanna take the point that I talk to a lot of young people who feel completely hopeless when it comes to climate change. And I think we're doing a real disservice to young people, and especially allowing this anxiety to grow, which makes young people feel like it's the end of the world which can adapt to climate change events. There is infrastructure that can help us do this. There'd probably be those. And I saw a little poster actually on a street sign just on Simon Street walking here today, uh, from, uh, I'm presuming a younger, uh, audience of students talking about the need for, uh, climate action and civil resistance because of the blah blah blahing on climate. That in fact, it's not that a service is not in in making alarm, but it's in responding, not responding to real concern with seem necessary. Well, we, we do have to respond to climate change, but I wanna see us respond in a very realistic way. You know, we, we can't be world leaders and make ourselves economically vulnerable. It's just not a sustainable position. Yes, we do have to play our part on climate change. Would You like to be economically Absolutely. Fiscally, Absolutely. We have to play our part on climate change, but we don't wanna decimate our economy at the same time. Correct. I So if you, if You'll lemme finish, it's important for us to reduce our emissions in line with our top five trading partners. So we do reduce emissions, but we're not reducing them so fast that we simply push emissions overseas and we actually end up making ourselves worse off. Global emissions stay the same and our economy suffers. Correct. That's where the green party falls over a lot of the policy propositions, just shift economy to another country, help someone else out, don't actually do much for the overall emissions. Let's keep with the emissions trading scheme and reduce in line with our trading partners. We are, we are coming to this end of the table, but I was gonna say, we, we could have a debate about carbon leaching about free allocations in the U t s and everything else, but actually I was just hoping, 'cause I'm sure we'll hear it as a refrain or an excuse from, you know, many, uh, here about the economy. Could we all just define the economy, please? That's another debate. Again, how many debates you want. I, I mean, I just like, seriously, because you hear from Brooke there that we need to not make ourselves economically worse off or ever. And I just, I really want to understand what it is that we are talking about when we're talking about economically worse off. Because G d p as a metric has failed us. Right. You know, invented the 1920s by Simon Kirson. Its took it to the US Congress and was like, Hey, here's a really good way to measure economic transactions. But God forbid, do not use it as a measure of what he called welfare, what we now call wellbeing. Because G D P simply measures the number of transactions. It doesn't measure the quality of way those transactions, whether we actually want them in the first place, the distribution of those transactions. And we've seen G D P continue to trend upwards while we have the greatest rates of wealth inequality on this. Is, is the, this is the green party Nirvana planet is that suddenly you can pay for all of the infrastructure that you want and that you can mitigate and adapt, but you don't have a plan to actually pay for it. And, and Brooke, look At our tax plan. It's called a wealth tax. It raises Well, ultimately $14 billion dollars. Well, Norway put in place a wealth tax, and then all the wealthy people left the country, they had to put an exit tax in place to stop them from leaving. So the point is, you can have all these dreams. It ain't gonna work if you don't have a productive economy where people can get a job, job and actually get ahead, pay tax and contribute to that. That is ultimately what an economy Pays. Only if they're working, but not if they're accumulating wealth. And that's the distortions inside of Our tax system. Everyone contributes and, and everyone contributes in our country. And all, All, All the greens will do is push aspirational New Zealanders to Australia, and we will become a poorer country. Another, no, we Want aspirational New Zealanders that come from poorer backgrounds. We wanna support aspirational New Zealanders that come from all over This country, not just go everywhere. Everywhere I go, everywhere I go, I'm guaranteed to meet some young person who is saying they are leaving for Australia next year. If this government is reelected, we need to stop that. Oh, Can tell you the number. People terrify the National Act government. Shannon wants to come in here. The, the thing is, national wants all the infrastructure in the world. Right. They don't have a plan to pay for it. And under their tax cut scheme, they won't be able to pay for the infrastructure that our city requires. They've got no plan in place. What our government has done, coming back to your question, is the $6 billion investment in the National Resilience Plan, what that's done for KO Makoto Auckland Council has enabled, uh, council to get out a locally led response, albeit we would like it faster. Yeah. How many houses To categorize, Hang On. How many houses have been Now to, to categorize, so to categorize the needs of every single impacted household, uh, in Auckland's post flood, right. That gives them the, they that will give Auckland as options on what it's another working group, what they do next. These guys actually are arguing about, you know, a against that response, well, actually this is what Mayor Brown asked for. He wants investment from government for a locally led response. That's exactly what we've done. We do want it faster. Similarly, when we come back to water infrastructure, national enact have fought against us on every single piece of policy. As we've tried to address the city's said policy issue on water infrastructure. We've gotta accelerate the upgrade of our water infrastructure to be more cli climate resilient and respond to the weather events that we're getting there. So these guys have fought and fought and fought against every climate change response policy and legislation that has gone through in the house in the past three years. EVs are another example, and we can debate that, but you can't sit here and pretend that you care about climate change. You've got response subsidizing pay for it, and you're not up for supporting legislation. What the sector wants to see from us is us to work together as parliamentarians. They want a longer term plan and they want investment up to $170 billion in the infrastructure across our country. Um, Simon, I'm not sure you want to go to Tesla's actually, but, um, National's. National's signatory, or you've agreed to the Paris Emissions targets, but there just seems to be reluctance and Shannon's painting in a very stark way to actually get on board with some of the initiatives that will be needed to meet those emissions reductions. Well, we, and that applies to Auckland as well, but why the reluctance and has what's happened this year given you guys a bit more urgency and what your response needs to be? Well, well, Well first and foremost, we're committed to the emissions trading scheme, which prices and caps emissions in the economy and ultimately will be the biggest driver for change to reduce emissions in New Zealand. What labor talks about is then using those revenues to go and subsidize companies which are already, uh, such as BlueScope scale, which would al already making that transition and using the money that people are paying to do what those companies should already be doing. So ultimately, yes, we are committed, but we need to use the emissions trading scheme to do the heavy lifting. And then we need to make sure that government gets out of the way. And we've released our Electrify New Zealand policy, which is about doubling the amount of renewable energy in New Zealand. And the primary way to do that is not to go and spend billions of dollars, because that's what labor and greens are very good at, is spending billions of dollars. But get the regulation outta the way. In New Zealand, it takes an average of eight years to get a consent to build a wind farm. It only takes two years to build it, eight years to consent it. We are never going to become a hundred percent renewal or, uh, energy or even close if those rules and regulations aren't dealt with. And there's rules and regulations right through the economy