In New Zealand today ....

 ■ Lots of reminders this morning that today is the 10^th anniversary of the Pike River mine disaster. Morning Report devoted two lengthy items to it, including an 8-minute interview with Sonya Rockhouse and Anna Osborne, who lost a son and husband respectively when the mine exploded. Much has been heard from these bereaved women over the years, to the point where there’s little that hasn’t been said already – in fact many times. Oddly, the media seem to be less enthusiastic about interviewing another bereaved mother, Marion Curtin, whose take on Pike River is strikingly at odds with that of Rockhouse and Osborne.  Curtin has said she wants the remains of her son left undisturbed and that people shouldn’t assume the Pike River activists speak for all the bereaved. She has also been sharply critical of the public money spent on the re-entry operation, a piece of political theatre which the Taxpayers’ Union says has so far cost $50 million for negligible benefit. You can read the Taxpayers' Union statement here.  

■ The Dominion Post website had a story about a truck crash that blocked the Akatarawa Road, which connects Upper Hutt with the Kapiti Coast. The story was illustrated with a large, panoramic photo of the Paekakariki Hill Road – a different route altogether. Does anyone notice? Does anyone care? On paper, today’s journalists are the most highly qualified ever, yet they demonstrate over and over again that they know little about their country’s geography or history. On the other hand, their understanding of social justice issues such as sexism, racism and trans-gender discrimination is impeccable.

■ The Wairarapa Times-Age reported that Masterton district councillors voted 6-5 to reject an officials’ recommendation that two much-loved vintage tractors in the Queen Elizabeth Park playground be removed because they posed a safety hazard. Generations of children have played on the tractors and strangely enough, I don’t recall any reports of any being maimed or permanently disfigured. The council officials also have the playground’s popular flying fox in their cross-hairs. While they’re about it, why not demolish the park's swings? Or ban kids’ bikes because occasionally someone falls off and grazes a knee? Prediction: we have not heard the last of this. The council bureaucrats won’t let the matter rest until they’ve shown the elected councillors who’s boss.

■ BTW, two iwi representatives voted to have the tractors removed. They are not elected councillors. No one voted for them.

■ Someone complained on Twitter that food books by the Australian celebrity cook Pete Evans, who is accused of sharing a social media post that included a neo-Nazi symbol, were still available from the Warehouse, Mighty Ape (an online retailer) and Kmart.  The Warehouse, obviously eager to display its woke credentials, promptly fell into line. “Thanks for raising this with us,” it tweeted. “We are currently in the process of withdrawing [his] stock in our stores and online.” Meanwhile, Stuff entered into the spirit of the witch-hunt by approaching other retailers wanting to know whether they’ll do the same. No pressure, mind. Stuff also reported that Mighty Ape had pulled a book by New Zealand author Olivia Pearson because she criticised Jacinda Ardern’s appointment of a Foreign Affairs Minister with a moko. Stuff reported that Mighty Ape was promptly alerted to Pearson’s tweet by other users. “Hey team, I see you stock her book,” wrote one. “Could you please consider removing considering she advocates for racism in our beautiful Aotearoa?” It’s hard to know which is more disturbing: the left-wing vigilante squads constantly patrolling social media like sharks (and in this case, trying to conceal their priggish authoritarianism behind phony empathetic language), or the gutless companies that so cravenly kowtow to them.

■ Back to the Times-Age, which refers to “students” at Gladstone primary school. There used to be a general rule of thumb that primary school kids were pupils and those attending secondary school or university were students. It was a useful, if informal, distinction which now appears to have been lost. By logical extension, it means that kids at kindergarten or day care can also now be referred to as students. Perhaps “pupil” is considered demeaning and not in keeping with the inclusive spirit of the times. “Boy” and “girl” may be on the way out too, if the gender-identity activists have anything to do with it.

That was New Zealand today (or at least a little part of it).

Hood aerodrome: unanswered questions

The following article, which the Wairarapa Times-Age published this morning under my byline, began as a letter to the editor and just sort of grew. It's unlikely to be of much interest to readers outside the Wairarapa.

