Chloe Swarbrick Needs A Reset

Written By: - Date published: 11:01 am, February 10th, 2022 - 42 comments
Categories: capitalism, climate change, covid-19, Deep stuff, food, greens, science, tourism - Tags:

The MP for Auckland Central Chloe Swarbrick has requested that the government help Auckland central’s restaurants.

Her letter is supported by more than 60 restaurant owners pleading for help. They want commercial rent reductions, more wage subsidies, extension of the IRD interest-free and government-backed loans schemes, and support for Auckland Council so the restaurants can get free rates, licensing, and administration fees.

Swarbrick says that “This is cultural infrastructure that if we lose is going to take a heck of a long time to try and build back and, frankly, will never be the same.”

Last year she called for funding to revive going to the theatre.

It is weird when even the youngest Member of Parliament, from the Green Party, doesn’t see a revolution when it hits them.

The revolution has evidently started without her.

The truth is that restaurant trade depended on a thin haute-bourgeoisie sector choosing to go out for dinner, and an even thinner sector of business executives with business credit cards to demand wine costing more by the glass than the staff serving them were getting paid by the hour.

Most diners were flown in as tourists. The bars and restaurants that used to teem with customers had a CBD full of … cruise ship travellers and package tour operators. And we used to have people going to mass concerts and sports events. They arrived on jet engines, marine diesel engines, combustion engines, taxis and buses, to eat imported food flown from across the globe, using people working precariat contracts doing 60 hours a week on minimum wage and tips: the people Swarbrick is defending who chose the CBD as entertainment are some of the most exploitative and energy-wasteful people we have. Swarbrick’s defence of the ultra-rich’s entertainment deserves a good solid fuck off.

The news Swarbrick and the rest of the elite rich need to get is that Auckland is never going to come back to what it was, and will be a speck of its former self for years to come. Whole industries have already died, like foreign language teaching, and others like cinema are rapidly dying. CBD restaurants: let them.

Even if we wanted to head in, petrol is rising to $3 a litre and rapidly inflating, on-street car parking is over $10 an hour, cycling remains terminally unsafe, no one is going to the cinema or orchestra or plays, the CBD club scene is dead, massed sporting events are void this year, Sky City is a husk, City Rail Link will suppress business through to its opening in 2025, the hotels will shrink down to a bare few once MIQ is stopped, and a large proportion of people will never work in an office again.

This is the revolution, and it has not been televised.

If you really wanted a revival of Auckland’s CBD, the Council could, like the Mayor of Brisbane recently has, make all on-street parking free, all train trips to the CBD free, and shut Queen Street completely to enable open-air dining permanently. They won’t. They have zero money left for anything.

The Prime Minister warned us this week that we needed to “prepare for winter.” We have multiple waves of this virus to come, waves of societal devastation. Waves of social dislocation: it’s a paradigm shift. In its place we are getting a leaner, safer, more productive, more networked, more efficient, less wasteful Auckland.

Minister Roberston could of course accede to central’s haute bourgeoise princess by finding further New Zealand taxpayer money to prop up the wealthy couples from Milford and Kohimarama draped in organic cotton overdue for their Lewis Road-butter-drizzled Stewart Island Paua for their plates at Ahi.

But while reading Swarbrick’s letter pleading for dinner outings, Minister Robertson would do well to reflect that 90% of Aucklanders will never feel comfortable in the CBD to go there, nor dare to afford to be entertained there, have nothing but contempt for those food businesses who have treated them with nothing but contempt for decades, don’t feel safe travelling or even being there, and won’t get anything for Saturday night  other than McDonald’s or Domino’s.

This really is the carbon reset the Green Party have been looking for. And it is devastating.

Chloe Swarbrick needs a reset.

42 comments on “Chloe Swarbrick Needs A Reset ”

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  1. Barfly 1
    10 February 2022 at 11:10 am

    That Melbourne plan sounds like a cracker!

  2. arkie 2
    10 February 2022 at 11:10 am

    Bizarre.