that we need to be dealing with so we can actually build the infrastructure we need to adapt to be able to grow the amount of renewable energy. If we're gonna deal with these challenges, that's what national will be focused on. How The heck does government get out of the way when our planet's at stake? Right. Well, I just told you so. It requires Bold, bold leadership. Well bold leadership from a lot of people. That includes government, that includes Maoris. Your bold leadership hasn't even been able to Auckland Light Rail. That's the reality. Your bold leadership said it would be done to Mount Roscoe by 2021. It hasn't even left the first station That compares to your plan. That doesn't have a plan. Well, we started, we started City Rail Link. We're coming to trans, We quite the Auckland Rail Network. I mean, And we won't invest in it. Well, we started those programs. I mean, they getting Pre tax cuts that cannot pay for the infra infrastructure that our city needs. You can't do it Simeon. Well, Stuff that's a cool story, but it's not true. Um, if, if I may, there is one area where I think we, we have to do better and, and Simeon's, right? The government spends an awful lot of money on climate change policies that won't actually do anything. It's just a climate change minister telling people that they're good or bad based on their personal activities, saying that Ute owners are bad people. Um, tes owners are great and should be subsidized. You know, James Shaw says that maybe we should cu the number of cows that farmers should have. Well, so did scientists. I think. No, I think we've gotta be more accepting of another. Well, there some reality Be farmers in Argentina Will be very happy with that. And I'll give, I'll give you my example. If you think of farming, there is huge amounts of innovation in scientific progress that's occurring. There are things like methane inhibitors, little power, uh, pills and injections that can go on cows, reduces the methane that they produce. Um, you've got rye grasses, which we could plant in our soil, the regulation, and they reduce the amount of methane produced by cows when they're doing milk production. We can have a economy with an agricultural sector, of course, that the Greens party wants to harm and make harder or we can actually allow for more innovation. That's another way of helping with the climate change. Um, problem. It, it's not about just trying to paint people as bad or good and subsidize and tax and regulate. It's allowing for more innovation to get out of the problem. And look, we could go on, as we all pointed out. And, and, and climate is one of those omni, um, subjects that covers all the other subjects and more. So we just could have the whole debate on this, but we need to move on. Um, and, and all of these that follow will also have, uh, strong implications for the climate as well. Uh, our next topic is housing and intensification. Mm-hmm. Um, it's been the highest profile issue in local body elections, uh, and, and general elections as well. Uh, I was saying to Chloe earlier that, um, seven years ago I was on a stage with her when she was standing for the Mayor Mayoralty of Auckland. Uh, and then housing was an acute issue of public interest. So it, it remains, um, in terms of central government, uh, all parties except for ACT, supported a new law to force the main metro councils to greater density of housing multi-level blocks as a matter of Right. It's still going through the planning process in Auckland. It's been delayed now with the flood, uh, planes and the housing and planning implications there. And now, national is just creeping back a bit, uh, from the cross party accord to put some conditions on that new push for intensification. So the Auckland Housing Solution is, is back as an election issue. I'll start with you, Brook Van Velden Act stood aside when this law was passed, the cross parties, uh, why, and, and is Nationals residing now a little from that, uh, an aspect of that that you see as proof that ACT was correct in the first place. Absolutely. You know, I look at us as being the beacon of light and, um, and national. That Was a softball question then. National, I hope don't get too dizzy, but they found the direction of travel. Um, So why did you stand against it at the start? Look, We, we stood against it because we actually talked to people in the construction industry, people in council, everyone all the way from planning and consent is all the way through to the actual people who build homes. And they said, this law is just gonna create chaos on our streets. We don't have the infrastructure or the plans for this. Um, yes, it's nice theoretically to think that you could build just whatever you want, wherever you want. But for Auckland Council, you've then got to ask the question, well, how do we make that align with infrastructure upgrades? How do we make it align with transport networks? Um, and if you've got Auckland Council with infrastructure plans for 30 years, transport plans for 30 years, the Auckland Unitary plan, letting them know where they should intensify around network, network corridors and transport corridors, pepper potting everywhere. Three three story home would just lead to sewerage on the streets, literally pipes bursting where the upgrades were never intended to happen. So was it your view, act view that in fact, the Auckland unitary plan that was already in place was enough and a more wasn't needed for housing? The That's right. The Auckland unitary plan already has a guide for 900,000 homes over a 30 year time period. That's enough homes for a lot of people. This law wouldn't have actually built any more homes. It would've just built them in areas that had never been planned for intensification. So you'd end up with more homes in areas where the pipes and upgrades weren't actually planned for, and that would just lead to chaos. You wouldn't end up with more homes overall just in areas that the council hadn't planned for it. Okay. Sim I'll turn to you now because of, um, we've just discussed your party. Did national see the light on this? Have you followed Acts lead and, and in coming back from what was a clear, uh, and firm cross party accord on this? Well, I think firstly there's a, I think everyone here would agree we need to build more houses. And that was our intention in supporting that legislation. But the reality, you're listening to councils and local communities, uh, the issues with that, uh, legislation, uh, significant in terms of what Brook says around how it, uh, it spreads the, the intensity in right throughout the communities rather than having it more focused. And so what we've said is, look, we're gonna give council some choice. They can still use that tool if they like. Um, we're gonna require them though to zone for 30 years of growth. And that will have to be immediately zoned, uh, to ensure that we do have that availability of supply, of readily available land, whether that's within city boundaries or greenfield so that we can get more houses built. It'll, but it'll be the council's choice around whether or not to use the M D R S three by three rule rules. As part of that, we've also said, look, we're open to, um, more intensification along existing rapid transit corridors. And at the moment we supported the, uh, the N P S U D, which increased, I think to six floors around rapid transit. We are open to going, uh, further around rapid transit because we see there's significant opportunity, uh, for more housing around train stations, around bus stations. And that's an important part of getting the balance right in, in the way we, uh, grow our cities. And I think no one here argues with that. That's pretty straightforward. And except that, isn't it that the the main transport corridors can have more intensity. Yeah. And look, I think we need to look overseas and see what they do to actually develop those. And I mean, for instance, out my way, they're building the Eastern bus way and there's literally very little thought going into how to actually do the, do the developments in around those stations. So do we need to be looking at a better approach to urban development authorities partnering between central and local government to capture some of the value uplift? Yes. Uh, build, build those houses and get things done. Uh, get the regulations out of the way. I think we need to be open to those conversations. They do it really well in places like Singapore, uh, uk, other countries. We