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For Auckland Podcast

Dame Diane

Dame Diane Robertson

Dame Diane

In episode nine departing City Missioner, Dame Diane Robertson, speaks about about growing data inequality. Chair of The NZ Data Futures Partnership, Dame Diane Robertson believes we must act now, to avoid a new era of inequality and lost opportunity. Robertson is best known for her transformational leadership of Auckland City Mission, a position she held for 22 years. As Chair of The NZ Data Futures Partnership (NZDFP), her focus is firmly on the digital health and wealth of Aotearoa. Robertson is deeply concerned that in the digital revolution, we are creating a whole new poverty trap, due to failing data governance. Appointed to NZDFP under the previous National-led coalition by Bill English, her role has continued under the Labour-led coalition government. Having spent the last few years working with boards and senior executives in all sectors, Robertson has a uniquely informed perspective on the state of our digital governance. In this episode of For Auckland, hosted in partnership with The Committee for Auckland, Robertson gives our private and public sector leadership a fail mark in adapting to the digital economy. She explains the double-sided jeopardy of inaction, new exposure to our most vulnerable people and missing out on the huge economic, social and environmental opportunities. The answer is treating our data as a strategic community asset.

Owen Gill

Owen Gill on how this local body election will define Auckland’s future

Owen Gill

For Auckland is a Spinoff podcast of civic conversations with people working to create and sustain a better Auckland for all. In episode eight policy analyst Owen Gill outlines his vision for Auckland and how we can get there. 

Auckland in 2019 is in the same moment as Los Angeles was in 1945 and what we do now will define our future, says Owen Gill. And as we build to a city populated by millions, we better learn their lessons and fast.

In his new book, Turning Point Auckland, Gill says we must learn from what went wrong in California to ensure a better Auckland, or live their crises ourselves. Gill wrote the book to excite interest and debate in our upcoming local body election.

In this episode of the For Auckland podcast, the former banker and “public policy guy” lays out his plan for Auckland, which centres on a few key issues: democratic reform, Auckland Council revenue and cost management and major changes to regulation and oversight of Auckland development.

Gill puts numbers on the challenges facing Auckland, saying the city has a $3 billion funding shortfall. One he wants to be addressed by selling assets, namely carparks, airport shares, and golf courses. This reflects Gill’s belief that private interests, not councils should run business. But he wants the business of running council capped and then linked to inflation.

Democratically, Gill wants around half the city’s councillors elected region-wide and five councillors receive portfolios with decision-making power and dedicated officials that mirror central government. He wants a commercial deal struck with the central government that commits taxpayers to fund Auckland’s infrastructure.

On regulation of development, Gill suggests a break for Auckland from national standards and creation of an Auckland-driven Urban Development Authority focused on housing and transport to deliver the infrastructure for a population of two million. This would involve pushing aside existing controls and laws, and replacing the Resource Management Act with an Urban Auckland Act tasked with enabling faster change.

If this conversation is a marker then Owen Gill and his self-published book will achieve his aim of igniting debate around Auckland’s upcoming local body election. 

Penny Hulse

Councillor Penny Hulse: We’ve failed to represent the diversity of Auckland

Penny Hulse

For Auckland is a Spinoff podcast of civic conversations with people working to create and sustain a better Auckland for all. In episode seven, host Timothy Giles speaks to Penny Hulse, longtime Auckland councillor and former deputy mayor, about her time in council, why she’s stepping down and her hopes for the future.

There’s never been an Auckland Council without Penny Hulse. She’s been working in local government for 27 years, first at Waitakere District Council, where she was deputy mayor, and then at the Auckland Council, where she wore the deputy’s hat until 2016. She’ll be stepping aside at the election later this year, and in this interview speaks openly about her time in government, struggles and triumphs.

At the heart of Hulse’s message is a call for change in what the council looks like. She wants more women, more young people and a greater diversity of ethnicity and culture to be represented. She’s unapologetic in her view that male, stale and pale councillors can no longer claim to truly represent the diversity of Auckland City.

With this perspective comes a fair share of criticism. Spend a few minutes on social media and you’ll find plenty of critics and trolls directing their anger at Hulse. She admits sometimes the comments hurt, but her two decades in local body politics has been enriching and rewarding far beyond the reach of haters. 

As a council veteran, Penny Hulse has led some tough conversations across the city. She reflects on the resilience she’s grown and how it’s helped her be the best politician she can be for Auckland.

