Northland's mayors are throwing their weight into a new joint campaign to bring more multi-million dollar infrastructure into the region.
Photo: 123RF
Far North mayor John Carter, Whangarei mayor Sheryl Mai and Kaipara mayor Jason Smith are, in a first, collectively ramping up their political power in a new public campaign to call for five huge infrastructure projects to come north.
The mayors jointly helm three Northland district councils with millions of local government infrastructure assets between them. But they are calling for other major infrastructure investment into the region for the benefit of New Zealand's economy as a whole.
Government is New Zealand's major infrastructure investor. Other investors include industry and tangata whenua.
"A unique set of economic and political circumstances have put all five projects (being campaigned for) within reach. The combination of all five projects is greater than the sum of the parts," Carter, Mai and Smith said in a joint statement.
"It would be a disaster for Northland to let this opportunity be lost," they said.
The mayors are jointly ramping up political pressure for five in some cases new, in other cases hugely expanded infrastructure projects into Northland:
- The $249 million dry dock in Whangarei - to service ships from around New Zealand and Australia currently travelling overseas for this work to be done
- The new multi-million dollar Royal New Zealand Navy base in Whangarei - to replace the current Devonport Naval Base in Auckland
- The multi-million dollar Northport, Whangarei expansion - to take international container and car imports currently instead entering the country through Auckland's port
- A multi-million dollar double-tracked West-Auckland to Whangarei rail line, complete with a spur from that main line to link with Marsden Point
"We seek a win-win-win for Northland, Auckland and the rest of New Zealand," the mayors said.
Their calls capitalise on momentum created this week as the government announced almost one billion dollars of infrastructure spend across Northland into roads, rail, schools, water storage, tangata whenua assets, a hospital, niche climate-change-suitable horticultural production and an innovative groundbreaking Kaipara Harbour Wharves regeneration project.
"This week's (central government funding) announcements are the start of Northland reaching its full potential to create wealth for the people of Te Tai Tokerau and all New Zealanders," the mayors said.
The government's spending was historic investment, the start of a decade-long economic transformation for Northland to make an ever-greater contribution to New Zealand's economy.
"We are very grateful to the prime minister (Jacinda Ardern) and deputy prime minister (Winston Peters) for their leadership on behalf of the people of Northland," the mayors said.
But there was more work to be done.
"Too often, Wellington has behaved as if New Zealand ends somewhere just north of Albany with Northland missing out on the infrastructure necessary for Te Tai Tokerau to reach its full potential."
This meant Northland-generated extra welfare and other costs had been borne by taxpayers nationally. This was due to parts of the region continuing to lag behind the rest of New Zealand on key economic and social indicators.
The mayors' beefed up calls come with them each making a point of saying their new campaign would not be funded with local district ratepayers' funds.
In its 2019 Budget, the government said New Zealand had been warned by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) about the negative impact persistent infrastructure underinvestment had on the country's economy and productivity.
Infrastructure is the fixed, long-lived structures - including transport, water, energy, social assets along with digital infrastructure such as broadband and mobile networks - that supports Northlanders' daily lives and regional production. It provides things like clean drinking water, transport networks and reliable electricity.
There is growing focus around New Zealand on how the money paid in taxes by people living locally (but collected for spending nationally) and rates paid by those people (collected for spending locally) are used to fund multi-billion dollar local infrastructure.
This has typically been paid for locally but also offers significant benefit to central government that has not contributed financially to its cost.
Local Democracy Reporting is a public interest news service supported by RNZ, the Newspaper Publishers' Association and NZ On Air.