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Tory Whanau, Nīkau Wi Neera, in front of Wellington Airport
Tory Whanau, Nīkau Wi Neera, in front of Wellington Airport

OPINIONPoliticsJune 4, 2024

Tory Whanau just made her most impressive move as mayor – it may cost her

Tory Whanau, Nīkau Wi Neera, in front of Wellington Airport
Tory Whanau, Nīkau Wi Neera, in front of Wellington Airport

Getting the votes to sell the council’s shares in Wellington airport was a skilled piece of dealmaking, but it opens the Wellington mayor up to some big political risks.

Windbag is The Spinoff’s Wellington issues column, written by Wellington editor Joel MacManus. Windbag is made possible thanks to the support of the Welly 500.

The Green Party prides itself on ideological purity. For most of its existence, it’s been able to hold itself to that high standard. Purity is easy when you have no power. As Tory Whanau is learning, there is no job in politics where you have to sacrifice purity for pragmatism more than as a city mayor. 

On Thursday, Wellington City Council voted on its Long Term Plan. The final signoff will come in June, but this was the last opportunity for major changes. The most significant decision by far was the vote to sell the council’s 34% stake in Wellington International Airport. Councillor Tim Brown, a former chair of the airport company, put the idea forward to create an investment fund to support the council’s insurance shortfall. Whanau saw the sale as an opportunity to find some much-needed fiscal headroom, diversifying the council’s risk while allowing more borrowing capacity and more funding for core services.

There was a strong backlash from the left. Labour councillors were against it from the start. Anything that could be derided as privatisation is a no-go in Labour circles, even though the council’s minority stake never gave it any real control over the airport. Several Greens turned against Whanau too; Wellington Central MP Tamatha Paul said the sale was against “fundamental” Green principles. Councillor Nīkau Wi Neera even suggested he might leave the Green Party. There wasn’t a lot of support from the right of council either, where some councillors have been running a self-described “campaign of disruption” against Whanau.

Despite all that, the airport sale passed 10-8, with one of the most interesting vote splits we’ve seen in this council term. 

The vote count for the airport sale. Photo: Twitter, Nīkau Wi Neera.

Alongside Whanau as the 10 votes in favour are Tony Randle, Nicola Young, and Diane Calvert, three dyed-in-the-wool conservatives who have no love for the mayor. Tim Brown and John Apanowicz are centrist business guys, and were keen on the sale from the start. Liz Kelly and Holden Hohaia are iwi representatives. Sarah Free is a former Green who is now a swingy independent. The only fellow Green vote is from Laurie Foon, the deputy mayor. 

The votes against are four Labour councillors, two Greens, plus Iona Pannet (a former Green), and Ray Chung, who has already announced his plans to run for mayor against Whanau

Whanau pulled the winning votes together with some impressive pieces of horse trading. The Khandallah Pool survived closure for another year, giving Diane Calvert a short-term win. Nicola Young got continued funding for central city CCTV cameras. The council dropped its plans to introduce metered parking in suburban centres, a big issue for Tony Randle. In fact, the suburban parking was such an obviously unpalatable proposal that it may have always been intended as a sacrificial lamb.

Whanau made her ability as a dealmaker a core part of her election pitch; she talked at length about her role as Green Party chief of staff working with Labour and New Zealand First in the coalition government. This is the first time she has demonstrated that ability as mayor on a high-stakes political issue. (There were a few deals behind the scenes made during the District Plan, but it didn’t end up mattering as much because the vote margins were quite wide.)

It’s a good sign for Whanau and her team. She showed the old-school political dealmaking ability that a mayor needs, and which Wellington hasn’t had in a long time. Andy Foster was basically allergic to it. Justin Lester wasn’t a natural either. 

But now Whanau finds herself politically vulnerable. Until this point, the Greens and Labour have been in lockstep on council. Now, Whanau is offside with most of her own party, and especially with Labour. The airport sale has become a wedge issue, and a deeply emotive one.

Unions Wellington’s campaign against the airport sale was well-organised and motivated, and polling suggests they had voters on their side. Turnout to their public meetings against the sale was high, and they packed the council chamber with supporters for their submission.

Unions Wellington supports presenting to council against the airport sale. Photo: Twitter, Ben McNulty.

For the first time, there is a platform for a Labour-aligned candidate to rise up and challenge Whanau from the left. Already, rumours are swirling. Fleur Fitzsimons is a name that keeps popping up – though she may be more interested in having another crack at the Rongotai electorate seat. 

The bigger risk for Whanau is if this starts a backlash within the Green Party. The party is democratic to a fault, and the membership is notoriously purist in their ideals. If party members revolt against endorsing her for re-election, it will put Whanau in a tight spot. 

By selling the airport shares, Whanau valued pragmatism over purity and got the win she believed was necessary for the council. She’d better hope it was worth it. 

‘Hutt Valley, Kāpiti, down to the south coast. Our Wellington coverage is powered by members.’
Joel MacManus
— Wellington editor
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Three images of Shane Jones wearing orange reflective safety vests and white hard hats against the background of an open-pit mining site
Shane Jones hearts mining (Photos: NZ First Twitter; additional design Tina Tiller)

OPINIONPoliticsJune 4, 2024

Shane Jones’ pro-mining culture war risks destroying the industry he loves

Three images of Shane Jones wearing orange reflective safety vests and white hard hats against the background of an open-pit mining site
Shane Jones hearts mining (Photos: NZ First Twitter; additional design Tina Tiller)

The resources minister is creating a polarised debate where you’re either in favour of drilling and mining for everything, or you’re a woke climate alarmist. It’s going to backfire, argues Sefton Darby.