Grace+Stratton+AIFA (2)

For Auckland: Grace Stratton on how accessibility is more than just building ramps

Grace+Stratton+AIFA (2)

For Auckland is a new Spinoff podcast of civic conversations with people working to create and sustain a better Auckland for all. In episode three, host Timothy Giles speaks to Grace Stratton about accessibility, in fashion and in Auckland.

She’s launched a groundbreaking fashion business, been nominated for Young New Zealander of the Year, profiled in magazines including American InStyle – who named her one of their 50 Badass Women for 2019 – and is halfway through a law and communications degree. Nineteen year old Grace Stratton has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair, and now she wants to shake up attitudes towards people with access needs with her new start-up, All is for All. 

All is for All is an e-commerce platform, modelling agency and consultation service, with a core focus of making the world, fashion and otherwise, accessible. 

Arriving to record this For Auckland podcast to be met with a broken lift and a long flight of stairs is indicative of the access issue she highlights, and it’s this kind of inaccessibility that inspired her business and sparked her passion for a more inclusive city. 

Inclusion is the vision behind All Is For All. Stratton explains her passion stems from the constant challenges people with non-conforming bodies confront when trying to access fashion. Her solution is disarmingly simple: provide access-friendly descriptions and detail that buyers need when mobility and movement is an issue.

“I’ve been looking at models who are standing up my whole life,” she told Alex Casey in a recent interview. “Time to look at a model in a wheelchair for a while, you know?”

A newbie to business entrepreneurialism, Stratton knows All is for All is far from perfect, but she’s aware this won’t be its last evolution. Her aim is to develop the resource so it continues to encourage people to engage with, listen to and learn from people with access needs.

Stratton knows having to be adaptive and innovative in everyday environments means people with access problems have a lot to teach, and are exactly the people we need contributing to contemporary problem solving.

Her optimistic perspective on life and the good fortune she’s encountered, despite all the exclusion she faces, makes her a young Aucklander worth knowing about.

Pania Newton

‘The fight for Ihumātao is a fight for all Aucklanders’

Pania Newton

For Auckland is a new Spinoff podcast of civic conversations with people working to create and sustain a better Auckland for all. In episode three, host Timothy Giles speaks to Pania Newton about the fight for Ihumātao.

So much of New Zealand history is defined by our conflict over land. In Māngere, south Auckland, the conflict is ongoing over a proposed Special Housing Area to be built on an historic Māori site.

Pania Newton of Save Our Unique Landscapes (SOUL) is on the frontline, fighting for her papakāinga at Ihumātao. Pania says the land is far too precious to lose, not only to her but her hapu, her iwi and the preservation of Māori history for all of Aotearoa.

In this For Auckland podcast, Pania invites Aucklanders to visit Ihumatao’s Kaitiaki Village, overlooking the historical Otuataua Stonefields.

She draws a line from landmark battles in our history, Parihaka, Pākaitore (Moutoa Gardens) and Takaparawhā (Bastion Point), directly to the protest SOUL are making today.

Host Timothy Giles of Committee for Auckland asks what we should be doing about the land at Ihumātao.

Mark Spencer podcast

Why our construction industry is broken, and how it can be rebuilt

Mark Spencer podcast

For Auckland is a new Spinoff podcast of civic conversations with people working to create and sustain a better Auckland for all. In episode three host Timothy Giles spoke to Mark Spencer about how to build a construction sector that can build a world-class city.

On Sunday the government announced an agreement with the construction industry designed to mutually help each other sort their mess out.

The sector certainly needs improvement. Industry leader Mainzeal Property and Construction collapsed in 2013 owing $110 million and the effects are still being felt. The latest failure, Eberts Construction liquidated in August last year leaving debts that have grown to $108 million.

To help explain the issues the struggling sector is facing, and how to chart a way forward Mark Spencer, global director buildings for Beca and Committee for Auckland co-chair, joins our latest For Auckland podcast.

Spencer is an engineer who has worked his whole career in one of New Zealand’s construction success stories, Beca – a 3000-employee company that works across the South Pacific and Southeast Asia, with a fledgling presence in Europe. Spencer oversees Beca’s building practices in New Zealand, Australia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia and Europe, giving him a unique perspective from which to explain the challenges and opportunity for the construction industry to make Auckland into a world-class city. He believes New Zealand has unique characteristics to make a robust and healthy future achievable. For once, our lack of size is an asset – but only if the whole sector raises its aspirations and radically changes its behaviour.

