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Image: Archi Banal
Image: Archi Banal

PoliticsOctober 20, 2023

Tory Whanau’s plan to save light rail? A holiday with Chris Luxon and Simeon Brown

Image: Archi Banal
Image: Archi Banal

Wellington mayor Tory Whanau spoke with Joel MacManus about how the new National government will affect the city’s transport plans. 

Wellington mayor Tory Whanau isn’t ready to give up on light rail for the capital, despite the incoming National government vowing to scrap the project. She wants to take the new prime minister and transport minister on holiday to see some trams and hopefully change their minds. 

“I’m still committed to light rail and I won’t rule it out,” she says. “I’ll be approaching the incoming government to sell the hell out of it,” she says.

“What I’m proposing is that me, Christopher Luxon, Simeon Brown and our local MPs head over to Canberra, Brisbane or Sydney and look at their really successful projects. I am putting it on the table, saying ‘look, let’s go check it out and talk to the people who’ve experienced it.’ The second they’re sworn in, I’m going to put in a request, hopefully for early next year.”

The business case for mass rapid transit to Newtown and the southern suburbs is currently being finalised by staff from the combined council-and-government transport programme Let’s Get Wellington Moving. “We’ll take that to [Brown] and show him the economic benefits. I’m going to ask that we try to get it back on the table. It’s my role to speak on behalf of residents, who want this.”

The relationship between Whanau and probable incoming transport minister Simeon Brown is likely to be a rocky one. Earlier this year, Whanau said she was “deeply concerned” about the prospect of Brown as transport minister. “If he became transport minister I’d be really upset about that. It would see our climate change efforts going backwards,” she told Bernard Hickey on The Spinoff’s When The Facts Change podcast. 

Tory Whanau, Simeon Brown and Christopher Luxon could be planning a trip together (Image: Archi Banal)

The two met before the election to try to patch some things over. “I met with him two months ago,” she says. “I told him: ‘Look, I’ve said things in the media, but if it’s likely you are the next government, I want to work collaboratively with you’. We acknowledged we had strong views and we were on opposing sides, but we committed to sit down and talk through some of these issues.

“I told him about how light rail will enable urban development with 20,000 new homes, and encourage more investment along the transport spine. He was listening. He didn’t agree to anything, but it was exactly the conversation we should be having.”

National’s transport manifesto for Wellington centred on cancelling the LGWM programme, though many of the component pieces will still go ahead, including grade separation at the Basin Reserve and a second Mount Victoria tunnel (though National wants four lanes of vehicle traffic while Labour wanted bus and bike priority).

The long-awaited Golden Mile upgrade is set to begin major construction early next year, and some minor works have already begun. The $139 million project was voted through by WCC and GWRC and will receive 51% funding from Waka Kotahi. It has been largely popular among public submitters, but has attracted strong backlash in some circles for its plans to restrict car access. 

When it emerged that the major construction contract was still unsigned, Brown said he would look to scrap the project if elected. Whanau said the signing was “literally days away”, and will be completed well before the new government is sworn in. “He won’t be able to cancel it. it’ll be well signed by the time they’re sworn in, as it should be… The Golden Mile has been voted through, it has followed the democratic process, and it would be irresponsible to unwind that now.”

“Change is really hard, especially for those on the right,” Whanau said. “The conservative view of the Golden Mile is that it is a waste of money and not good for retail. They don’t see pedestrianisation and reduced cars as a good idea because they want to keep cities relying on cars. But Wellington has voted and agrees that’s not the way forward for our city.”

An artist’s rendering of the Golden Mile

Before being elected mayor, Whanau was the Green Party chief of staff. Although she officially ran as an independent, she wears her political stripes openly. She’s naturally thrilled at the Green Party’s results on Saturday, especially in Wellington, where Julie Anne Genter and Tamatha Paul won the Rongotai and Wellington Central electorates. 

Both candidates were at Whanau’s house on election day before heading to a results party at Eva Beva. “The screaming in the pub was phenomenal, it was one of the best moments I’ve experienced, it was so electric,” she said. “We knew it was not a great result for the left, but Wellington city has spoken and it has chosen. There’s a silver lining, and Wellington city and the Green movement can bring hope.”

Green Party candidate Tamatha Paul won the Wellington Central electorate

Wellington’s Paneke Pōneke bike network plan is not expected to be affected by the new government. The 166km of bike lanes are funded mostly by council with some central government support through LGWM, but that funding has already been approved. “It would be incredibly difficult, if not impossible, for National to unwind that,” Whanau said. 

