Big city, small thinking

I have been fascinated to see the mayor of Auckland, Wayne Brown and ex-National party leader Simon Bridges calling for the Government to give their city a boost, as it is really struggling to make a financial success of itself.

Richard Steele

Their suggestions include charging a bed tax, which I’d have thought would be just the thing to make me go and stay there.

In fact, the last time I stayed in downtown Auckland to go to a show, the stupid buggers that run the place were building a car park for Japanese imports between the hotel and my view of the harbour.

Another tax, just the thing. It’s already too crowded, too hard to find a secure place to park, rather vital I’d have thought when I’ve no option but to drive there.

Too much of the beautiful harbour is already blocked off from visitors by the port activities that should have been shifted out of town a generation ago.

Man sitting on bench looking over Auckland. Photo: Gantas Vaičiulėnas, pexels.com

Too much of the downtown area, always a fascination to this country boy, is blocked off by endless earthworks, that have been on going half of my long life.

I heard from a top chef last week that Auckland has 24,000 restaurant seats available for diners, but that only 3500 were being used on any one night.

So I think another tax is not the answer, and if it is, what’s the question?

Really, making the place affordable, easier to visit and attractive to visitors, would go a long way further than charging more for the dubious decision to go there in the first place.

I remember years ago reading in our country’s biggest newspaper, now a mere shadow of its former self, about the best ways for people to save money, and these ways sound just as sensible today.

Top of the list was to not eat out. To stay home for dinner more often.

So how does charging the very people you want to attract help the cause of the struggling cafe or restaurant owners? Beats me.

I’m not a negative person, though when I visit Auckland, my enduring impression is just how dreadfully lucky I am to live where I do. Those who choose to live in Auckland are part of the problem too.

Too often, civic leaders see raising charges as the way forward when the real answer is to fix the product you are trying to sell.

As a small footnote to rural people who made the decision to base the mighty Fonterra in Auckland. What could possibly have been wrong to have New Zealand’s biggest company based in the rural heartland, from where it came? Matamata or Morrinsville, Stratford or Hāwera, you choose – but Auckland?