Arena Williams: Why Auckland needs a strong public sector to tackle its crises

Auckland needs a government that knows and cares about the city down to its bones, writes Arena Williams.
THREE KEY FACTS
Arena Williams is the Labour MP for Manurewa.
OPINION
I will never run out of things to love about Auckland. It’s a city of possibility, always in a state of change as it blossoms up and out. Our people make it the greatest city in the world in which to eat and drink, and bring up kids. But we know congestion and inadequate public transport is costing us, housing is too expensive, and floods will make the places we love unlivable.
Auckland needs a government that knows and cares about the city down to its bones. Aucklanders who have been through the leaky building crisis would have looked sideways this week at an Act Party now talking about a building system with no consents at all. We know what an overreaction on building standards looks like. It’s the same philosophy that led to the buildings crisis in the 2000s that cost the country upwards of $11 billion. As much as the party of free markets would hate to admit it, getting this balance right requires capable regulators, not fewer regulators.
I understand why Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown says we need to “get Wellington out of Auckland”. I agree that for New Zealand to succeed, it must be driven by its largest economic centre. But he also needs regulators tooled up to tackle thorny policy problems in New Zealand’s building system like insurance and joint and several liability, lest his council be left carrying what’s now a cost shared by central government.
When I think about how we get our building rules and other policy choices right, I think about how an active and capable central and local government will be fundamental to Auckland’s success. So how should we assess the prospects for this partnership?
It is a rare thing where we get to judge the quality of our public sector through a carefully controlled experiment. The world does not usually provide laboratory conditions for us to test what our public sector is capable of.
But that is essentially what we saw during Covid, where governments around the world suddenly had to deal with an array of complex changes, where the commonalities were greater than any national-level differences.
New Zealand’s public service excelled. But in recent times, discussions about the nature of Government have been shaped by claims of wasteful spending, a bloated bureaucracy, and concerns about whether public servants are in the office enough to support the Wellington CBD. Never mind that 6000 jobs being cut from Government departments might be a bigger concern for Wellington cafes than the occasional day spent working from home. There are New Zealanders alive today and businesses still operating because of the commitment of those who some politicians are quick to call “faceless bureaucrats”.
So what lessons should we take from this contrasting account of the state?
First, the cost of National’s cuts to public services cannot be measured just through the direct impact on communities (though this impact is very real). The true cost of austerity also includes the impact on our ability to respond to future crises in the way we responded to Covid.
Right now, good people are leaving the public sector, either through the direct impact of redundancies or because morale has been shredded and there are other options available to them. Many highly capable young people are departing our shores to direct their energies towards improving society in other countries.
Second, as with so many decisions this Government has taken, a shortsighted obsession with costs might come at the expense of the country’s long-term prosperity. One way or another, Auckland property owners will be operating under building standards for earthquake risks. Getting these things right requires a capable public service. A withered and depowered public sector will see these standards continue to fluctuate as each new iteration is put to the test.
We might also consider what could be achieved if the energy and problem-solving spirit of our Covid response was rekindled and applied to the problems Auckland faces. The same spirit that, when circumstances demanded it, allowed us to overcome previously insurmountable barriers and get homeless people into housing in order to mitigate the risks of spreading the virus.
Achieving ambitious targets is difficult. Improving cancer survival rates requires effective regulators, partnering with Māori and other affected communities, tackling tobacco products. It is not enough to just set targets, throw the word “outcomes” into every second sentence, and hope kicking off a running series of culture wars will distract the public from the lack of any actual plan.
Perhaps, as with many issues the Government is grappling with, the answer to underperformance is not cuts, but investment. Perhaps it is to create a capable public sector that is a match for the looming issues facing Auckland and the rest of New Zealand. And as much as some might not want to accept it, we will not achieve creating the Auckland we all want to see without a highly functioning public service here and all around the country.
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