From the outset, there have been unanswered questions surrounding the proposal to spend $17 million upgrading Hood aerodrome. It wasn’t clear who was driving the initiative and we weren’t told, at least initially, how much money Masterton ratepayers were expected to contribute.

As time has passed, some answers have been provided. It took several days before Masterton District Council chief executive Kath Ross told the Times-Age the council would contribute $7 million on top of the $10 million coming from the government. Information subsequently provided to me by Ms Ross’s office suggests the council’s actual commitment will be $4.2 million, with an additional $2.75 million to be sought in the form of “grants, fees, charges and co-investment” – whatever that may mean. 

Not only does it all seem a bit woolly, but ratepayers are entitled to wonder why these figures weren’t disclosed at the start. After all, the people of Masterton will effectively be paying twice for the upgrade, both as taxpayers and ratepayers. And the key question which remains unanswered is: why?

Unfortunately the council remains evasive. Concerned that no convincing case had yet been made publicly for the Hood upgrade, I made an Official Information request to the council for documentation relating to the project.

My request sought all relevant information, including any business case prepared in support of the upgrade.

What I initially got was a letter providing some additional superficial detail about what the council proposes to do, but conspicuously omitting any cost-benefit analysis or substantiation of the project’s promised economic benefits.

Not satisfied with this response, I sought further information. I asked specifically for minutes of council discussions relating to the upgrade and for budget forecasts covering projected returns and/or deficits. Under the disclosure provisions of the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act, this information should have automatically been provided in response to my first request, but wasn’t.

I fared slightly better, but only slightly, on my second attempt. This produced the disclosure that there were no minutes relating to the decision to seek Provincial Growth Fund money for the upgrade, for the strange reason that councillors never formally adopted the proposal.

I was told the draft application to the PGF was “shared” with councillors in workshop sessions (how thoughtful of council officials to keep elected members in the loop). But not being regarded as official meetings, workshops happen out of the public view. So we have no idea what (if any) debate took place around the council table, or how rigorously (if at all) the proposal was assessed.

This seems an odd way to conduct council business, given that Masterton ratepayers will be required to contribute at least $4.2 million. That’s a lot of footpaths.

There was further discussion during a “Zoom briefing” of councillors under the Level 4 lockdown in April, but again no record was provided of what was said. It’s almost as if the lockdown was used as an excuse for the lack of transparency and due process.

The material provided to me by the MDC further revealed that councillors considered an item relating to the Hood development in a public-excluded session last year. All detail of that discussion was withheld on the ground that it might prejudice the council’s commercial operations.

Similarly, in its previous release of material to me, the council provided a briefing document supplied to local MPs and councillors, but blacked out all relevant figures relating to council investment in the project on the basis of “commercial sensitivity”. That document “conservatively” estimated economic benefits of $248-307 million from the Hood upgrade but didn’t explain how those figures were arrived at. For all we know, they could have been plucked out of the air.

As part of the second release of information I was also provided with a poorly written “executive summary”, of anonymous authorship, outlining the supposed costs and benefits of the upgrade. As with previously disclosed information about the project, this document was heavy on optimistic assumptions and positive-sounding buzzwords, but light on substantive data.

The executive summary concedes that the benefits of the upgrade are “uncertain” and positive outcomes are “not guaranteed”, in which case one might ask why the council is committing millions of ratepayer dollars to the project. Commercial risk is the realm of the private sector, where people gamble with their own money.

Most conspicuously, the documents fail to reveal who will use the improved aerodrome/airport and where the projected financial returns, assuming there are any, will come from. The projections rely heavily on the hope that scheduled air services will resume – but there’s no indication that any airline is eagerly waiting for Hood to be improved, and nothing to suggest that upgrading the aerodrome will magically make it profitable. Not one of the cheerleaders for the project has identified a single new user.