need to be looking at how we can do that here in New Zealand as well. Are you talking about a new, um, level of, of, uh, administration here? Another No, I'm, I'm saying government. I'm Just talking about A tax. No, I'm, You know, urban development, ministry urban development authorities are, well, The powers, the powers already exist with Kaga Aura and with Nuku. So it's a question of where those powers should sit, but there needs to be a partnership approach between central and local government to actually help unlock that, unlock that housing. Um, we're, we're open to having those conversations. And value, value capture is about saying we government makes investments and puts in the billions of dollars where private land landowners benefit from that investment. They should help contribute towards it. Right Through that, uh, through those tools. Let me Introduce him to capital gains tax. Next Come to you, Chloe Shannon, obviously, um, you know, you guys are the incumbents. You had a, a a deal with national that looked like there was gonna be sort of a bipartisan or a multi-party agreement to get this thing through. How disappointed are you and, and your own area, uh, or in fact, did you sense there was some pushback from, um, citizens and, and, uh, rate payers and householders about how far you'd gone? Well, no. You, what, what we saw at the time was Nicola Willis and Megan Wood stand up and yeah. And do a joint, uh, announcement on our collective, uh, commitment to building houses in this country to address our housing crisis. That was, uh, significant for New Zealand at the time. And what that gave was certainty to the sector so that they could plan, uh, decades in advance to get on top of the housing crisis that we're experienced. Um, so they have walked away and I'm disappointed by that. And I think the, the invitation is always open for them to come back to the table to commit again, refine it if we need to, but let's get on and build houses. I'm blessed in North Coat that I have one of the best housing examples in the country that has spanned multiple governments that hasn't, that's gone from building 320 old state houses into, uh, being on track for 1700, uh, mixed model public houses, uh, first time buyers in market rental. That's not only built houses there, but it's rebuilt a whole com uh, intensified community that we wouldn't have been able to do if we had done it in bits. It's rebuilt recreational, uh, uh, facilities. It's put a new water infrastructure that was incredible over the flood events. It's rebuilt new schools, but it's really a wonderful example of how collectively we actually need to plan for pop population growth in our largest city and get on top of the housing crisis and ensure that we continue to build on this government's record of 13,000 public homes. We need more. We're still short of stock. And so it's really, let's get over the politics and move on and get on and build houses, Which is a good point to come to you, Chloe. Uh, it, there probably was a case that in this housing accord that, that voters, residents thought, well, here's one thing, we've finally got the politics out of it for now. Uh, it seems to come back. Hmm. Um, how did you react to that and, and did the greens, because I think greens were advocating for this kind of thing a lot earlier than the main parties. Mm-hmm. Um, how much risk is there to, to what needed to happen? Not happening now? Well, it's incredibly gutting 'cause it means now we're kind of in this place of stasis where it's completely unclear what's gonna happen subsequent to the election. Of course, we're all campaigning for one outcome. Uh, but yeah, I mean, we have one of the biggest cities in the world land mass wise, and there has been a doggedly concerted effort over the past few decades to sprawl out into all of it. And that comes at the cost of greater carbon emissions, more congestion, people further away from their family members, from their community access to education and job opportunities and otherwise. And it also decimate our fertile soils necessary for food resilience. It's stupid and it's the way that we've been planning our city for decades. And now to see it walk back that we had some glimmer of light, uh, it it's, it's gutting. It's gutting. Um, yeah. And I, I dunno, you know, I, I said, uh, in caucus on that day, I dunno if it was just cynical looking at perhaps some of the marginal seats in Auckland and, you know, national Party sitting down, it happens. They have the same housing spokesperson as their, uh, campaign manager, uh, and saying, you know, special character areas, et cetera. Maybe, maybe this is the thing to do, either cynical or in the most least charitable way of looking at it, it's just cowardice because it's, the reason that we've ended up with these issues is because there has consistently been a kowtowing to the smallest but loudest minorities, which is why we've ended up with this inertia at a local government level as well. Well, About making sure government moving forward. Well, I mean, Auckland needs a bold government moving forward. Yeah. They'll get the National party. This is very difficult example because yes, absolutely we want to protect heritage housing special character we need to work on too. But at the end of the day, we need government and leadership in the city and our country that is gonna stand up and make good decisions and invest in them and put policies in place in order to get things done. And that's what we've been doing. But if I give You, give, I'll give you an example of where the M D R Ss, uh, and one of the is a is a challenge in East Auckland. There is a part of East Auckland, which is currently single house zone. And the, uh, stormwater runs through people's backyards because it was built at a time when there they weren't putting it in pipes. Now council says it's gonna cost billions of dollars to put that underground so that you can do three by three. So the choice is, uh, do you give the council more flexibility, which is our policy, or do you force three by three development, which means the stormwater, the wastewater and everything won't work in that community. I'm on the side of saying let's give councils more choice, but also have a 30 year requirement on them to zone, uh, for 30 years worth of growth within the existing boundaries and outside those boundaries so that we can have the housing we need. This is not the Huge, if I just finish my point, because just this is really important to what Simeon's saying, what Simeon's outlining there with regard to infrastructural issues, and also what Shannon's just said with regards to special character. Those can be considered under the housing enabling legislation. They're called qualifying matters already done. Yeah. So the other thing to note is, is that the qualify Simeon, to finish my point please. The Qualified matters need to be a regional significance on Local significance. So the other point, infrastructure Is not a qualifying matter in that Regard. So the other point is, when we're talking about 30 years of growth under the unitary plan, we already have that. The problem is that we are building homes not where people want to live. And continuing to enable that sprawl, induce that congestion, and grow our carbon emissions and move people further and further away from where they wanna live, work, and play. Look, I, I realize, um, the mp, national mp, uh, Simon O'Connor, who Brooke, his challenging art and Tamaki did claim some credit for this, uh, new policy that nationals adopting by saying he had represented those who did not want this to happen out there might've been under pressure from you, um, Or something to do with counter order developments. But the reverse of that, I guess, is this, to both you and Chloe Shannon is did the accord and did what you guys were advancing push too far too fast? Did it alienate potential voters? And and are we gonna see a reaction to that perhaps in, in six weeks? Weeks? Yeah. I I think certainly parts of it are challenging, but when we talk about a housing crisis, there's some urgency with that. There's urgency with it because we need people in warm dry houses. The other part, um, going back to this infrastructure argument that I don't get when we start talking about wastewater and stormwater, yeah, you need a bus Toilet to turn The tap on. That is water also reform. That is the legislation that we've been, uh, arguing about over the last 18 months because Auckland