Asked what it’s promising for Christchurch, Labour delivers a seven-page dossier
Chris Hipkins saw it coming.
Newsroom’s South Island office has been on an unabashed crusade to discover political party promises specific to Christchurch and Canterbury.
READ MORE: * Chris and Chris cast long shadows over town hall * Luxon’s empty Christchurch pitch
Readers might recall our questions to National leader Christopher Luxon, during his visit to Rangiora, or our coverage of The Press debate involving the minor parties in Ōtautahi/Christchurch on Tuesday night.
With such choreography, however, Labour headed us off, ensuring there would be no headlines screaming about empty pitches to New Zealand’s second-largest city.
Today, Hipkins, the Labour leader, visited an electric vehicle dealership just outside central Christchurch to highlight “one of the Government’s most successful climate change initiatives – the clean car discount”.
It came at an unusually interesting intersection in what had been a somewhat one-sided campaign.
With Saturday’s election day looming, Labour got a bump in the Guardian Essential poll, to 30 percent. The left bloc, with the Greens and Te Pāti Māori, is well short of governing, while the right would need New Zealand First to form a government.
Reading from his phone, and before questions were asked, Hipkins tried to reframe the narrative by saying a person needs trust and integrity to be Prime Minister.
That was an attack squarely aimed at Luxon, after a Council of Trade Unions analysis found that under National’s tax plan, landlords with more than 200 rentals each, would get $464 million in tax benefits, while, at the same time, 350,000 people on benefits would receive $17,000 less over four years.
Hipkins labelled National’s tax plan a “scam”, and noting “almost no one” (by which, he means about 3000 families) would get the maximum tax cut of $250 a fortnight.
“They’ve misled people for weeks”.
(National’s finance spokesperson Nicola Willis told Newshub on Tuesday night all New Zealanders would be better off under her party’s plan, but admitted tax cuts wouldn’t lower rents, just ease the increase.)
Hipkins answered a range of questions, including Labour’s seemingly dead-end road to power without New Zealand First – “Winston Peters won’t be part of any government that I’m leading”.
“I think the election result is going to surprise a lot of people.”
On Israel, Hipkins confirmed he’d asked for advice – to be given to whomever wins the election – as to whether the political wing of Islamist group Hamas, and not just the military wing, should be designated a terrorist organisation.
Almost 10 minutes into his press 'stand-up', Newsroom asked what specific policies Labour was offering the people of Christchurch.
“We’ve got an infrastructure investment pipeline here in Christchurch of about $4 billion,” he said. (A seven-page dossier handed to Newsroom afterwards clarified that was for Canterbury, not Christchurch, with 243 central agency projects totalling $4.19 billion.)
“We’ve got some specific commitments in the draft government policy statement around road transport here. We’ve also got the commitment that we’ve made to mass rapid transit in Canterbury, and we want to see that one through.”
Other projects included earthquake rebuild work in Canterbury schools, and another 1000 public houses on the books.
“The announcement that we have made as part of this campaign will actually continue that and take that number even higher.”
Hipkins then broadened out his laundry list of national commitments that would benefit Cantabrians, including free dental care for under-30s, until Newsroom interrupted – pointing out we’d done the same to Luxon.
Did he endorse the Greens’ idea of taking away tunnelling for light rail in Auckland to pay for public transport in Wellington and Christchurch?
“We haven’t agreed a final approach for light rail in Auckland,” he said, adding there was no money earmarked for that yet because the business case wasn't completed. The commitment to mass rapid transit in Christchurch would either be a dedicated bus circuit, or light rail, he said.
2310-labourdossier by David Williams on Scribd
Once he’d called time on the press conference, Hipkins admitted he’d received a long list of Canterbury-specific work because of Newsroom’s questions to other political leaders.
“I couldn't rattle it all off, I think you would have gotten frustrated with me, but we can give you the list.”
At that point, Christchurch-based Cabinet Minister Megan Woods, the MP for Wigram, took over, asking a staffer: “Can I have my little blue folder?”
Seven printed-out pages were produced.
Woods explains the list includes post-quake anchor projects.
The biggest-spending agencies are Ministry of Education ($849 million), Rau Paenga, which is the rebranded infrastructure agency formerly known as Ōtākaro, ($746 million), Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency ($742.7 million), and Kainga Ora ($590.7 million).
Schools, infrastructure, roads and houses. That’s the power of Government – being able to point to more than $2.9 billion of work on the books.
Woods adds: “What we’ve also been really keen to do is to start thinking about what’s next for Christchurch.”
She points to a $5.4 million announcement to build runway and hangar facilities on Banks Peninsula as part of the Tāwhaki aerospace joint venture.
Renewable energy is the other.
A hydrogen aviation consortium announced last month doesn’t require Government funding, Woods says, adding “I had the initial meeting with Airbus when I was in Berlin”.
Upgrading transmission infrastructure will enable more electrification in Canterbury, she says.
While National talks about doubling renewable energy generation, Woods says the important piece of heavy lifting is getting industry off coal and gas and onto electricity.
According to Labour’s list, which is the Canterbury portion of the so-called national infrastructure pipeline, Transpower has three projects costing $137 million.
The question is, do the people of Christchurch know about these things and, so late in the campaign, will they resonate?
Hipkins left the EV dealership for his next Christchurch stop, at a mall in Hornby. His convoy passed a pink Act sign, with a bemused-looking David Seymour staring out.