    Electorate MP works to advocate for businesses in their electorate: …

    Advantage: “Swarbrick and the rest of the elite rich…”

    Meanwhile, the PM:

    Green MP Chlöe Swarbrick asked Ardern in Parliament how she could “reconcile her comments that the Government is ‘pulling all the levers’ on housing affordability with her statements yesterday that ‘we’re not considering rent controls’.”

    “Because we are pulling those levers,” Ardern said.

    https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/national/i-hear-nothing-from-that-side-pm-on-defence-over-eye-watering-rent-increases-skyrocketing-price-of-living/ar-AATDdX2?ocid=msedgntp

    This claim of action in the face of the reality deserves a solid fuck off.

  3. Keith Christie 3
    10 February 2022 at 11:18 am

    Fully agree. I have suddenly gone off her like I suddenly went off that Ian Taylor twat.

    What has really annoyed me with my small business accountancy clients is those who obtained the subsidy which made no difference to their business viability and have no conscience about paying it back.

    • happynz 3.1
      11 February 2022 at 8:48 am

      If I were in Auckland Central, Chloe would get my vote. She's got a good mind and heart and you know politics includes compromise, so even if she does some thing I may not behind, overall she's gonna do the right thing in the end.

  4. Obtrectator 4
    10 February 2022 at 11:30 am

    What's that phrase? …. ah yes: "going native".

    The Green Party member's hat is in the furthest corner of the closet; the local MP's one is getting a very ill-judged airing instead.

    As for the bigger picture, there'll be a lot more flimsy business models and largely needless "services" being exposed and swept away before we're finished.

  5. Sanctuary 5
    10 February 2022 at 11:33 am

    To be fair, she is the local MP and I imagine she wants to get re-elected so she'll lobby on behalf of her constituents.

  6. Sanctuary 6
    10 February 2022 at 11:35 am

    "… Lewis Road-butter-drizzled Stewart Island Paua for their plates at Ahi…"

    Now I'm hungry.

  7. Johnr 7
    10 February 2022 at 12:00 pm

    Correct analysis in my opinion. No self respecting jafa goes within a bulls roar of the CBD. We leave it to the wannabes who go to be seen. That is why we need to support Efeso Collins for Mayor who I believe will be a Mayor for Auckland as opposed to the rest of the candidates, and the current one being a Mayor for the CBD

  8. lprent 8
    10 February 2022 at 12:19 pm

    I've lived on the corner of KRd and Ponsonby Rd for nearly 25 years, just across the road from Central electorate. I was born here on the other side of the gully and seem 2/3rds of my life living on the edge of the CBD in Ponsonby, Grey Lynn or St Marys Bay.

    It is walking distance for me to get to the CBD. I never go there by choice. When I do I take a taxi – ~12 to go 3 km compared to the fortune used for parking or the tedium of trying to get there on the loop buses.

    I do go to the movies in the CBD if they happen to be on at the right times (otherwise I usually go to St Lukes or Newmarket). Obviously I seldom do that these days.

    It is even more seldom that I ever went into restaurants in the CDB. Invariably overpriced, cramped, and just not very good food compared to what I get on Ponsonby Road or Jervois Rd or K Road or Kingsland. The only exception for me for years has been The Federal which has good American diner food. Those places still look pretty busy.

    Mostly I eat in the CBD to meet up with (as Advantage stated) out of towners.

    The club scene still seems pretty active – on K Rd. I still see it when I ride past in the early morning. I wasn't aware that there was still much in the CBD 2 years ago.

    A lot of this might change once the central rail gets finished in a few years and it gets easier to get in and out of the CBD. But as Advantage says – the CBD has been getting deader for a long time and to a local only appeared to supported by visitors. It sounds like the visitor market is a bit dead.

    It will probably stay that way for quite a while. I know that I consider risk every time I go out these days. And we're going to keep getting waves of this virus sweeping through for a most of this decade. Probably others as well.

    Novel viruses have been popping up every 5 years or so for decades now. They just haven't triggered global pandemics. I'm not sure we're going to carry on being that lucky.