desperately needs to upgrade its water infrastructure because it's inevitable that we are gonna grow. Council cannot do that by themselves. Yet these guys have worked against us time and time again to stop that from happening. But it's the argument on the table why they don't support enabling houses in this sense. I just don't get No, you're don't, you're Mixing the issues. I mean, for Such a, a big issue for our City, you're mixing up the issues completely. And the reality is you've got to take communities with you when it comes to people's property rights, uh, and the suburbs that they live in. And the reality is the greens and labor might want to have a, a, their, their, their position. But our position is we want to allow councils to work with their local communities, uh, to be able to deal with those issues and have the flexibility whilst also having the requirement to zone immediately for 30 years of growth and have that land available for development immediately. So mean at the same time you're telling us to get families out of motels. That is your criticism o of us at the moment. Well, It is more in because of your policies. No, they Were in cars in your last government. There's More in cars. There's more in cars too. It's is the argument here, almost every metric you're talking about, The only metric affordable Water Reform, the only metric about The need to accelerate building housing in the city, Only goal that your government has achieved is reducing the prison population. So I, which Is another question altogether. I, I, I look just to finish, the s Have a better solution than anyone here, so That's Good. Look, I, I did a survey of the Tamaki electorate and I asked people, what are the infrastructure problems on your streets to actually hear from people? I had countless examples of people who said, we already have sewage leaking down our streets and into the local parks. Three water. We already already have, um, pipes that are bursting. We have pipes three water reform that don't work even when it's just basic rain, not even heavy rain. The idea that you'd intensify in these areas is just insane, and it would lead to even more chaos. But we do have to have more housing. I agree. But we can't have more housing if we don't allow for the infrastructure for it. And that's where my G S T sharing bill comes in. Every time a new home goes into the local city, this council gets funding for infrastructure. It has to go hand in hand. Otherwise, we will continue to have all of this pepper potting without infrastructure, and it will just lead to chaos rather than a united vision for our city. Thank you. If I may, just, Just to wrap it up, we need to move on to Transport. One final point when you come to talking about climate change, our taal and housing is, we've got to acknowledge that Maori are an important part of this conversation of planning and ensuring that they are equally represented, uh, within the decision making and, and the plans moving forward. It would be problematic for our country to move forward without participation and quality representation from Maori and such and such big issues that affect all people in this country. Are you suggesting co-governance of planning now? Are you, You introduced co-governance? I'm just asking the question though. Uh, If that's something we wanna talk about. I'm happy to, I'm fine to Your, what I'm saying is we're Not gonna do that now, but When we talk about bringing communities, bring to us was, we've gotta bring Maori with us too. Bring it from an Auckland perspective, are bring of, you know, that Auckland Council needs to look at the input from Maori, from elected, uh, Maori seats. I certainly think that the statutory board has served Auckland Council up until now. I think it's time, uh, that people, uh, truly considered representation of Maori. I'm an advocate for Maori wards on council as I have been across the country. It's important that actually good democratic representation is in place. And that doesn't always equate to one vote per person. Right. We're gonna, we're going to continue with all of these themes, but move it on to transport directly. Um, and, and some of the things we've been talking about, obviously will come through. Many of the people here in this vale and the 46,000 students who come into this place, uh, will have direct experience of congestion and sprawl and population growth and, and delay that has happened at Auckland and, and substandard public transport one way or the other. Um, it's made it a peak concern, uh, a continuing concern in this city, uh, as late as last weekend. Um, and Shannon's talked of, uh, it's not just a few roads or a few lanes. Uh, it was three tunnels across the harbor up to $45 billion and a long way of tunneling up the shore. Uh, the major parties seem to be promising roads and tunnels. Their answers seem somewhere out in the distance, somewhere out there. My question now to, to the panel is what can be done simply soon this decade, uh, within Auckland to improve the transport movement, the outcomes that people hear that all the people who are moving around Auckland would experience, and I'll start with you, Chloe, and then come back this way. Reallocate road space. Thank you. That's the answer. It's reallocate road space. Look at the Rapid Transit Network. If we, you know, I, I find it quite mind blowing that we seem to be stuck in this debate around light rail or no light rail, but not about how we use the infrastructure that we already have. We could deploy to far greater efficacy, uh, buses along our main arterial routes if we were to reallocate road space and put them on, uh, yeah, far Faster. What is your view on that? Auckland Light rail plan, um, should be above ground. Above ground. So you're saving money that way. And reallocating money just spends 11 billion, not 15. If you were to, if you were to do it at great, you can deliver it faster for lower cost. Uh, and there are arguably greater, um, accessibility benefits as well, and there's less embodied carbon. It just makes sense. And you'd use that investment that you save to look at other, um, Yeah, but we can also get somewhere close to that level of rapid transit network and greater efficacy and the flow of people around our city. 'cause again, we are looking at moving people around our city, and if that is our primary focus, then we can't solely focus on the means of cars. Right. So if our focus is people and the movement of people, it's rapid transit and it's reallocation of road space. Brooke, your view on reallocating road space as the answer? No, absolutely not. What, what, what do you think and what's ACT's view on how to get Auckland moving not in 40 years or 30 years Yep. But to get through the problem that most voters are facing now? Yeah, You're, you're right. There is a lot of congestion. Uh, one way I think would work is to actually price roads correctly. Um, I'd like to see us remove the fuel tax, um, and add congestion charging so that people actually have real accurate times for the cost of the road and when they're using it. I think that would allow for more free flowing traffic, people making more conscious decisions of when they're actually going around the city. Um, and it, it works out because you're not getting taxed more overall because you'd reduce the, the cost through fuel tax, but allow it to be real time a cost to the user when they're actually using the roads. The other way I look at it is we do have to invest in more roads if we want more free flowing traffic. You've gotta allow for people, once again, to live in reality and go about their lives, but have more roads that they can use, better maintained roads, safer roads. And the way that we get safer, more efficient roads built is allowing for infrastructure companies to come in, build roads, and for us to toll 'em over time. You know, if you think of the Harbor Bridge, everybody accepts that we need another access point from the North Shore to the city, right? We've needed one for years. And yet the problem is people are unwilling to actually put aside the capital investment to do it. It's gonna cost billions of dollars. Surely we should be open to the idea of allowing an infrastructure company to toll it in the same way that Auckland Harbor Bridge was built with a toll road. You know, I'm so young, I don't remember that, but people paid that toll off over a decade. It's not just induc congestion. It's privatized induced congestion. Look, the, the