Let's Get Wellington Moving? Let's can it, says National

The controversial transport project will be cancelled entirely if there's a change of government – and the capital will get more roads instead.

Mōrena and welcome to The Bulletin for Monday, July 31, by Catherine McGregor. Presented in partnership with Z Energy.

In today’s edition: Tāmati Coffey cancels his retirement plans to stand in Kiri Allan’s seat; rent-to-buy scheme extended to include existing homes; journalist at centre of Palmerston North brouhaha offers mea culpa. But first, the capital’s big transport infrastructure programme may not be home and dry yet.

Wellington traffic at near-standstill after the 2013 earthquake (Photo: Getty Images)

Let’s Get Wellington Moving hits a big blue bump in the road

For Let’s Get Wellington Moving’s supporters – who just weeks ago were celebrating a vote that appeared to put them on a glide path to completion – today’s announcement will come as a blow. For the project’s vocal opponents, the news that National plans to cancel the entire project offers the prospect of a last-minute reprieve. The cancellation of LGWM, reported by Andrea Vance at The Post (paywalled), is a key plank of National’s transport policy, to be released in full later today. The $7.4b LGWM package is a “toxic mess of a programme” says National’s Chris Bishop, who developed the transport policy alongside colleague Simeon Brown. Two of its most significant individual projects are the introduction of light rail to the capital and the pedestrianisation of the Golden Mile precinct, which is due to begin in September.

We’ll build a second Mt Victoria road tunnel, National promises

Despite planning to abandon LGWM, National still has big plans for Wellington transport – namely, roads. It is committing to building a second road tunnel under Mt Victoria, and will revive the mothballed Petone to Grenada highway project. National says it “will open up land for more than 5000 homes, and a cross valley link to ease congestion across the harbourside suburb and Lower Hutt”, writes Vance. The new Mt Vic tunnel will be built beside the existing one, carrying two lanes travelling east; the original, tunnel would carry two lanes of traffic towards the city. “A pedestrian and cycleway will be built above the road, separated from traffic in the new underpass.”

Doubts raised over stated cost of Whangārei to Tauranga highways

The announcement comes on the heels of the release of National’s plan for four, four-lane highways linking Whangārei and Tauranga, with work on the first two beginning in the next 1-3 years. National says the cost of the whole project will be $6 billion, and will not require raising excise taxes. Transport minister David Parker calls that “laughable” and "breathtakingly misleading”, and says “the cost will be many hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars more than they are admitting”. Official figures obtained by 1 News appear to back Parker up. “For example,” Jessica Mutch McKay reports, “National says Warkworth to Wellsford will cost 2.2 billion, and officials say it could be up to 4 billion.”

Who’s to blame for our pothole problem?

Part of National’s transport policy that has already been announced is its plan for a “pothole repair fund” to double the current rate of roading renewals, halve the pothole response rate from two days to 24 hours, and give local authorities and Waka Kotahi $500m over three years to address road damage. That announcement a fortnight ago was accompanied with a lot of finger pointing, with National blaming Labour for the current state of the roads and Labour arguing it was still trying to recover from major maintenance funding cuts under the previous National government. Greater Auckland’s Matt Lowrie has done a deep, deep dive into the data in an attempt to come up with the true culprit. Spoiler: “Both Simeon Brown and David Parker are correct, each picking numbers to suit their narrative.”

Kiya wants a world where Indigenous Peoples can truly exercise self-determination, where culture is thriving and where communities can continue to enjoy renewable food and clean waterways for generations. Amnesty International asked people about their vision for humanity, and there was a resounding theme: together we can transform our society into the kind of place that everyone wants to be a part of. Read more at Amnesty International (sponsored).

Tāmati Coffey un-retires to run in Kiri Allan’s seat

List MP Tāmati Coffey will stand as Labour’s candidate in the East Coast in the hopes of holding onto the seat currently held by retiring minister Kiri Allan. Coffey himself announced earlier this year that he was retiring from politics at the upcoming election to spend more time with his family, but says the “tragic events” surrounding Allan’s departure “have changed things significantly”. “The East Coast has been through so much this year, and it needs an experienced champion in Parliament,” he said. Coffey was selected on Sunday night in a fast-tracked process after Allan announced she was stepping out of politics on Monday, the Herald reports. In 2020 Allan won the seat, previously held by National, with a majority of 6,331 votes.

Rent-to-buy rules adjusted to include existing homes

The government has announced it is loosening the rules on its progressive home ownership (PHO) fund, bringing existing homes into the scheme and increasing the income cap to $150,000. PHO, a catch-all name for government-backed rent-to-buy, leasehold and shared equity arrangements, previously only applied to new builds. Housing minister Megan Woods says the changes to PHO – which is primarily aimed at helping prospective first home buyers who are Māori, Pacific Island, or have children – will “increase the choice of homes, including more affordable homes, in more locations”. Other changes include extending the deadline for paying off rent-to-buy or shared equity schemes from 15 to 20 years and broadening the income exemption cap to allow multi-generational whānau who normally live together to participate. 

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Click and Collect

• Over $36,000 has been raised so far for the family of missing Christchurch real estate agent Yanfei Bao. 

• Inside Brian Tamaki’s “unholy alliance” with Sue Grey.

• Tesla’s new showroom/service centre/parts warehouse opened in Māngere over the weekend, and it’s the size of three rugby fields.

• Three Central North Island iwi have received $30m in redress and an official apology for a series of devastating land confiscations beginning in the 19th Century.

Got some feedback about The Bulletin, or anything in the news? Get in touch with me at thebulletin@thespinoff.co.nz.

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The first six episodes were a sensation; now get ready for season two of our political documentary series Youth Wings – Toby Manhire has all the details, including the young politicians featured this year. Sela Jane Hopgood looks into what’s behind the worrying numbers of young Pasifika who are experiencing strokes. Madeleine Holden explains how to leave a group chat without putting anyone’s nose out of joint. Hemi Hireme tells how his experiences as a whangai child moulded his understanding of what it means to belong.

Sporting Snippets

• The journalist behind the report that the Spain World Cup football team had left Palmerston North early due to boredom has tweeted a mea culpa, admitting that it appears the information “from reliable sources” was not so reliable after all. Team officials say the sensational report was simply not true and the team had been “absolutely happy” in the town. Meanwhile, Palmy mayor Grant Smith has offered to host the team for a night out to show them what they were missing. “Smith said he understood a city with 100,000 people was a small pond in comparison to the likes of Madrid or even Auckland, ‘but we are comfortable in our own skin as a city’,” reports Newstalk ZB.

• Also, New Zealand was knocked out of the World Cup.

The dawn raid that put the cat among the kererū in Hamilton

Ten years ago, a fight like the one between bird park owner Murray Shaw and Hamilton council (and between Shaw and DOC) would have been unlikely to raise eyebrows in the national press. But it’s 2023, which means it feels almost inevitable that a local dispute over the placement of a road and the keeping of native birds has turned into a cause celebre for alternative media, conspiracy theorists and the “Sovereign Citizen” movement. Stuff’s Charlie Mitchell traces the years-long saga:

In 2019, the Maniopoto Tribal Government, a local Sovereign Citizen (SovCit) group “issued the Shaws a ‘licence’ to hold native birds. It was signed by members of the group’s political cabinet, including its ‘Secretary of State’, its ‘Acting Attorney-General’ and its ‘Minister of Native Police’.”