Local ElectionsSeptember 23, 2019

Race briefing: Queenstown, jewel of New Zealand Incorporated

Don Rowe

Contributing writer

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In our latest local elections 2019 race briefing (read the rest here), Don Rowe looks at the two horse race to control the tourism capital of New Zealand.

The Spinoff local election coverage is entirely funded by The Spinoff Members. For more about becoming a member and supporting The Spinoff’s journalism click here.

Where?

Queenstown, the pride of Te Waipounamu, home of adventure tourism and gateway to Glenorchy, an all-time great shroom spot. The Queenstown Lakes District is a microcosm of the country at large, replete as it is with extortionate rents, laughable job security and throngs of rich trustafarians pretending to be broke.

To hear incumbent mayor Jim Boult tell it, the fate of Queenstown and Wanaka is the fate of the country at large. Queenstown Inc is the flagship product of New Zealand Inc, and should the quality of the experience suffer, so too shall the nation overall. To hear other people tell it, Boult is a secretive dictator forcing change on a docile and frightened populace. That’s the marketplace of ideas, baby!

There are in the area of 40,000 permanent residents in the district and an average of 70,000 bedding down every night. During peak periods that’s more like 130,000, though most of them are imports and can’t vote.

What are the issues in the election?

The airport: Queenstown Airport is a lightning rod for the concerns of locals who fear their district is unable to cope with the incessant growth of the tourism industry and the profit motives of self-serving operators. More than 2.3m passengers passed through Queenstown Airport in the last year. It’s also the busiest helicopter port in the country. Last year the Queenstown Airport Corporation proposed doubling capacity by extending the airport’s noise boundaries. There was a collective ‘fuck that’ from residents, and a real sense of NIMBY from the good people of Wanaka, but the question remains: what is to be done?

The visitor levy: Despite the hordes of tourists throwing money hand over fist at jet boat operators and burger mongers, the council is relatively strapped for cash. They’ve tabled a 10-year, $1b plan to overhaul infrastructure in the region but they’re a cool $300-400m short. Incumbent Jim Boult has proposed a 5% bed tax on accommodation providers – including AirBnB – which he estimates will raise $22.5m annually. Opponent Nik Kiddle, a hotelier, argues the tax is over simplistic, punishes accommodation providers, and favours Boult’s tourism interests.

Housing: Beneath the staircase in my little brother’s house just outside the Queenstown CBD a young man is paying $80pw to sleep behind a door that only opens with a screwdriver – and he’s considered a lucky one. The 300 itinerant workers at the Lakeview campground are being evicted in the next few weeks, and many of them feel they’ve been betrayed by the interests of the rich whose homes they clean. Throngs of elderly are being forced out of the area too, as house after house is converted into Airbnb lodgings.

Freedom camping: Basically everyone is pissed off about freedom campers. And fair enough, who in the country isn’t?

What $80 per week gets you in Queenstown (Photo: Don Rowe)

Who’s running for mayor?

There are three candidates for mayor, but considering one couldn’t even be bothered answering the Policy survey, this is pretty much a two horse race.

Jim Boult is the incumbent mayor and self-admitted benign dictator of Queenstown. He’s a big dog businessman who ran Christchurch Airport through a terminal expansion and both earthquakes, and won the 2016 election with more than double the votes of his closest challenger – who was caught organising a smear campaign against Boult. He’s responsible for the ultra-popular $2 bus initiative, championed the 5% bed tax and says he’s standing again because there’s still work to be done. Boult has been accused of conflicts of interest relating to his directorship of tourism operator Wayfare, but that’s slightly ironic coming from his main opponent, hotelier Nik Kiddle.

Nik Kiddle, owner of the Villa del Lago luxury apartments, is standing for mayor for the first time in 2019. Kiddle has positioned himself as the anti-Boult, campaigning on a platform of honesty, transparency and community cooperation. Kiddle says Boult has failed to bring the community along with him, and that running the mayoralty like a business is the wrong approach. Kiddle strongly opposes a bed tax, a stance Boult has criticised as a conflict of interest of its own.

And who’s likely to win?

It’s hard to say. Some pundits see Kiddle as a strong challenger, a less opaque and dictatorial guiding hand. Others point to Boult’s track record of actually getting things done – for the first time, there are queues at bus stops in town and freeflowing traffic around the airport. Both candidates believe this is the most important election in years, and both tell me they’re convinced of a win. That being said, as a betting man, I would have to pick Boult based on his track record and the very real presence of a business elite in Queenstown.

