Thursday, July 16, 2020

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.


5 comments:

Ricardo said...

Perfectly consistent policy. This will allow people to fly to Queenstown where 5 million dollars of tax payers' money has been donated to the millionaire owners of a bungee jump business.

David McLoughlin said...

Odd that the story doesn't mention McAnulty's and Mark's interest in the election.

When I saw the announcement (which also had over $1m for a skateboard park in Masterton) and that it was announced by Grant Robertson, I assumed it was naked pork for Kieran McAnulty. These sort of regional sums are usually chucked about by Shane Jones; his absence made me think Ron Mark was not amused. But Ron giving his blessing in the Times Age seems to counter that.

If you look at the 2017 election results, you'll see that National's Alastair Scott only won because Ron Mark got 7753 votes, many of which would probably have gone to McAnulty had Mark not stood again. Scott's majority was only 2872; he got 16,514 votes; McAnulty got 13,642.

If Ron doesn't run this time, Kieran will probably win; though with Scott departing, the new Nats candidate might actually get more votes than Scott did, or maybe not. But Ron is so enjoing being (a very good) minister of defence, he might be planning to run again. He hasn't got much time to declare.

Voters aren't fools of course; yesterday's big porking will be seen as just that. I mean FGS, a skateboard park and a better runway for Ron's Air Force taxis to land on? I don't think it will sway any votes, but the politicians keep hoping it will. I wish they'd stop it.

gravedodger said...

Last decade of last century saw a concerted attempt to offer flights to AKL and CHC using a small seven/nine seater aircraft, a good mate Mike Bamford was one of the pilots the carrier was Wairarapa Air, Hansells was a corporate supporter
The Masterton District Council under chair the late Royce Callahan also gave good support in sealing a runway but it just never worked out commercially what has changed apart from two wannabe pollies wanting some dosh, ten million in fact, to boost a faint hope of election

With Palmerston North and Wellington around an hour away it is a big hole just waiting for money to disappear into, even dream about tourists using it is fanciful.

Pork barrel my posterior it is voter fraud front center and behind.

I lived there for over two decades and I have a valid opinion.
During those heady days I spent some time in Sydney and two days before departure back to NZ I took the train west through the Blue mountains, Lithgow, Bathurst, Orange and then Dubbo where I waited for a flight back to SYD with Hazelton Air.
Waiting in the little Dubbo Airport struck up a conversation with a Grazier who when asked said he lived three hours north of Dubbo and was off to SYD for a week with family. Replace Dubbo with Masterton and it is no different.

NZ has far too many costly airfields being maintained when the reality of air travel in 2020 with traffic, early reporting times, parking costs, delays, manipulation of flights, and the best pricing reserved for main trunk flying, why persist with Oamaru, Timaru, Masterton et al, all requiring massive subsidy and high ticket pricing to exist. Try a quick unplanned from say Oamaru to Napier, close to a grand return when CHC WGN can often be done for under a hundy with a pleasant drive through real NZ Oamaru/ Christchurch and Wellington/ Hastings a bonus. Almost a holiday if you will.

Trev1 said...

These scatter-gun disbursements are to promote the appearance of action after three lost years during which not a single piece of major infrastructure development was started. Not to mention the broken promises on Kiwibuild and Light Rail for Auckland for which fuel users were scammed by a special tax. And yes there's the pork barrel aspect too. All in all a sorry tale of incompetence and sleaze.

Brendan McNeill said...

I believe that was $10m of your tax dollars for tourism operator AJ Hackett.

We have moved beyond the rational.