Budget may bring overdue investment in Auckland's poorest
Saturday, 16 May 2020
ANALYSIS: Think of Auckland as the picture on the carton of a giant jigsaw puzzle, and Thursday's 'Rebuilding Together' Budget as the pieces inside that box.
There are more pieces than you can quickly count, and definitely enough to keep puzzle-builders in work for quite a while, but it does seem already that not all the Auckland pieces are there.
Not a word on the long-running political soap opera that are the plans for light rail in Auckland.
Nearly a full parliamentary term after Jacinda Ardern's Government took over the plan actively evolving by Auckland Council, and promised to fund and build it, the plan is on 'hold' until after the election.
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Advocated strongly by Labour and the Greens in 2017, and by Auckland's mayor Phil Goff in 2016, the plan to replace the conga line of diesel buses through the isthmus, and link to the airport, lacks a champion.
The Budget has delivered a boost for a long-recognised Auckland need, the shortage not just of housing, but quality homes for those who need state-provided or subsidised dwellings.
The $5 billion boost to double state home building should deliver a majority of the 8000 dwellings in Auckland, where overcrowding in damp, poor quality homes remains a major issue in the poorer south and west.
Whether and how quickly they can be built given the infrastructure hurdles in parts of Kāinga Ora's Auckland estate, and constraints in construction capacity, will be the challenge.
Some commentators have opined that Covid-19, the closure of borders, and the expected decline of working visa migrants, may have solved Auckland's estimated 30,000-home shortage.
However, while new million-dollar townhouses stand empty in some Auckland suburbs, the 'market' has done little for those needing affordable, rental homes in poorer communities.
The $1.1b 'green jobs' and environmental spend may plug well into Auckland Council's 10-year natural environment improvement work, including pest eradication, and tackling kauri die-back.
That is funded by a targeted rate, but not at the highest level that was considered, leaving room for an easy expansion if Budget money can be added.
Less conspicuous, but arguably as important, may be the impact in Auckland's south and west, from the Budget's focus on jobs, training, and trade-related education.
Tackling the disconnect between the young, the unskilled and burgeoning employment especially in south Auckland, is a challenge that has been undertaken locally and without headlines for more than a decade.
Treasury is forecasting nationwide unemployment could more than double to 9.6 per cent this year in a post-Covid-19 recession.
Those numbers would be a dream for the 15-24 year olds in south Auckland, where the NEET rate (not in employment, education or training) was 18.4 per cent in the December quarter, across the communities covered by The Southern Initiative (TSI).
TSI was one of the most ambitious ideas in Auckland Council when it was created by amalgamation in 2010 - connect community-level know-how with significant re-directed government investment, to lift education, employment, health and wellbeing.
The National-led government bought-in in only a small way, but TSI has quietly been highly-effective in areas including training and mentoring the harder-to-employ into real jobs.
The Budget's focus on retraining as a key part of getting through the current crisis, includes a $1.6b trades and apprenticeships package, more tertiary enrolments and vocational training courses free for everyone.
The programmes, which TSI has been running with a mix of public, private and philanthropic funding could suddenly meet mainstream Government ambition.
The latest such scheme has just been catalogued by TSI, a project started in 2018 to build a digital future and opportunities across the south, especially for Māori and Pasifika.
Of 17 young people from a tech career accelerator programme, 10 found jobs, three started their own ventures and four are studying further at university.
The Budget has raised the possibility that new priorities required by the economic hit from Covid-19 could connect with proven locally-developed ideas, and speed up the transformation in the south and west.