Greens party always comes out with this argument that somehow this is bad. There's still the free access road, which is the current Harbor Bridge. Correct. It just means that we get another one actually built. But the Evidence from Wakako Tahi with the development of another road bridge across, uh, the, we Matar tells us that we are gonna have more cars flowing into the city at peak times than we can currently accommodate on our roading network in the central isus. Like we, we've Already at capacity, It's not, it's not a matter of just one or the other. And we, and our transport plan made it very clear, we do need to invest in rapid transit. Uh, we also need to invest in roads because we have a growing population and there is people and goods which need to be able to move around the city. And we need to have reliable transport times for people to do that. So we agree with the Act party around the need for congestion. Charging the government's bill on that was a bit of a dog. You, you walked away from, it was a bit of a dog congestion charging. We never actually got a final copy anyway. We walked away from it. We never got a final copy. And, um, and then your minister changed three times. So who's, I don't, I mean, it's a bit hard to keep up with you guys. So you're, you're supporting congestion pricing Now? Well, it's in our policy. Was it That close? If you've just been given a copy? We, we, we've, we, we wrote, we Get almost there. We wrote to Michael Wood and we said, look, thank you for engaging us, uh, on the draft bill that you've prepared. Uh, we have three areas of concern. Uh, we'd look forward to hearing back from you. Unfortunately, he had some shares at Auckland Airport, which got in the way. I never have heard from Karen mc or David Parker, assuming he's the current guy, um, about, about the issue since. So we are very committed to the implementation of it. But the other, the other issue is we need to have a way to pay for the light rail or the rapid bus transit. I mean, the reality is this government has presented for the last six years, uh, transport proposals to Auckland now for light rail count costing up to $60 billion. They haven't presented a way how to pay for it. They say The same thing of you with your, your, Um, proposals. Well, now, so what, what we've said around rapid transit is we do need to be open to whether it's the super fund or it's a c c or it's private equity, uh, coming to build own and operate and to use, uh, a range of different funding tools to be able to actually get things done. Because ultimately, otherwise, you'll get the same outcome this government has had, which is nothing gets done. We are gonna actually have a focus on delivery, and we have the funding tools to be able to deliver the infrastructure we need as a city. Our select committee, transport infrastructure select committee, uh, did an inquiry on congestion pricing. All parties agreed that it was the best thing, and it's the one single thing that we could do right now in order to change the behavior of how people travel at peak times. That would reduce our emissions instantly from our transport fleet. But yes, there would be a cost for people traveling at peak times, but we would see the mode shift that we are looking for, uh, onto public transport. The one thing, uh, that National Enact came back with, back with, uh, when we proposed to, to push the plan forward was that they said we needed to remove the regional fuel tax. And while that would be nice, in our respect to the reasons why the public would might like that, is actually because we need to generate additional revenue across the board. Exactly what they're saying, uh, in order to pay for the trans, the additional transport infrastructure that we need to have. So we can't just remove one, uh, put in a, in a toll effectively, and then take away another and achieve the same result, right. In order to get to the place that we need To. That's the first I've heard of that we just can't do it. Because I wrote to Michael Wood and I said, look, there's three issues that we've got with your proposal. One of them was, uh, the Auckland Regional Fuel Tax, uh, needs to be removed. Two, we need to look at overall pricing of, uh, how we price roads. And three, we need to make sure that the money is being, the money raised from congestion charging is going back into making the system more efficient. Uh, and I'm still yet to hear back from the government. So I've learned something at least from you today around the issues. But you Always do in our select Committee. But, but the point is, uh, don't, don't blame us because you've had three minutes of transport in three months. No, You keep on walking away from critical things, water, infrastructure, congestion, pricing. We haven't, what was the other? Housing? Housing. We haven't walked away. You keep walking away. So on transport it does, does sound that congestion charging and Value uplift tax. I'm stoked to hear that from that. That's right. We should have done that with C R L and, and, and those things are coming closer and whomever is the government. Is it possible that we could see some real progress on congestion charging? It's On the Accord right now, so, So if the government changes, so as I talk these two in the middle, how likely is it that some progress could be made on congestion charging for Auckland, uh, and that it's achievable within the decade? Well, We are committed to it and now, and, but we're not gonna double tax Auckland is with an Auckland regional fuel tax at the same time, which is Labor's approach. But would that mean you wouldn't be able to afford to, to make the change? Well, We're also gonna look at other funding tools as well. Congestion charging. We're gonna have a look at pricing reform. We're also gonna look at value capture and tolls. I mean, there's a whole range of funding tools. All that labor can do is increase excise. That's their only thing they've got in the box. And by the way, not deliver anything else in the meantime, Whatever, whatever the way we do it, any future government is gonna have to generate revenue in order to invest in the infrastructure that we need. Whether we talk about The regional, and weve been clear about what the funding tools are from our perspective. So there's no point. It's just political to pull away the regional fuel tax because no people, people don't really like it about regional fuel. You have to replace it with something else. The other Thing, regional congestion charge Is the charge replacing it with a congestion charge, and It's a user pays charge, And you're proposing tax cuts. That means there's even less money to invest in this. Your Auckland regional fuel tax has raised $700 million and only half of it's been spent. The other half is sitting in the Auckland Council coffers gathering dust. Anyone who works in infrastructure actually knows how long it takes to get infrastructure off the grounds. We've got a former transport minister sitting in the room. I, I think it's, it's important, the right thing to do. Congestion charging is the right thing to do, but you have to reduce the, the, the fuel tax because people can't have a double whammy. Correct. It is very unaffordable for people at the moment's. So if you are going to tax people more with a congestion charge, you do need to reduce the fuel tax Need to say what the alternative toll will be. It's A congestion charge. So charge use Shannon. Yes. But for the, in, in the other areas, that's what it is. How are you gonna pay for the infrastructure that you Need? Well, I'm just telling you this, you're Talking about tolls across the, the harbor. You haven't, That's an example. If spent Half the money you've raised through your regional fuel, you are fleecing Aucklands as they fill up at the pumps. And half that money is not even being spent. That is reckless during a cost of living Crisis. So the next five years, our government's projected investment of $77 billion on core infrastructure across this country, 77 billion. And this guy wants to, to complain about 600 million not being spent. Actually, that's the amount of revenue that we need to raise. Doesn't all get spent at once. We're gonna wrap this now. I'm sorry. We, this is, again, one that leads in all the other directions. They all come back to that. And indeed what we're talking about now is there, is There is a very big difference between proposed billions of dollars that never actually ever gets the ground And