Duncan Garner: Why is no one accountable for the mess we’re in?
Duncan Garner: "We've been let down by the major political parties who play politics and cancel billions of dollars of work on roads, ferries and associated public projects because it's not their idea". Photo / Supplied
Last weekend I sat down at my desk to send out a few invoices when my son asked if I would take him and his mates to a tag tournament in Papakura.
I sighed knowing that would take me out for the day. No invoices. No pay. Then I said, “Sure, mate”. So we set off. Google Maps told me 29 minutes to Papakura but warned traffic was heavy. Heavy?
Try impossible. For the next two hours on a Saturday afternoon I dodged, ducked and weaved my way down the motorway. And that was without any incidents. My bad – I should have said no but I didn’t. It was what it was.
But this was early Saturday afternoon. It now seems Auckland’s rush “hour” starts daily at 5am and ends around 7.30pm. One big event in the city and we come to a standstill. One crash, same result. Rain, we panic.
Ahead of us were cars and brake lights, cars and queues, more cars than I have ever seen.
It’s true that several events were happening in the city, but I’d just driven into car-chaos central with no escape route.
In 2023 New Zealand allowed in more people than ever before.
There was a record gain of 126,000 – 173,000 non-New Zealand arrivals versus 45,000 Kiwis leaving. That used to be called a brain drain.
But drain indicates emptying the country of its people. Now the opposite is true. And we are really (really) feeling it. As, I suspect, are those who have arrived to make NZ home.
This is happening because in the past 15 years alone we have added 1 million people to our population. About 20% of the population have arrived in the space of a decade and a half. It took 170 years to hit 4 million and just 15 years for the last million.