Gaurav Sharma

Podcast: the unheeded warnings in the leadup to the Christchurch attacks

Gaurav Sharma

Communities with a first-hand view of racism had warned authorities of threats ahead of the mosque attacks in Christchurch. Gaurav Sharma speaks about how this knowledge has turned his grief into anger, in a new edition of the For Auckland podcast.

“I can’t tell you how angry I am,” says Gaurav Sharma, editor-in-chief of the Auckland-based Multicultural Times. “Nobody was listening to us.”

Sharma is angry that warning signs he personally brought to the attention of authorities in Christchurch and to the central government, were ignored.

In this episode of the For Auckland podcast, Sharma shares the grief and shock he is struggling with since the attacks in Christchurch and Sri Lanka. Having experienced terrorism before migrating to New Zealand, he knows the path from grief to anger. He understands the pain and frustrations of the communities most affected by the Christchurch shootings.

Sharma is a uniquely informed source on the diverse communities and views across the motu. The Indian-trained journalist moved to Christchurch in 2014, where he founded The Migrant Times, now called Multicultural Times, to provide a voice for New Zealand’s multicultural communities. Now he runs the Multicultural Times out of Auckland in the hope of providing ethnic issues, news, and views with adequate representation in our public discourse.

Sharma has a traumatic personal experience of terrorism. Some of his first days in journalism were covering the terrorist attacks in Ahmedabad on 26 July 2008. Fifty-eight people were killed and more than two hundred injured.

But his message is ultimately a positive one. Sharma says that while the challenges of the Christchurch massacre are just beginning, healthy and healing responses are also taking shape. Healing is achievable, he says.

Pauline Winter

Auckland’s two million person problem

Pauline Winter

For Auckland is a new Spinoff podcast of civic conversations with people working to create and sustain a better Auckland for all. In episode two host Timothy Giles spoke to Pauline Winters about migration.

Auckland is preparing for a population of two million residents. Migration continues to play a huge role in shaping the city. How new cultures integrate and are included in their new home is one of Auckland’s major issues for the future.

Pauline Winter (Te Atiawa/Taranaki) is the co-chair of Committee for Auckland and a long-time Pacific business leader in public and private sectors. In 2008 she was awarded a Queen’s Service Order for her work for business and Pacific communities.

On the podcast, she speaks about the difficulty migrants face in integrating within New Zealand’s labour market, political system and everyday social interactions. She asks how can we, as the people of Auckland, contribute to creating a better city for everyone now and for future generations?

“Yes, we are a city of migration. Auckland’s always been a city of migration but the acceleration of people coming into the country from a much broader diverse set of countries has really taken off and it kind of takes your breath away. When you are across walking across Auckland or in the car, through this city, it’s quite a different place to what it was 10, 15 years ago. So all of a sudden it’s arrived. We talked about it for a long time but it’s here now and it is up to us what we do with this,” she says.

Tayyaba Khan

First grief, then change; Tayyaba Khan on what New Zealand does now

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Tayyaba Khan

For Auckland is a new Spinoff podcast of civic conversations with people working to create and sustain a better Auckland for all. In episode one host Timothy Giles spoke to Tayyaba Khan about the effect of the tragedy in Christchurch on the Muslim community, grief, identity, and what happens next. 

In a period of shock and grief from the terror attacks in Christchurch, For Auckland had a special opportunity to speak to Tayyaba Khan about what it means for New Zealand. She is the founder of the Khadija Leadership Network, an organisation supporting women leaders in the Muslim community, she is a woman of faith and is a Kiwi leader with international experience in culture and community. She’s worked with the Red Cross and was the CEO the change makers Refugee Forum.

On the podcast she speaks about the way the Christchurch attacks have changed New Zealand forever, how this happened on our shores, and how now is the time to start accepting our differences and be comfortable with being uncomfortable.

“We are New Zealanders living in silos, we cannot deny that anymore. I am so frustrated with our use of the word ‘diversity’ everywhere when we haven’t truly accepted diversity in its purest of forms. It is not reflective in our organisations. It is not reflective of our leadership. So actually using it as a marketing stunt is doing nobody any good,” she says.

“And what you can do is actually get to know your neighbour, [regardless of] whatever discomfort has been in the way for you not to reach out. Now is the time to go: ‘I’m gonna get over myself. I’m going to go over, I’m going to say hello and that’s all I need to do’. And actually, even if I don’t need to say hello I can sit with them in silence and be okay with that. I think it’s important we start really connecting with each other and if we can do that, that’s a good starting point for us.”