Whanau said she was feeling optimistic about working with National on some city issues, especially new funding tools for local governments such as congestion charging, infrastructure financing and sharing GST revenue on rates. 

‘Hutt Valley, Kāpiti, down to the south coast. Our Wellington coverage is powered by members.’
Joel MacManus
— Wellington editor
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An image showing Australia and New Zealand – the former with their indigenous flag flying half mast and the latter with their indigenous flag flying at full mast.
Design: Archi Banal

OPINIONĀteaOctober 19, 2023

October 14: Two very different outcomes for Indigenous people

An image showing Australia and New Zealand – the former with their indigenous flag flying half mast and the latter with their indigenous flag flying at full mast.
Design: Archi Banal

On the same day the unapologetic Māori voice in New Zealand’s parliament grew, Australians voted down their ‘Voice’ referendum.

Australia and New Zealand have plenty in common: both love watching grown men in short shorts wrestle over a ball and will happily eat a Bunnings snag (Australian invention) for lunch and pavlova (New Zealand invention) for dessert. But close neighbours can also have stark differences, highlighted on October 14 when voters in both nations headed to the polls – Australians for a referendum and New Zealanders for a general election. 

Australia’s “Voice” referendum decided whether or not to constitutionally recognise the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. (Māori have had constitutional recognition forever because our oldest constitutional documents are He Whakaputanga and Te Tiriti o Waitangi.) Part of the proposal was an indigenous body – the “Voice” – to advise the government on matters concerning their peoples. “The referendum became by proxy a vote on Indigenous peoples’ right to exist in our own land,” wrote the Guardian’s indigenous editor Lorena Allam.

While Australia’s referendum happened, New Zealanders voted on who would run the country until 2026. The outcomes of these two votes put the Indigenous peoples of both nations on two very different paths. 

What is constitutional recognition of Indigenous peoples?

Essentially, it means protecting the rights of an indigenous population inside a country’s political system – like its constitution or parliament. It’s crucial for empowering Indigenous peoples during the reality of modern-day colonisation. 

Māori largely have this 183-year-old rat-eaten piece of paper to thank for having their rights enshrined.

What was the outcome of October 14 in Australia?

Sixty percent of Australians voted against recognising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders’ rights within the foreign political system that rules their homeland. Although not all indigenous Australians supported it – some thought it didn’t go far enough, for example – many are disappointed with the referendum result. 

Indigenous leaders have called for a week of reflection and silence, and their flags are being flown at half-mast – a sign of mourning. In a written statement, the leaders noted how ironic it was that the “people who have only been on this continent for 235 years would refuse to recognise those whose home this land has been for 60,000 and more years”. 

What was the outcome of October 14 in New Zealand?

Despite New Zealand electing a National government – a party that many consider less likely to empower Māori than Labour – the unbridled tāngata whenua voice in parliament got louder. Te Pāti Māori, parliament’s self-described unapologetic indigenous voice, increased its power by winning four Māori electorates, three of which were taken off Labour. (There is a possibility Te Pāti Māori could win two more after special votes are counted.)

The four confirmed Pāti Māori MPs. L-R: Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke, Rawiri Waititi, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and Tākuta Ferris. (Design: Tina Tiller)

Labour’s Māori caucus – which achieved some 2017-2023 wins such as repealing the poll provision for Māori wards and establishing Te Aka Whai Ora (both of which are under threat under National) – could be considered restricted by representing a Pākehā party. Te Pāti Māori doesn’t have the same limitations. Sure, they still participate in Pākehā parliamentary politics, but they accept that fighting for mana motuhake and tino rangatiratanga requires bringing tauiwi along for the ride. 

Although Te Pāti Māori is in opposition again, they proved from 2004-2008 and 2020-2023 that they can gain votes while in opposition. Since 2020, they earned supporters by exercising what my colleague Charlotte Muru-Lanning called “an outsized presence in the country’s political landscape”. By doubling their number of MPs on October 14, the unapologetic Māori voice in New Zealand’s parliament will be able to exercise an even larger presence for the next three years.

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Calum Henderson
— Production editor

What can Australia learn from New Zealand? 