    I can't see the point of trying to prop up industries without a viable market for long periods of time. Perhaps some of the places that Chloe Swarbrick is supporting as a local MP should be just told to move to where there is still a market outside of the Auckland CBD.

    They can look at moving back when the CRL is finished and it becomes feasible for Auckland to get into the CBD.

  9. DukeEll 9
    10 February 2022 at 12:32 pm

    "The truth is that restaurant trade depended on a thin haute-bourgeoisie sector choosing to go out for dinner, and an even thinner sector of business executives with business credit cards to demand wine costing more by the glass than the staff serving them were getting paid by the hour.

    Most diners were flown in as tourists."

    That's news to me and probably most of the population of isthmus Auckland. Also wouldn't explain the booming dining trade in wellington.

    Got any evidence to back that up?

    • lprent 9.1
      10 February 2022 at 12:43 pm

      You could probably take my comment as part of the evidence.

      I can see a booming dining trade in Ponsonby, K RD and Herne Bay which lie outside the CBD and in the Central electorate. I am told that Parnell is pretty active as well. Auckland CBD is pretty dead.

      As far as I remember, in the last year I have been in the CBD to eat at the Fed twice, and picked up rental car to go to Hamilton for a interview on Hobson Street in April.

      I live right next to the CBD. It is a dead zone – has been for locals for most of the last decade.

      In Wellington, it always appeared to me that it was places like Cuba Street that were really active. So are the equivalent areas in Auckland. They are round the CBD – not in it.

      • Belladonna 9.1.1
        10 February 2022 at 1:27 pm

        If the entertainment industry (restaurants, etc.) is dead in the CBD – then what do we envisage replacing it?
        Because a giant dead no-go-zone isn't really an attractive thought.

        I, too, rarely dine in the Auckland CBD at the moment; but a big part of that is demographics (not part of the dinner-out crowd – except at kids restaurants), Covid consciousness (not really wanting to go into potentially Omicron spreading venues) and also the closure of the arts sector (dinner out was often tied to an event at the Aotea or Town Hall, or the ASB theatre).

        I devoutly hope that all 3 of those factors will change at some point (well, kids will grow up – though I might still be in the not-dining-out demographic through lack of cash ;-))

        But the biggest users of the CBD casual dining, bars, etc. have always been the 20 & 30-somethings – hanging out after work. [The fine dining is a different kettle of fish – and we've already seen closures prompted by the closure of international tourism]

        This might be affected by work-from-home being here for the long term – but even then, the CBD is the central point for people to meet up from all over Auckland. The centre-point for public transport options and/or reasonable carparking (in the evenings). It's the easy option. Not requiring a transit planning exercise just to get everyone there. [Your local options in Ponsonby or K-Road, for example, would require me to get 2 buses, or drive (and stress about parking in two very parking-unfriendly areas]

        I think the impact of the massive disruption of the CRL – with zero compensation – can't be underestimated.

      • DukeEll 9.1.2
        10 February 2022 at 3:35 pm

        I go to the CBD. I used to go a lot more. the city council and police need to do something about the homeless there though.

        Queens Rise? great casual dining. Lorne St great korean, upper queen was starting to show promise and shortland st and commercial bay were good draw cards.

        I live just off K Rd, it's a great space and will get better. the CBD has no need to be dead. the council could get off its arse as could central government and start working to making it a great space again, and a great way to encourage that is through dining options. people, of all income brackets, need to eat

        • lprent 9.1.2.1
          10 February 2022 at 4:24 pm

          Hey – around the corner a bit. You're probably been impacted by the CRL build and the redevelopment of KRd.

          I think that the CBD kind of lost its way quite a while ago simply because it focused far too much on overseas students, overseas visitors (especially the ocean going people transports), and skycity. Got too expensive to go down there because of parking, far too dangerous to bike, and the buses totally sucked unless you wanted to take 30 minutes to go up Queen Street or 45 minutes to get around the loop. Plus whatever time it took to get from the locals homes to the CBD.

