The Robertson gift to Auckland

On Friday, I got a chance to view five of the works comprising the Robertson gift to Auckland.

Simply magnificent. A (large!) Picasso, Bracques, Derain, Dali and a Matisse - all sitting in the council chambers for a few hours! The works are now on display at the Auckland Art Gallery for a week. Julian Robertson has in fact gifted 15 works to Auckland's art gallery, which comprise a total value of $115 million (but how do you really price such works?). The gift was reported to be the largest of its kind in Australasia.

In his speech to thank the Robertson family, John Banks said there were three gifts that stand out in the history of Auckland City:

1. The Sir George Grey gift of the massive amount of books and manuscripts given to the city in the late 19th century. This includes Shakespeare manuscripts, letters from Charles Darwin, in fact over 14,000 books and 3000 letters.

2. The gifting of Cornwall Park to the people of Auckland by Sir John Logan Campbell. Mayor for only three months (reportedly because he didn't want some oik to greet the future King and Queen (then the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall) on their visit to Auckland.

3. The Robertson Gift to the Auckland Art Gallery.

In giving thanks to the Robertsons, Mayor Banks also hailed the culture of benefaction from generous Aucklanders. In particular, I would like to recognise James Wallace and his gift of NZ art and assistance to create the TSB Wallace Gallery at Oah Homestead. We should encourage such benefaction at every opportunity.

Time for a cup of tea

John Banks and MIke Lee had a press conference outside Queens Wharf by the red gates to announce "a cup of tea" on the Queens Wharf competition. I arrived 5 mins into the press conference and took a quick snap on the phone.



The public have not responded with any great enthusiasm for the final designs. While all the designs in my opinion are technically competent, they lack the wow factor that Aucklanders are making clear they want.

This is not a reflection of the architectural abilities of those who proposed the plans, but obviously a reflection of the budget constraints. There were some fine architectural firms in the contest, in round 1 and round 2.

The competition had only $56 million in the council for the contest. This money was coming solely from Auckland City ratepayers (though it should be noted that the ARC and Government put in $20 million each for the wharf itself). However, it appears that $56 million is simply not enough for the ambitions Aucklanders have for the wharf.

So the Mayor and the Regional Council Chairman have shown leadership, shown that they are good listeners, and are calling for "a cup of tea".

When you're in a hole, stop digging

There's an old saying in political crisis management - "When you're in a hole, stop digging!".



One of the minor perks of the job (as opposed to free travel for my wife) is that I get to explore some pretty cool parts of Auckland. One council works I visited yesterday was the completion of the Motions Creek stormwater works, which will have a profound effect on solving stormwater capacity issues and sewage overflows from Mt Eden through to the Zoo and the Waitemata harbour. In addition to solving growth related issues, the science of stormwater management permits our engineers to make decisions on how to deal with major storm effects in the most environmentally friendly way, instead of seeing random overflows onto people's properties or in public spaces.

The works have been going for several years now, but the final piece was put into place the other day. As a part of the photo op, I was lowered down in a cage to the bottom of a 20m hole. Various photos were taken, but I couldn't pass up one final photo in the big digger at the bottom of the excavation!

You can read more about the Motions Creek stormwater works by clicking here.

C&R storm to a big win on the AECT

In what is a good sign for the centre-right next year, the Auckland Energy Consumers Trust election resulted in a clean sweep for Citizen & Ratepayers - five wins for the five seats up for election.

C&R's incumbents of Mike Buczykowski, James Carmichael, Warren Kyd and Karen Sherry are joined by former C&R councillor and financial whiz William Cairns.

Powerlynk (the Labour/Alliance/Green team) have not only suffered the indignity of having been comprehensively beaten across the city, they lost their only representative on the trust in Shale Chambers. I will offer commiserations to Shale, because even though I disagreed with his politics, I understand he discharged his duties as a trustee diligently and always in good faith.

I have only quickly scanned the results, but my first glance suggests C&R were able to turn out their voters, and the left could not.

One C&R insider also seemed to think that our vote had held up, but the left had dropped. I'll look at that a bit more closely over the weekend.

A dumb idea

It seems Andrew Williams may be correct. I have heard via the grapevine that apparently Local Government Minister Rodney Hide may have met with a private events promoter for some kind of "supercity celebration". I don't know about the sum of money or specifics.

I don't care if it is mooted to be funded by Lotto and not taxpayers or ratepayers.