spent. Well, this is one of the things you'll never see sort of possibilities out there in politics. But, um, you know, it does come back to what we started with, which is how is new funding found to pay for what Auckland needs in our future? And so we've explored some of those things and we're obviously very different perspectives. Um, we are gonna move now to the Slido questions from the audience. Thank you. Um, and we had one in early. So, uh, as I said earlier, it, it does bring up the issue that's very big in Auckland. We all know that of law and order, uh, and of security. And it's a, a person from the university, uh, who says the streets are getting more unsafe. I was assaulted by a stranger on third August in the afternoon in broad daylight when returning home from the university. Such incidences will continue. If the streets are not cleaned of criminals, please inform the politicians and ask if they have any concrete action, any plan to take preventive measures rather than reactive measures. Mm-hmm. Start with you, Shannon. It's your government. You sit there now with this stuff going on. Yep. What's the response to cleaning up the streets, responding to people's concerns? Yeah. Th this is a really tough one for Auckland is I think, uh, what we're seeing post pandemic is that we've seen the nature of, of crime, uh, change. We're seeing it more on social media and our anxiety levels are through the roof because of it. What we've done as a government is we have increased the number of police on the beat by 16% in Auckland in my own, uh, area. We've, we've, uh, increased the, expanded the community policing team, which has been a really effective way of, uh, of preventing the types of crime, particularly by young people that have taken place in our community, but also supporting, uh, local schools and retail in the areas, um, that they need it. I think that there's absolutely more that we have to do. And the RAM raid, uh, RAM raids is an example. Uh, 0.38% I think is the, is the, um, proportionate amount of, um, crime that RAM raids absorb, yet it absorbs a hundred percent of our attention. And that's a lot, a lot of where anxiety is coming from. We need to continue to grow our police force, and we need to expand our police force from yes, police on the beat. We've got to have more community policing. We've gotta have police that are, are able to respond in mental health situations. Uh, and we need more police and youth aid. Now, the prospective tax cuts from an alternative government will impact that it did before, and that's what's at risk. Now. The last thing I'll say is that, uh, when, that my area has been hit too with RAM raids, and I ask my constituents when I'm presented with a 10 or 12 year old in front of me, what do you want me to do? Do you want me to lock them up and send them to a bootcamp? Or do you want me to invest in them and their siblings and their family to attempt and do our best to get them on the right track? Normal humans will always come back to the ladder. They want us to invest in young people so that they can have a good life and that they're able to prevent, uh, any crime from happening. Okay. Simon Brown. Um, what would you say to, to this person sold in the street wants proactive measures rather than just reactive? Look, I think the, um, the message is very much heard, and we hear it, I hear it in my electorate all the time, uh, and hear many similar stories to that of unprovoked, uh, attacks taking place in our communities. And it's not good enough. There's been a 45% increase in violent crime as well, uh, which is completely unacceptable. So, uh, you know, our view is very simple. There needs to be a range of things that need to take place. We need to get our police back to being visible in our communities. They have been through covid, uh, focused on too many other issues and haven't had that opportunity visible. Secondly, we need to make sure there are clear consequences, uh, for people who commit crime, uh, so that there is a deterrent. And thirdly, we need to make sure that we are giving the ability for judges to put in place the appropriate sentence. Now, this government's only policy on law and order has been to reduce the prison population. That unfortunately, um, has meant the entire judicial system is geared towards not putting those who are at risk to society behind bars. And in too many cases, we have people on home detention or on other community based sentences committing crime. So we need to take a much, uh, firmer approach. We, the police and the justice system too often know who these people are, and they need to be proactively making sure that they have, they can put them where they need to be to keep the community safe. And that needs to be the top priority. Thank you. It just does seem a little bit of a, like a coded criticism of the police, that they're not visible because of covid things, which everyone sort of knows is a year or two ago when these things are happening. It's, it sounds a little bit coded there that, that the police are failing not just the Labor Party. Um, is that what You're saying? Well, the focus, the focus needs to be on getting back to basics. And they need to be doing their job of serving the community, being visible in our community, but they also need a government which backs them up and gives 'em the tools that they need and the justice system. That's why we say we're gonna scrap this 30% reduction in the prison population. The justice system as a whole needs to know that it will be backed up by a government which will hold criminals to account. Brooke Van Velden. What Zach's, uh, view here, um, what's proactive policing Simeon's trying to say, are you of the view that our police aren't out there enough, aren't doing enough? Look, I know people don't feel like there aren't, there are enough police because we don't see them. We spend a lot of police resourcing, um, going around doing traffic offenses rather than looking after the community and being out in the community. Um, look, firstly, I just wanna say I'm, it's horrible that that happened to you and, and I really hope that you are okay and you have the support that you need because nobody should ever be assaulted, especially not just walking down a street. Um, and I know that people don't feel safe walking down the streets. Shop owners don't even feel safe going to work anymore. You know, I had a shop owner burst into tears on me the other day because she said both of the shops on either side of her had been rated recently, and she was just so fearful of going to work because when would she be next? And I, I struggle with the thought that this is our community now. We, people are afraid to walk on our streets. Mm. People are afraid to go to work and people don't want to send their kids outside of the house, even in broad daylight because it's just not safe. And we've lost our community because people are feeling lawlessness everywhere. And it is because labor said that they wanted to reduce the prison population. They had a target to reduce it by 30%. And they have the number of gang members given home detention since 2017 has gone up 130%. That's incredible. Mm. The number of sexual offenders who have been given electronic monitoring rather than prison sentences since 2017 has gone up 80%. I don't find that acceptable. We actually have to keep our victims safe. We have to keep our society safe, and we have to reprioritize. I would like to see, uh, a change to the sentencing act. We judges actually have to take into account public safety because that's not at stake at the moment when they're making their decisions. I think it should. Family violence is still significantly one of our biggest problems when it comes to crime in our city. Yet at the same time, what, why are we not standing up and calling order and saying there's an issue there in the same way that we are in RAM raids. Mm-hmm. You know, we need to stand up for every impacted wahine in their, in their home and their children in particular, and actually take the same response. Let's, let's stand up and represent those victims in the same way that we want to talk about victims of RAM raids. And How will I not Shannon up? 