All we’re left with, after going through the documents released by the council,  are several mysterious references in the executive summary to “facilitated projects” at Hood, all detail of which was blacked out – again, on the grounds of commercial confidentiality.

We can conclude from this that the council is probably involved in negotiations with an undisclosed party or parties regarding some form of commercial activity at Hood, not necessarily related to passenger services, and has been persuaded that it’s the best if the public is kept in the dark.

Those with suspicious minds might wonder whether the council has been sweet-talked into bankrolling an ambitious, aviation-related project in which ratepayers could end up carrying the commercial risk – in which case we’re entitled to know what our officials are signing us up for.

Otherwise the rationale for the upgrade remains unclear. A cynical explanation is that taxpayers and Masterton ratepayers are bankrolling a Labour Party strategy to win the Wairarapa seat back from National.

Mayor Lyn Patterson’s column in the Times-Age last week did nothing to clarify things. Presented with another opportunity to mount a convincing case for the Hood upgrade, Ms Patterson resorted to more airy, feel-good platitudes about putting Masterton on the map.  

We’ve still seen nothing to indicate the upgraded aerodrome will generate an economic return and thus justify the investment of ratepayers’ money that might be better spent on other services or facilities. And perhaps even more disturbing is the impression that councillors have been passive spectators in whatever is proposed.

Best-case scenario: the council is secretly talking to a prospective Hood user who promises an economic bonanza but wants the ratepayers to pick up the tab. Worst-case scenario: both the council and the government are taking a massive punt with our money and we can only cross our fingers and hope for the best. Either way, the facts should be put before us. 

Is the public bankrolling Labour's bid to reclaim Wairarapa? It certainly looks that way

Jacinda Ardern spent Friday campaigning in the Wairarapa. Labour is targeting the National-held seat and is confident it can win.

The party’s candidate, list MP Kieran McAnulty, is an ambitious, energetic local with a high profile. In 2017 he got within 3000 votes of the sitting MP, the lacklustre Alastair Scott, and this time he faces a first-time National candidate, farmer Mike Butterick, who is not well known.

Although it’s essentially a rural electorate, Wairarapa has been held by Labour before – most recently by Georgina Beyer from 1999 till 2005 – and an influx of new residents, many of them from the Labour stronghold of Wellington, could help tilt the scales in Labour’s favour.

Ardern’s charm offensive on Friday gives context to the otherwise puzzling announcement in July that the government will invest $10 million in an upgrading of Masterton’s Hood aerodrome, a facility currently used mainly by topdressing planes and recreational flyers. That sum will be augmented with a multi-million-dollar contribution from Masterton District Council. (I say multi-million because the actual sum isn't clear. Council chief executive Kath Ross told the Wairarapa Times-Age in July that the council would contribute $7 million, but information subsequently released to me by her office indicates the actual commitment will be $4.2 million, with an additional $2.75 million to be sought in the form of "grants, fees, charges and co-investment". Make of that what you will.)

The announcement of the Hood upgrade came out of the blue and makes sense only when seen as an enticement to vote Labour. In other words, it’s a prime example of the old-fashioned pork-barrel politics most of us thought had been consigned to history decades ago.

The entire process behind the government’s decision to fund the upgrade, and the buy-in by the district council, has been strikingly opaque. It’s not clear where the initiative came from and no substantive business case or cost-benefit analysis has been made public. The probable reason is that none exists.  

Masterton ratepayers have seen nothing to indicate the upgraded aerodrome will generate an economic return and thus justify the investment of ratepayers’ money that might be better spent on other services or facilities. As I pointed out on this blog in July, not one of the various cheerleaders for the project – neither McAnulty, Grant Robertson (who announced it), Ron Mark nor Masterton mayor Lyn Patterson – has identified a single new user of the upgraded aerodrome.

Scheduled air services in and out of Masterton have been tried twice in the past 20 years. In both cases they were abandoned because they made no money.

