The Brown v Brown showdown is a positive for Auckland - Heather du Plessis-Allan
Wayne Brown and Simeon Brown have been at odds. Photo / Alex Robertson
It’s tempting to think the Brown v Brown showdown is bad for Auckland. Quite the contrary.
Sure, it doesn’t look great right now.
First the Brown who is the Transport Minister cancelled Auckland’s regional fuel tax, leaving the city short $1.2 billion for transport projects over the next four years.
Then the Brown who is the mayor got angry and retaliated by cancelling all those projects bar two, refusing to build them with more ratepayer money. He also cancelled the last part of the Eastern Busway, which Wayne Brown must know will quite upset Simeon Brown (no relation) given it runs through Simeon’s electorate and Simeon once said finishing the busway is the first thing he thinks of in the morning and the last thing before bed. Weird, obviously, but probably forgivable for a Minister of Transport.
Wayne’s calculation must’ve worked, because next thing Simeon fired back a threat that he might just legislate to force Wayne to build some of those projects.
Some of this fight is real. Wayne Brown probably is quite angry at losing $1.2b. That’s massive for a city so short of cash it has already sold down its airport shares.
But some of it is performance. Plenty of the projects Wayne cancelled are things he is on record as hating: over-engineered cycleways, raised pedestrian crossings, basically any dumb idea Auckland Transport dreams up.
He won’t really care about having to cancel that nonsense. He’s really more peeved that someone else made that call, not him. As Wayne Brown said, Auckland is “my city, not theirs”.
And actually, that’s probably what this is about now. Wayne Brown wants control. Sure, he wants time-of-use charging and some other way to replace his lost income. But what Wayne Brown really wants is Auckland to have more control of Auckland, and Wellington to butt out.
It’s the thing he keeps moaning about. Especially the power to set parking fines. He’s really quite upset that Auckland can’t decide how much to fine people for parking breaches. It’s a particular insult to him that Auckland’s fines are the same as Gore’s. Gore’s for goodness sake! Gore, where parks are aplenty and pints are $9.80.
Wayne Brown is a dealmaker. Expect him to make a deal. Expect him to revive some of those cancelled transport projects in exchange for more authority over Auckland.
The wunderkind Simeon Brown is smart. He’s one of the smartest operators in this new Cabinet. Expect him to understand that he doesn’t need Boomer Brown turning Aucklanders sour against him. So expect him to find an elegant way to make the deal work.
There is more that unites these two men than divides them on transport. Neither have any truck for the spendthrifts at Auckland Transport blowing $500,000 on a raised pedestrian crossing. Both of them are motivated by what their voters want.
This is why the Brown vs Brown stoush is good for Auckland. Because the city wins.
Auckland didn’t need a hefty fuel tax in a cost-of-living crisis funding the clowns at Auckland Transport blowing money on over-engineered cycleways and gold-standard pedestrian crossings. Now Auckland doesn’t have it. That’s a big win.
It is actually a good thing to have a mayor squaring up to central government on behalf of the city. The last one - Phil Goff - was too keen to keep his Labour Party mates in the Beehive happy.
And it’s good to have a finger-on-the-pulse-of-popular-opinion minister listening to what Aucklanders want. The last one - Michael Wood - is famous for trying to give the city the bike bridge to Birkenhead, which only 12 per cent of NZ supported.
This stoush looks worse than it is. It’s actually a good thing.