'cause all crime, all crime needs to be acknowledged and responded to. But let's make the effort not just politics, and actually think about how we're gonna get on top of this problem. It's not gonna be by locking people up. Okay? We've tried that decades after decades, we've gotta go back. Yes, there needs to be consequences and responsibility for those that offend, but we've gotta steps. Anyone who did, uh, anyone who did criminology with Tracy Macintosh at this university knows that you've gotta go back to rehabilitation and you've gotta invest in people because at the end of the day, too many Maori and Pacific are locked up in those prisons when a national act government is in place. Well, Chloe, for, if You would've, let me finish my sentence, Shannon. I was actually talking about sexual offenders being let out on home detention and on electronic monitoring. And do you think women feel safe who have been sexually offended when they know that the rights of the offender trump the rights of the victim? So what I'm saying is that is stand Up for them in, in the same way that You do, are standing up Holistically play politics with That too. I want women in our society, which A fear and balanced conversation about crime in this country and what we're gonna do about it. Okay. Need to turn, you should Feel safe. We need to keep the victims at the center of our justice. Absolutely. Chloe Brook, the view here in the middle is that labor has let too many people out of prison hasn't sent enough people to prison. There's a lawlessness, uh, resulting from that. What's your take on that and what's the green's answer to making people safer, feel safer? Yeah, so much like Brooke, uh, at the outset, I just wanted to acknowledge the person who put this question forward and their experience, and obviously the awful circumstances that they've been through, uh, violence has no place in the city. I think that it is acutely critical that when politicians are discussing issues like this, that we take responsibility for engaging in an evidence-based discussion because I find it, frankly, a grotesque exploitation of people's fear to purport to solve this issue with solutions that are soundbites that the evidence for decades has shown will not work. And I did criminal, advanced criminal law, uh, just across the road, uh, with Kylie Quince. So this has very much informed a lot of kind of my philosophy and approach to this, but also kind of, yeah, the data and the evidence that I had access to, you know, half a decade, a decade ago now. Uh, and you know, the data that we look into, like what Shannon was alluding to from police national headquarters, uh, on the kind of most acute ram raid offenders in this country, which demonstrated that 90 to 95% of those young people had come to the attention of orang, tamari or the state by virtue of a family harm incident. This stuff is so obvious when you look at the data we need to be investing in improving people's lives. And we know that the longer that people spend in prison, the more likely that they are to re-offend. And we also know that Seral English put it best when he said in 2011 that prisons are a moral and fiscal failure at this point. It costs $200,000 per annum to put somebody in prison to ensure that they are all the more likely to re-offend when they get out on the other side. We can do better. We can do a whole lot better. And the answers were laid out in Roki Roki, the Safe and Effective Justice Review, um, chaired by, uh, the late great Chester Boroughs, uh, who obviously was a former policeman himself and then National Party police Minister. Uh, and they spoke to transforming the way that our criminal justice system works. But when I speak to, you know, our current, uh, area commander, uh, Sonny Patel, or our former district Commander Gray Anderson, and this is obviously a abundantly apparent issue that we're dealing with here, particularly in the city center. The police are straight up about the fact that they are responding to crime. They cannot deal with the avalanche of social issues that are producing these problems in the first place. And if we wanna be grownups about this issue, then let's demarcate the reality that gun violence is a very separate issue to Ram. Raids is a separate issue to antisocial behavior is a separate issue to homelessness, is a separate issue to theft. And if we want to be responsible politicians and policy makers and god forbid fricking leaders, then we need to respond with evidence-based policies and interventions in all of those spaces. And they've been made abundantly clear by report after report that have gathered dust. Because just to offer one small insight to the stuff that the cops tell me about alcohol, there's a complete unwillingness in our parliament to engage in evidence-based discussion about prevention in that space, let alone in the drug space. We can do this stuff. The evidence is there, it just requires the political willpower and it requires us cutting through the nonsense and the rhetoric. And I also have to say for any media who are in this room, there is a responsibility here as well. 'cause if you look at the push notifications that are causing this anxiety, you'd think that we lived in a game of fricking grand theft auto, not the third safest country in the O E C D Moving to an entirely different subject. Um, rodika, uh, through, um, um, um, Slido, uh, asks a congestion tax will push people to off peak travel. Yep. Most people work nine to five studies on circadian rhythms. Show working nights is harmful for health. So now what, who wants to take that one relocate Road space? Yeah. I, I, I suspect post pandemic that people's, um, work hours have changed and we have much more flexible employers. So I don't accept that people only work nine till five now. Um, but certainly, uh yep. That, that's some consideration that came through our inquiry too. Well, I mean the, the labor's approach is to charge those people a congestion tax and the Auckland regional fuel tax, ours is to take one of those away, uh, and then price based on time of use. And that's fair. Uh, ultimately though, there'll be, we have to continue to invest in, in public transport infrastructure. And that's why we've put that in our, in our plan to continue to invest in rapid bus transit through our city Labor's approach is a pipe dream of, um, light fail, uh, which has never even left the first station. So we've got to do both. We've also gotta improve the roading network so that there is more ability for people to get around. The Northern Busway in the upper North Shore is Auckland's largest and most successful piece of public transport infrastructure infrastructure. Not disagree with that. In the city that was delivered by a labor government. And I'm not disagreeing with that. I'm saying you Just said we don't, didn't deliver. Well the last six that was Helen Clark's government, you, you're taking, you're taking achievement. We completed the extension Of that. We, the achievements of Helen Clark's government now to try to say that you've delivered something. It's almost like infrastructure takes like a decade. And like that's the point that we should have cross partisan accord on really important things for the city. Like a rapid transit network. Well, if only your government that you've been supporting Chloe had actually delivered something in its six years. Okay. Turning to another Slido. Um, sorry, just lost the thing here. I don't think congestion pricing will, will, you know, serve everyone, but certainly it will change the, some of the behaviors that we need. Sure. Um, Naomi Bradshaw asked the Parel bars are closed indefinitely. Manco Heads Lighthouse is closed, as are many of Tam Makos coastal wonders given there is likely to be more weather events, should Auckland give up on reviving coastal assets and look to move efforts and land. The mayor wants to build a swimming pool And people wanna put a stadium down on the waterfront as well. Um, any view on whether, um, public assets on the coast coastline need to be rethought or need to be moved? Wow, I've got a, I mean, an example, um, little Shoal Bay in my area is where I'd love to see it just to be restored back to its natural state. There will be erosion that comes with that, but a lot of the area will be protected and beautiful when we can, uh, restore the wetlands there too. The green Party might have a policy coming out at some point on social ah, with Adaptation teasing. Yes. No, no doubt. We'll hear a lot more about all of it in the coming weeks. Um, here's a lightener, uh, anonymous question. What's your best memory of this university? Oh, 95 B f m Baby. Um, you were Telling me about your stories Before or just how long it takes to walk from the law school to Oh my God. Um, the business, uh, school, when you've got five minutes to do it between classes up the, uh, well I used to call it the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Yes. Is it still named that? Yeah, there we are. Man, I've got so many memories of this place. Um, the first one that comes to mind is I went through all of uni with no laptop 'cause I was, you know, self-funding and I used to use those, um, those two hour computers. Oh yes. Um, I'm assuming they still exist. Good. And I would get in at eight o'clock every morning. 