In an attempt to establish the economic rationale (assuming there is one) behind the Hood project, I twice sought information from Masterton District Council under the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act. The responses added little to what was already known, reinforcing my suspicion that both the government and council have committed public money to the upgrade based on airy assumptions that are not backed by any substantive business case.

Among other things, the council provided me (but only after I approached them a second time, after a totally inadequate response to my first request) with a poorly written “executive summary”, of anonymous authorship, that was heavy on positive-sounding buzzwords but had all the substance of candy floss.

The documents fail to reveal who will use the improved aerodrome/airport or where the projected financial returns, assuming there are any, will come from. The projections rely heavily on the hope that scheduled air services will resume – but there’s no indication that any airline is eagerly waiting for Hood to be improved, and nothing to suggest that upgrading the aerodrome will magically make it profitable.

Perhaps most disturbingly, there’s nothing to indicate that Masterton district councillors subjected the project to any rigorous analysis or even detailed discussion. No minutes, no formal resolutions: zilch.

I can only repeat what I wrote on this blog on July 20: in the absence of any compelling case for the upgrade, we’re left with no other conclusion than that it’s a brazen vote-buying exercise - one that Masterton ratepayers have been suckered into subsidising by a council that displays little regard for responsible financial stewardship and even less for transparency.

The latest on that aerodrome spending spree - and it's not encouraging

Today’s Wairarapa Times-Age confirms that the people of Masterton will pay twice for an airport that no airline wants to use.

As taxpayers, they will pick up a share of the $10 million government tab for the Hood Aerodrome upgrading announced amid much fanfare last week by Finance Minister Grant Robertson.

But they’ll be hit as ratepayers too, because the Times-Age reveals that the other $7 million for the project will come from Masterton District Council. The source of this additional funding was mysteriously unidentified in last week’s announcement but has now been confirmed by MDC chief executive Kath Ross.

According to Ross, the project will “transform Hood from a community airfield, supporting recreational pilots and a select group of commercial operators, to a centre for cutting-edge commercial activity, manufacturing and training, alongside existing and new tourism attractions and businesses.

“This work will open the door to some exciting opportunities for future business development.”

This is a statement heavy on pie-in-the-sky wishful thinking and empty PR clichés (“cutting-edge”, “exciting opportunities”). Not one of the cheerleaders for the project – Ross, Robertson, Masterton mayor Lyn Patterson and local MPs Ron Mark and Kieran McAnulty – has identified a single new user of the upgraded aerodrome.

On the contrary, the one regional airline named as being potentially “interested” in flying out of Hood has cast fresh doubt on the viability of the plan. The Times-Age reports that Doug Emeny, general manager of Air Chathams, said the airline had to be persuaded to submit a business case to the council last year.

“You know it’s getting hard when they come to you and say, ‘Can you please put an application in?’

“We thought about it and decided ‘Yes, we will’. But in all honesty, we limped into it. We weren’t overly impressed with the research that had gone on into what service there would be.”

It’s hard to imagine more damning words from the man running an airline identified as a key prospective user. In fact I'd suggest that on the basis of what we know so far, the project looks a complete dog.

Masterton District Council’s media statement on the Hood upgrade reinforces the impression that the government and the council are taking a massive punt. There’s more hollow PR blah-blah from both Patterson (“The funding for Hood Aerodrome will enable us to transform this treasured asset into a modern, functional airport with increased capacity over the longer-term”) and Ross (“We have a dedicated team that have worked hard over a significant period to fine-tune the future focus for Hood Aerodrome”), but not a single hard fact – and no mention anywhere of a business case to support spending $17 million at a time of enormous pressure on government and council finances.

Astonishingly, the council’s media statement last week avoided any mention of the millions that Masterton ratepayers will contribute to this potential white elephant. So much for transparency.

When the Hood announcement came out of the blue, I wondered whether I had missed something. I couldn’t believe the government and council could so airily commit $17 million to a project with no assured benefits other than the creation of 53 short-term construction jobs. In the absence of any compelling case for the upgrade, we’re left with no other conclusion than that it’s a brazen vote-buying exercise.