What is the voting method?

The worst one: First Past the Post.

Read more 2019 local election race briefings here and find out more about the candidates’ policies on Policy Local.

The Spinoff local election coverage is entirely funded by The Spinoff Members. For more about becoming a member and supporting The Spinoff’s journalism click here.

Local ElectionsSeptember 23, 2019

Pay-for-play accusation as Māori TV offers mayoral candidates $500 interview

Alex Braae

Staff Writer

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An Auckland mayoral candidate has reacted furiously to an advertising approach from Māori Television, which he says was a pay-for-play offer of coverage. Alex Braae reports.

UPDATE: Māori Television has responded with an official statement, which can be read in full below.

Craig Lord, a long-shot candidate for the Auckland mayoralty, has described an advertising offer from Māori Television as inappropriate, and close to “extortion.”

In an email provided to The Spinoff, Lord was told by Multi Platform / Content Producer George Ngatai that “Māori TV are offering the opportunity for Mayoral Candidates to be interviewed informing our viewers as to why they should be voting for you in the local body elections.”

Lord, who has criticised other news outlets for not covering his campaign, said what rankled him was being asked to pay $500 plus GST for the privilege.

“It’s difficult to come up with the right words for what I think of this approach. The word fraudulent comes to mind even though its not a con as such. Maybe it’s a bribe as they are clearly offering favours to someone that pays. In my eyes it is clearly not an advertising offer.”

The interview would be conducted “by one of our hosts and played live from midday 30 September 2019”, Ngatai’s email said. It would not necessarily play on Māori Television itself, as the primary outlet for it would be the broadcaster’s online channels, such as their website and Facebook page.

However, clips from the interview could eventually have made their way into news broadcasts, according to the email. “This could then be picked up by our evening news team and replayed across the network over the day which from our programming team is played over 5 times in one day.”

A spokesperson for Auckland mayor Phil Goff’s re-election campaign confirmed it had been given the same offer.

THE FULL EMAIL SENT TO CRAIG LORD AND SEVERAL OTHER MAYORAL CANDIDATES

When contacted, Ngatai disagreed with the assertion that the offer was an exchange of payment for coverage. “It was just giving them an opportunity to advertise with us”, he said, describing it as “more an infomercial type opportunity.”

He said “about two or three” candidates in the Auckland mayoralty race have expressed interest in the offer so far. “Obviously what we want to do is make sure it’s all fair, because normally there’s a focus on one or two candidates, and that’s not we want to do. We want to be fairer to allow people the opportunity to speak as well, or also look at advertising for their campaign.”

“What we’ve done is said to them look, here’s the focus, what we’re wanting to focus on is what you’re going to be contributing, and encouraging Māori voters to get in behind you, support you, that kind of thing. We’ve got an audience that want to engage with it, and we’re providing that opportunity via our website and online.”

The business end of the local election period is fast approaching, with voting now open, and preliminary results coming out on October 12.

In recent years the wall between editorial and advertising content has broken down somewhat across New Zealand’s media landscape. Almost all commercial media outlets offer advertising clients some form of sponsored content – including, for the purposes of full disclosure, The Spinoff.

This situation is comparatively unusual for two reasons. Firstly, Māori Television is a state-owned and funded broadcaster, with advertising during some of its programming. A recent report into the Māori media sector found that Māori organisations tend to struggle much more for funding and resources than others in New Zealand.

The other difference is that while most commercial media outlets would run advertising paid for by candidates during an election race, it would be highly unusual for that advertising to be presented in any way that might indicate to audiences that it was editorial content.

Ngatai said that at the start of the interviews, which would only be broadcast in full online, introductions would make it clear that it was paid for. He stressed that the editorial department would make their own decisions on whether or not to take clips from the interviews for their news reports.

However, for candidates the major value in taking up the opportunity would be in getting their quotes into news bulletins broadcast on TV, both because the audience is much larger, and on the more amorphous grounds of the legitimacy conferred by flagship news programmes.

Māori Television responds:

Māori Television acknowledges the actions in this instance are inappropriate and fall well short of the organisation’s editorial standards.

“We take our role as an independent broadcaster seriously. The staff member has erred in this instance and we apologise for the misunderstanding the approach has caused,” says a spokesperson for Māori Television.

Māori Television is unable to comment further as this is now an employment matter.

The Spinoff local election coverage is made possible thanks to The Spinoff Members. For more about becoming a member and supporting The Spinoff’s journalism click here.