Fairy dust spotted falling over Hood Aerodrome

A story on the front page of today’s Wairarapa Times-Age announced that the government will spend $10 million improving Masterton’s Hood Aerodrome. An obvious, if inconvenient, question immediately arises: Why?

Sound economic initiatives in the Wairarapa deserve to be applauded, but it’s hard to see any benefit in upgrading an aerodrome that no airlines use. Scheduled services in and out of Masterton have been tried twice since I moved to the town, first by the now-defunct Air Wairarapa in 2002 and later by the Air New Zealand subsidiary Eagle Airways from 2009 till 2014. Both were abandoned because they made no money, and I’m not aware of any evidence that suggests upgrading the aerodrome will magically increase demand or make flights to Masterton profitable.

Certainly there was no suggestion in this morning’s story that Air New Zealand or any regional operator is eagerly waiting to provide a service once Hood’s infrastructure is upgraded. The only regular user quoted in the Times-Age was the Life Flight trust, which operates air ambulances from the aerodrome. Life Flight’s chief executive welcomed the announcement, saying the weather in Masterton was often a challenge (Really? To pilots who constantly fly in and out of Wellington?) and the length and width of the runway could be “a little bit of a challenge as well”.

That hardly sounds like adequate justification for committing $10 million of taxpayers’ money to widening and extending the runway (which will involve buying more land and re-aligning the adjacent road), upgrading lighting, improving effluent, water and power on site and funding improved security. It rather looked to me as if the Life Flight CEO was roped in because they needed someone to make positive noises about an announcement that otherwise didn’t make a lot of sense.

Alternatively, I wondered whether the Times-Age might have inadvertently omitted a vital paragraph explaining why all this investment was justified. Perhaps that missing paragraph referred to an imminent announcement that Air New Zealand ATR 72s bulging with tourists will be flying into Masterton as soon the project is completed.

Then again, this act of regional boosterism may be primarily about creating jobs for people put out of work by the coronavirus. That seemed to be the focus of Finance Minister Grant Robertson’s speech, in which he talked of the 53 construction jobs that would be created and airily speculated about the prospect of 200 employment opportunities once the airport was fully operational. The government went looking for projects that were ready to go, Robertson was quoted as saying, and this one ticked all the boxes.

There seem to be a lot of wildly optimistic assumptions built into his prediction and I wondered whether a rigorous business case had been prepared. If there was one, I could find no mention of it on Robertson’s website; in fact no mention of Hood Aerodrome at all.

Naturally there were other people on hand yesterday to applaud Robertson’s announcement. Wairarapa-based New Zealand First MP and cabinet minister Ron Mark said the proposed upgrade would improve viability for a commercial airline – something he had advocated since he was mayor of nearby Carterton. “We’re back in a good space again,” Mark was quoted as saying. “What I’m really keen to see is an airline recommence flights from Masterton to Auckland.”

This falls somewhat short of a cast-iron assurance that the taxpayer’s investment will pay dividends. A couple of phrases come to mind. One is wishful thinking; the other relates to carts and horses. Or perhaps Mark is placing his faith in the famous line from the movie Field of Dreams: “If you build it, [they] will come.” There’s something distinctly cargo-cultish about the expectation that if only you throw sufficient quantities of money at something, providence will reward you.  

Labour list MP Kieran McAnulty, who lives in Masterton, lined up to claim his share of the credit for the announcement too, proudly declaring that his proximity to ministers as the party’s junior whip meant he was able to promote awareness of key local projects and arrange meetings with influential Wairarapa figures such as former Masterton mayor Bob Francis and veteran government trouble-shooter Dame Margaret Bazley.

Not mentioned in the story was that both Mark and McAnulty are standing for the Wairarapa seat in the general election and both fancy their chances, especially since sitting National MP Alastair Scott is standing down after two undistinguished terms and the man hoping to replace him, local farmer Mike Butterick, has virtually no profile.

Join the dots and you get a distinct whiff of unashamed, old-fashioned pork-barrel politics. The only name missing is Shane Jones, and that’s presumably because he’s busy promoting the New Zealand First Survival Slush Fund – sorry, the Provincial Growth Fund – in Northland.