'cause you were, you got preferential access eight till 10, there's no one in there in the morning and you just knock out every assignment in the morning. It was great. But I also remember like when ev every time you had, um, the start of another year, you always forgot how hot it was coming back to uni and walking up those steps up the park and getting to the top and just being drenched in sweat before your lectures. Can I, uh, because I don't know if my recollection is Jesus. So Simeon, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but this connects three mps currently in our parliament. So were you involved in starting pro-life on campus? I was, yeah. So I remember that there was the Barney where a U s A, which at that point Aina Williams, whose current labor MP wanted to Disaffiliate pro-life on campus started by Simian Brown. And I was at B F M reporting on it. Oh gosh. And another little, uh, coincidental thing was that Shannon was saying earlier that he and David Seymour were both in a raw hall at the same time, way back in 2001. So there are links there. I was also saying that I was the social butterfly and he was the, he kept to himself really, David. But, but I also had my 21st next door at WPA Marai and the theme was Motown. Oh, there it was. Great. I was horrifying Shannon before letting him know that at the same time I was still at primary school. And David Seymour is Shannon. That's David Seymour is no longer a shrinking violet is he, as we know. Um, thank you for the questions. Thanks for the answers everyone. Um, we now move to allow one minute each, a magic minute, not so much on yourself, but on your party pitch for what is gonna be exactly nine weeks until polling day. So, um, perhaps we'll start at your end, Chloe, and if you could just give us a minute of why green. The first thing that I'd say is that at political debates like this, we are never able to get meaningfully into the depth of policy details. So please, please, please go and look at the policy detail that's available on every political party's website. The next thing that I would say at a really high level is that as we've touched on, uh, we are confronted with some massive, massive challenges as a city and as a country. And we require massive, massive solutions tinkering around the edges is not gonna cut it. And I think unfortunately, the reality is that for far too many of us, the rhetoric of transformation over the last six years has only really been met with the reality of that tinkering. And I think for some that's meant that there is now a lack of trust or faith in the government's capacity or the state's ability to reach or to meet those challenges. But the only way that we are properly and meaningfully ever going to be able to meet those challenges is by gaining the requisite revenue to invest in meeting those challenges. That means tax justice. We have the hundred and 36th country in the world for a tax system that deals with inequality. That means 135 other countries are ahead of us. We can do so much better for ourselves and for our country to deal with the dual crises of inequality and climate action. Thank you, Brooke. Why act, look, act wants New Zealand to be a country where everybody has a place and everybody can aspire to do good things with their lives. That means being able to have an affordable house, being able to have a really good high paying productive job, having a stable environment where your kids one day will have a really world-class education and you have access to a really good healthcare system. At the moment, it feels like we're going backwards on all of these things and more people are looking overseas for their future. I want people of my generation to feel like they can stay in New Zealand and we can do this together. We can make New Zealand a great place to be. Again, I also just wanna make sure that everybody feels safe again. It is the number one issue I hear everywhere I go. People do not feel safe and we have to remove the lawlessness from our streets. So our community thrives again, making New Zealand an aspirational country where young people can live and thrive and we can feel safe to be a community again. Thank you Simon Brown. Well, The, the reality is this country is going backwards. After six years of this government, we are not seeing, uh, the investment in the infrastructure we need. We've been sold massive promises, but we're not seeing the delivery, the cost of living, uh, crisis is impacting communities and meaning that people are going backwards and law and order is out of control. Uh, and we need to get on top of it. So national has a plan, a plan to restore law and order in our city and in our country. A plan to reduce the cost of living so that people can keep more of what they earn and to be able to get ahead in this country. And a plan to deliver the public services that we deserve as a country. And to make sure that they have the investment they need to deliver better outcomes. Not just to be about what labor talks about, which is just putting more money in national's plan is to deliver the support that you need so that you can get this, that you can move forward, get this country back on track, and so that you can have the future you need here in this country. Thank you Shannon Halbert. I was the first in my family to come to this university because I wanted an education and I wanted a better future for myself and for future generations. I'm committed to that. Labor stands for people and when it comes to making bold decisions for the future of our country, it will always come back to people wellbeing and climate and will ensure that the investment is in the right place to date. We've invested $77 billion, sorry, 46 billion plus an additional $77 billion in, in our future infrastructure. We've gotta get that up to $150 billion to get us to where we need to be so that this city who, that we want to be productive, that we want to reach its potential as a global city, is able to make it. That requires us to care about every single person that lives in Tama Makoto. And that's what labor stands for. That's the cost of living. Ensuring that we're getting on top of congestion and ensuring that we're dealing to our issues that we're facing, like climate change and like law and order. Thank you and thank you all. Um, some really interesting thinking there. And I think a revelation or two, once we go back over the tape, uh, find out what was said by whom and when. Um, you know, in a, I think nine weeks, we might just see, might see some of what we heard tonight put into practice. I'm not sure if it changed any of your view or your intention. Um, thank you for your participation and your attendance. Uh, and it's my pleasure now to hand back to Jama, Emma. Tim, thank you, um, for winding up that discussion. I think we could have been here all night. Um, and Sam and Chloe, Shannon and Brooke, uh, thank you for your contributions you've made tonight. Um, while there's diversity of you and, and how we respond to these issues, tummy, he makoto faces, there is no doubt that we've heard from deeply passionate, uh, mps. So thank you once again. We heard strong views about transport and congestion in Tama Makoto. The parties are offering Auckland as choice, um, when it comes to getting around the city. There is community wide concern about safety on our streets. Auckland is want something done about this? I heard these MP share that, that concern, but the answers are not so clear. Um, all agree on building more houses and impacts of climate change in its many forms, um, and that it needs urgent action. Um, this was by far my favorite, uh, tonight as I put up my popcorn. Um, we all leave here tonight with the full on election campaign before us. As we reflect on that, we must also remind ourselves of the privilege that we all have to live in a democracy with the right vote and elect a government, uh, good evening and travel safe.