One reason why the political power of Te Pāti Māori grew this election is because the rights of tāngata whenua are constitutionally enshrined. An example is the Māori seats, of which Te Pāti Māori won a majority. Australia’s referendum voted down constitutionally enshrining the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders people. 

Without Māori seats, Te Pāti Māori may not be in parliament at all (they’ve never won a general electorate). Although New Zealand is not perfect at respecting tāngata whenua, we have a better foundation than Australia because He Whakaputanga, Te Tiriti o Waitangi and the Māori seats are – for the most part – accepted parts of our political system.

On the other hand, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander rights aren’t acknowledged in Australian politics, and they only gained universal voting rights in 1962 (compared to 1893 for Māori). To reckon with its troubled history of colonisation, Australia must enshrine and respect the political rights of its First Nations people – but the referendum’s result perhaps highlights the country’s continuing refusal to redress the evils of its past. 

Indigenous Australians minister Linda Burney and a team of yes campaigners one day before the referendum.
Indigenous Australians minister Linda Burney and a team of yes campaigners the day before the referendum. (Photo: David Gray/AFP via Getty Images)

Allam from The Guardian thinks so. She argued that the referendum allows Australia to deny its history – writing that the country is “a place where the voices of First Nations people are drowned out, talked over and misrepresented in a national conversation that is forever about us, without us”. Allam added, “The big winners of this campaign are racism and misinformation.”

What can New Zealand learn from Australia?

Many New Zealanders have scolded our cousins across the ditch over the referendum, saying, “Look at how racist Australia is. This would never happen in New Zealand!” On that point, I call bullshit. 

Even though New Zealand has a better foundation than Australia, similar thinking to the Voice referendum “no” campaign persists here. The Disinformation Project found similarities between anti-Māori rhetoric in New Zealand and the Voice referendum “No” campaign. The Act Party campaigned this election on a referendum to redefine the Treaty’s principles – which included radical misinterpretations of the meaning of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and the Treaty of Waitangi. Experts said Act’s referendum proves the party has minimal understanding of the Treaty debate

It wasn’t so long ago (2021) that low-turnout citizen-initiated referendums could scrap local government Māori seats. Former New Plymouth mayor Andrew Judd didn’t stand for reelection after Māori wards he championed were voted down by a local referendum. Those referendums are now gone but evidently, when left to a public vote, Māori interests are not at the forefront. As former race relations commissioner and Gisborne mayor Meng Foon put it, “the tyranny of the majority will rule” if Act’s referendum happens.

He has not ruled it out, but surely Luxon is politically astute enough to identify that Act’s referendum would mire his government with – as John Key put it – “hikois from hell”. Earlier in the week, the presumptive prime minister said he rejected Act’s referendum policy, which he believed would be “divisive”. Nonetheless, David Seymour said the referendum would be one of Act’s bottom lines for forming a government – so it’s still on the table. 

Prime minister elect Christopher Luxon would have a race relations crisis on his hands if he concedes to Act. (Photo: Fiona Goodall/Getty Images)

Returning to Allam, who wrote that her adult child asked with sadness, “Why are all these people deciding whether we belong or not?” Many Māori feel the same way about Act’s referendum. Allam’s description of the no campaign is eerily similar to the anti-Māori rhetoric of Act and New Zealand First and to an even greater extent, Hobson’s Pledge and Julian Batchelor’s Stop Co-Governance tour. “It was vitriolic, mean-spirited, full of misinformation, driven by racism, petty grievances and conspiracy theories based on fear and ignorance,” she wrote. 

Tākuta Ferris, a rising star of Te Pāti Māori, summed up how many tāngata whenua feel about Act’s referendum. “The fact that we’re talking about referendums on the Treaty just demonstrates how much more we have to learn as a country. You can’t referendum a Treaty away. It’s a permanent fixture of the constitution of our country, and it is not going anywhere.”

New Zealand’s better foundation than Australia for respecting indigenous rights empowers Māori to fight for mana motuhake and tino rangatiratanga. If Luxon grants Act’s referendum wish – which I fear might have a similar outcome to Australia’s – tāngata whenua are ready to fight this modern act of colonisation. If you don’t believe me, look at what happened with localised issues like Ihumaatao. After nearly 200 years of oppression, Māori are effective and seasoned protesters. 

Tautoko mai to all Indigenous Peoples around the world fighting for their own and their ancestors plus descendants’ inextinguishable birthright of self-determination.

This is Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air.

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