It's a dumb idea.

I honestly don't know how Rodney Hide can argue so forcefully for councils to focus on core responsibilities, and then preside over a million dollar shindig for the new Auckland Council.

Here's a thought (passed onto me by an old C&R grandee). When the Bassett reforms of 1989 were going through, one of the outgoing borough councils had some commemorative gold coins minted that the public could buy to celebrate and remember the life of their outgoing authority. I think that's quite a neat momento.

Perhaps some of the Auckland TLAs should get together and get NZ Mint or someone like them to issue a commemorative bauble like a gold or silver coin in a small presentation case. People might be quite enthusiastic about a valuable keepsake like this, it would cost the council nothing (the coin would cover cost recovery obviously), and who knows what a 20 year old gold coin might be worth in 2030?

Conversely, the new Auckland Council could issue a commemorative coin to the public to celebrate the arrival of the new entity.

I think that might be a more discrete and responsible way to remember the old councils and celebrate the new one.

Andrew Williams.... is right!

I've just seen a press release from North Shore Mayor Andrew Williams, and shock horror, this time I agree with him!

However, I'll add a qualifier or three to this.

Mayor Williams' press release is about his hostility to a proposal to host some kind of "Supercity Show" in the Auckland Domain.

I'm not sure where the $1 million figure comes from (qualifier 1), but if Rodney Hide is considering some kind of supercity celebration at $1 million (or any other figure), then don't do it!

Qualifier 2: I'm not sure Hide is actually considering such a proposal. It would seem from the evidence Williams has provided that Hide is merely being contacted by a person from a promotions company about this. I've yet to see concrete evidence that Hide is proposing $1 million for a Supercity Show in the Auckland Domain.

Qualifier 3: Williams has been issuing a lot of hostile press releases about Rodney Hide lately. Hence my caution about taking Mayor Williams' presser as gospel truth.

When I saw Williams' presser, I rang Banksie to see if he knew much about this. His Worship told me no - and he wouldn't support a $1 million spendup for this kind of thing anyway.

In fact, to quote John Banks - "I've just helped kick off the Salvation Army appeal. They need the cash for hungry families, so if Lotto have the spare money they should give it to the Sallies and not pay for some concert for a new council!"

Naturally, I share the view that the Government taking Lotteries money to promote a new council is a very bad idea. It would not fit Rodney Hide's character to spend money on this, particularly given the way he wants to keep councils focused on core responsibilities. It may well be that while Williams is right about a concert being a bad idea, he may be wrong about Hide being responsible for it - Hide may just have received the suggestion rather than initiate it.

Queens Wharf final designs

I saw on Breakfast television this morning more commentary by the architect who submitted into the Queens Wharf design competition but didn't get through to the final.

Once of the mistakes that he made in his discussion with Paul Henry is that which is proposed is all we are going to get (something that the NZ Herald also suggested in its editorial this morning).

In fact, that which is proposed to be built by RWC2011 should only be considered "stage 1". The intention is that other parts of Queens Wharf could be substantially developed over time to include a new building (probably at the expense of the shed on the north-west of the wharf), and this could in fact be the oft-discussed "iconic building" that people want.

Remember - the purpose of the Queens Wharf design competition is to:

- build a cruise ship/multipurpose venue facility
- open up the waterfront as public open space
- provide a "live site" for Rugby World Cup activities (or what the PM described as "Party Central").

If you look at the designs that have reached through to the finals of the competition, you will see that a number of designs allow for the accomodation of new buildings in the future. For example, finalist number 1 has suggested a tidy up refurbishment of the northwestern shed that is on the end of the wharf (for live site use), but this is easily demolished to make way for something that could be built at a later date by the new council. Ditto for some of the other designs.

The refurb of the existing sheds is a perfectly valid idea for RWC2011, and the ability to remove a shed to make way for something else (like an iconic building), is part of the plans for the wharf. If you look at a number of the proposed finalists, they show that they envisage the shed remaining at the north-western end is essentially a "tent" for RWC2011 purposes - catering for the live site use.

It is frustrating that some don't understand this. The three parties who are holding the design competition (Auckland City, Auckland Regional Council and the Government) made it clear some time ago we had intentions for the short to medium term as well as the long-term. I even blogged about it here with some schematics to show what might happen over time.

The new Auckland Council will be able to plan for such an iconic building as we have envisaged in the long-term at its own pace.