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1Yo. I'm seriously worried about the upcoming local Auckland election because the idea of John Tamihere winning absolutely terrifies me. This will be a long post, but if you live in Auckland, please bear with me and read this.
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3I genuinely see this as a Hillary/Trump moment. You may not like Goff, for whatever reason, but even if you would prefer a right-wing mayor (or a harder leftie than Goff), the options for this election are Tamihere or Goff. Tamihere will absolutely ruin this city for the next decade, destroy the mostly productive relationship between the council and central government, and undo the progress this city is making.
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5So here's why I think you absolutely must get out and bother voting for Goff (hold your nose while you do it, if you have to!) if only to make sure that Tamihere doesn't become Mayor...
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7First of all, I've heard some people say "but he's managed his Trust out West so well!" Err, no he hasn't! Under his watch, the Waipareira trust somehow "lost" literally millions of dollars.
8https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=128642
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10In 2015, it was discovered that John Tamihere and others had organised unlawful elections for the Auckland District Māori Council.
11http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1907/S00248/maori-tv-apologises-to-durie-and-hall.htm
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13***TW*** He's a rape apologist. Live on air he victim-blamed one of the girls who was raped by the Roastbusters in a radio interview. Via Newshub: "The 18-year-old was asked about her own sexual habits and dress sense and asked why she was out late at night drinking and at what age she lost her virginity." The interview is off air now but it was 100x *worse* than this write-up makes it sound.
14https://www.newshub.co.nz/nznews/willie-jt-offair-over-roast-busters-comments-2013111111
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16He's homophobic. Here's a direct quote: "I've got a right to think that sex with another male is unhealthy and violating. I've got a right to think that." Another direct quote: "I don't have a problem with gay people," he said. "I have a problem with gay marriage."
17http://www.investigatemagazine.com/tamihere.htm
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19He's sexist. He described the women in the Labour Party as "front bums": "I don't mind front-bums being promoted, but just because they're [women] shouldn't be the issue, they've won that war," Mr Tamihere said. "It's about an anti-men agenda, that's what I reckon. It's about men's values, men's communication standards, men's conduct."
20http://www.investigatemagazine.com/tamihere.htm
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22He's an antisemite. Tamihere said he was "sick and tired of hearing how many Jews got gassed" in the Holocaust. "I already know that. How many times do I have to be told and made to feel guilty?" At the time, Helen Clarke had to come out and make a statement saying that, yes, the Labour party acknowledges that the Holocaust happened ?‍♂️
23https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10119675
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25He's an animal abuser. In 2005, two of his cats needed to be put down after he left them behind while moving house. The cats were left without food or water for 11 days. Tamihere was given a written caution by the SPCA.
26https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10124140
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28And that's not even mentioning his batshit insane "build the wall!" burn-it-to-the-ground style policies. Tamihere wants to...
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30...sell 49% of Watercare to private business. This would never be supported by councillors, so he wouldn't be able to do it, but if he did, it'd increase water bills by about $200-$300 a year. The effects would be sharply regressive, too: poor people spend a higher proportion of their income on water and tend to have bigger families.
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32...sell the port. Which is a bad idea because it makes really good money for Auckland.
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34...build an 18-lane harbour bridge with a train over it. This one is actually completely and utterly insane. The proposed incline would be too steep for a train to get up. You'd have to bulldoze all of Shelly Bay. It'd cost around $10 billion. It'd have more traffic capacity than all of the roads that feed it, so you'd basically have a massive traffic jam on either side of it i.e. in the middle of the CBD on one side.
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36...tackle homelessness by establishing a hotline, 0800 JACINDA, where people can dob in homeless people and have them removed. He also wants to force social workers to work 24/7 shifts. The council does not employ social workers. You think I'm joking, right? I'm not joking.
37http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/AK1908/S00248/tamiheres-policy-to-fix-homelessness-and-begging.htm
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39...freeze rates for three years. While this is technically possible, you'd have to sell a LOT of assets and cut services like libraries and galleries etc. You'd also need to massively reduce infrastructure investment, which would lead to job losses and companies in turn withdrawing their investment. Also, it absolutely would not get the support of councillors. In any case, rates have to go up, because inflation, and because the city is getting bigger, and because we've had 50 years of right-wing councils that have kept them super low and now we're fucked. Thanks, boomers. Also note, the policies he has proposed would cost around $12 billion, and the rates freeze would cut about $8 billion out of the budget, so he has a $20 billion hole to fill.