Almost 10 years ago a group of senior mining execs, government officials and the then minister of energy and Resources Simon Bridges gathered in a small beige meeting room in a large beige hotel in Hamilton. The meeting was happening on the sidelines of what passed for the New Zealand mining industry’s annual conference. I can relate what follows because at the time I was the national manager of minerals at MBIE, with responsibility for the impossible combination of both regulating and promoting the sector.

Bridges asked the execs what was troubling them the most. Excessive regulation or tax – no. Low commodity prices – also no. What was really distressing the mining industry, it seemed, was that people didn’t understand them. And the fact that people didn’t understand them was making their jobs all but impossible.

The cause of this “lack of understanding” had been Gerry Brownlee’s disastrous proposal to open up protected conservation land to minerals exploration. The proposal had led to such a massive public backlash that it caused the government to completely back down. That backlash meant getting any new mining project up and running was very difficult in the years following; the investment climate for mining became – ironically – much more challenging under National. 

A protest against the government’s proposal to open up conservation land for mining in Auckland in 2010 (Photo: Hannah Peters/Getty Images)

Fast-forward to today and the question is this: is Shane Jones trying to make the same mistake? Is he, in being so pro-mining, at risk of creating the backlash that will destroy the industry?

By 2017 the Ardern government was very clearly saying there would be no more exploration for oil and gas, very little new mining and certainly not anywhere within a whiff of the conservation estate. And given that the Department of Conservation manages almost one third of New Zealand, everywhere is within a whiff of conservation land. 

Around this time I published a short book on the oil and mining debate in New Zealand . The cover quote of the book is “Everyone is angry around here and everyone is kind of right” – which is still an accurate reflection of the debate today. 

The book tried to find a middle ground in the debate, which it must’ve done because it generated both a thunderous denunciation by former Green MP Catherine Delahunty as well as some anonymous hand-written hate mail from someone on the West Coast condemning my anti-mining views. By the time the book was launched it was treated as a bit of curiosity by a lot of people because – to sum up the average conversation that I had with anyone in Wellington – “we don’t really do oil or mining any more, do we?”

The pendulum has now inevitably swung. Shane Jones launched the government’s minerals strategy in May on the West Coast, a place he described in his social media as having been “rudely abandoned by woke-riddled climate alarmism”. The first key action in that strategy: pass the Fast-track Approvals Bill. The bill has a few issues. 

Recent Shane Jones and NZ First posts on X/Twitter

In my current job I work for a company that analyses and models data on what communities think and feel about companies or entire industries. We can put a number on whether there is “trust” or not.

The mix of factors that make or break trust varies from community to community, industry to industry and country to country, but in mining communities there are two drivers of trust that we see pretty often. The first is regulation. Communities have higher levels of trust in companies if they are confident they are well regulated; there are red lines; that someone will hold companies to account. 

The second factor is perceived procedural fairness – do companies listen to and act on community concerns; are communities able to be involved in decisions that impact them; are the ways decisions are made transparent and fair? The proposed fast-track legislation seems to run pretty hard against both of these factors.

The problem with Jones’ hyperbole-filled culture war on behalf of the mining industry is that it creates a highly polarised debate where you are either in favour of drilling and mining for everything, or you’re a “woke, riddled munchkin who wants to fry eggs on solar panels” (Jones’ social media is a treat). 

The reality is more nuanced. I have plenty of friends who are woke-riddled climate alarmists, and a few of them work for mining companies. In reality, energy transition to address climate change will require a lot more of some mines (copper for electrification of everything) and a lot less of others (coal). There will be plenty of potential mining locations the government shouldn’t even consider touching, and others where it might work so long as credible and responsible companies do the work. Mining isn’t a yes/no equation – it’s about what’s being extracted, and where, how, and who is doing the extracting. 

The “who” is worth keeping an eye on. A decade ago there was a pretty steady parade of cowboy companies (and their lobbyists and lawyers) who made their way through the then minister’s office, and a few of those cowboys are back chomping at the fast-track bit. As Bryce Edwards notes, the lack of transparency and perceived conflicts of interest by decision-making ministers is going to be a major issue. 

I still work with some mining companies today and it’s an industry that is pretty obsessed with risk assessments. So here’s a two-point assessment for the New Zealand mining industry. Firstly – will it be easier to get a mine approved in New Zealand? Probably “yes” in the short term, but probably “no” in the long term because the fast-track legislation is so extreme it’s hard to see it surviving a change of government. That’s a real problem for an industry that takes decades to explore for and develop a mine.

Secondly – what are the risks to communities and companies alike? High – because you can’t legislate people’s voices out of the equation; communities potentially impacted by mining will find a way. The backlash is inevitably coming, and that will pull the pendulum hard back in the other direction. 

Sefton Darby is a Sydney-based consultant who has worked across industry, government and for NGOs working on transparency and good governance issues.

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