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41...fire the boards of Auckland Transport and Panuku. Part of the reason he's running for mayor is that he hates Panuku, because they refused to let him develop some land for social housing (which he would have made big $$ out of, Panukua are already doing something similar). So now he wants to fire the board. The mayor doesn't have the power to actually do that, but he could probably make their positions untenable and force them to resign. Panuku actually does some good stuff, and some bad stuff. The same goes for AT — it's just straight-up populism.
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43The main criticisms of Goff are that he's a "centrist", "boring", and "lacks vision." There is an element of truth to all of these. He's no Obama, Jacinda, or Chloe, that's for sure. But on the other hand, Obama's legacy as president hardly matched his rhetoric, and we're starting to see the same with Ardern (CGT? Benefit sanctions?) See also: Justin Trudeau. So you could argue that Goff has just aligned his brand to what he can actually deliver. And he does deliver: if he says he's going to do something he pretty much always gets it done.
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45Also, he's not *really* a centrist, in the context of council. He's fiscally pretty dry, but he's also got all council staff onto a living wage (against the wishes of a lot of people), he's lowering public transport fares for children (and making them free on weekends), he's very green (and has become more and more green over the past two years) and is doing a massive amount of work on the environment (see below). He's definitely not 80s Rogernome Goff any more.
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47The "lacks vision" thing is like the tech bros who have an amazing solution to, say, transport and it turns out their visionary idea is basically "invent buses". That is to say, the main problems for Auckland are traffic congestion, the environment being fucked up, and houses costing too much. You can't have an amazing "visionary" idea to solve these. You just have to build a decent public transport system, build a decent sewer system, and intensify the fuck out of the city. It's just boring shit that needs to get done. We've known about these problems for at least 50 years (Auckland used to have one of the best tram systems in the world, before it was ripped out to make way for motorways), but whenever anyone has proposed actually doing something about it, another candidate comes along screaming "but this will mean RATES RISES" and boomers in St Heliers/North Shore/Remuera have risen from their graves and voted for them in hordes.
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49On traffic: finally the City Rail Link is getting built, which was not achieved by Goff, but he has managed to get an extra $9 billion out of the government through something called ATAP, which is doing a lot of the heavy lifting to improve public transport. This is the biggest transport infrastructure investment in NZ history ($28 billion in total). It's actually working, too: according to the AA, traffic congestion got way worse in 2016 and 2017, but levelled off in 2018. People moan about public transport in Auckland but more people actually use it than at any time since 1951 back when we had trams. More people use it because it has been improving steadily. Between 2010-2013 usage grew at an average of less than 2 per cent a year, from 2013-2017 at 6.5 per cent, and it's now at 8-9 per cent, despite the fact that population growth has slowed.
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51On the environment: again, the big problem is that 50 years of Aucklanders have refused to pay any more $$ to fix the sewers that were built in the 1900s. Now we're fucked. There was a plan to fix this brought in by the previous mayor — it was going to take 30 years. Under Goff, it's on track to get done in the next nine years. That seems pretty visionary to me, tbh, and it's one that he can take full credit for. Again, fixing the sewers sounds boring and bureaucratic, but it will mean that they no longer flood literal shit into the harbours every time it rains, as happens now. This is one of the most pressing environmental concerns that Auckland faces behind climate change.
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53There were more than 1.1 million trees planted in the last three years, with 1.5 million more to be planted in the next three years. Again, boring but important.
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55And $763 million has been raised to improve water quality, do pest control work, and stop kauri dieback.
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57On climate change: Goff voted to declare a climate emergency. He's bringing forward electrification of the bus network, and as mentioned above he is improving public transport — transport emissions are 47 per cent of total emissions, so this is meaningful. Again, not sexy, not visionary, just boring work that will actually have an impact.
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59On housing: the unitary plan is having the effect it is meant to — intensifying the city. More housing has been consented in the first six months of this year than in 2009 and 2010 combined. The transport infrastructure investment currently underway will enable a lot more housing to be built: 10,000 houses in central Manukau, another 6000-10,000 nearby, and around 22,000 along the light rail line that's going to the airport.
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61So look, for the love of a progressive, green city that is moving in the right direction... get off your buts and vote for Goff. It might seem boring, but this election matters. Progress is at stake.