          It has been in state of redevelopment now for the last few decades. The now old development down by Fort street and the Viaduct looks interesting. But the lack of usable transport means that I really can't get there except by taxi. Those are scared shitless of parking up anywhere for fear of tickets. Getting back home last time I tried was a freaking mission.

          The CRL will probably eventually fix a lot of it because it removes the more continuous building. Kicking the cars off parts of the CBD even more so – so that the public transport can flow even more so and reduce the load on the surrounding remaining carparks.

          But concentrating on local visitors will be the next real need. Isn't going to be viable until after the CRL finishes – should have been done a couple of decades ago. For the moment it is as much of pit as when the bottom of queen street was being used as a rubbish dump.

          • DukeEll 9.1.2.1.1
            10 February 2022 at 6:07 pm

            I have been. All for the Bette though. If CRL is half as good as what they’ve done with K rd it’ll be amazing. But it still connects the cbd with the ring suburbs, so the CBD is as important as K road, mt eden etc.

            I think your comment about the focus on overseas customers has merit, but ignores a huge swathe of the cbd that benefits from, but doesn’t rely on them as sole trade. So many great little places enjoyed by locals on the way to or back from whatever they’re doing.

            A vibrant CBD is a microcosm of the city as a whole. If it’s dead the decay will spread. And no one will go if they can’t eat. So go Chloe

            • ghostwhowalksnz 9.1.2.1.1.1
              10 February 2022 at 8:09 pm

              The CBD has been far more alive and meeting the needs of all Aucklanders in previous decades

              Its laugable if you think it currently does ..apart from foreign tourists ( see the 2% high end brands at the bottom of Queen St) or the masses of students and until recently foreign students who populate the mid-upper Queen St and Symonds St.

              Queen St 1957

  10. Stephen D 10
    10 February 2022 at 12:39 pm

    So some hospitality business will go under. Sad for all this involved
    But another will spring up in its place. Chloe will still be able to get her smashed avocado on toast. Just served by someone being paid a decent wage.

    • Belladonna 10.1
      10 February 2022 at 1:34 pm

      Talking to my friends in hospo – no one is even thinking about setting up a new business, they're hanging on to marginal cashflow in the hopes that they can keep their heads above water and get through this. And, that's just as much the cafes, bistros and bars in the local areas as the ones in the larger cities.

      If Omicron isn't the last of the restrictions and/or closures – as some have been signalling, an awful lot of them are simply going to close their doors.

      Even (or, perhaps, especially) the really wealthy people are simply not prepared to pay $10 for a flat white, or $35 for smashed avo on toast. Which is the price point required, if you halve the number of people seated in the restaurant to meet Covid safety limits.

      Most hospo businesses don't make a huge profit (even in non-Covid times), but they add immeasurably to our social fabric.

      • Craig H 10.1.1
        10 February 2022 at 5:22 pm

        I sympathise greatly with people losing businesses and livelihoods in this. Having said that, if people stop spending or change their spending habits and/or locations, it's a legitimate question as to how far government support goes, and at what point it's a permanent change rather than a temporary one.

        Hospo tends to be an industry which doesn't treat its workers or even many owners well as it is reasonably thin margins once overheads are taken into account. Maybe if numbers of venues stay static for a bit or slightly reduce, it will help the others by spreading the customers round better.

  11. Corey Humm 11
    10 February 2022 at 1:07 pm

    I don't like defending Swarbrick because I agree she is absolutely an elite (but sadly she's one of the only vaguely moderately economically left mps in NZ) but as the Auckland central MP she has to represent her electorates wishes, she can't let her electorate wither and die without a fight. She'd get voted out. Labour mp's in city centers are noticably very very quiet and aren't listening to their constitutents pleas (although none of them are quite frankly)

    Not all bar and restaurant owners are wealthy a lot of them are decent people who have always struggled to keep the lights on but do it for the love of entertaining.

    Gen z and gen y overwhelmingly work in hospo too.

    Minority communities, performers artists all depend on those venues to be open.

    And there's nothing like going on a date or night out and despite how tough times are it's not just the wealthy who like to do this and without restaurants and bars we'll be going to maccas for a date.

    But again… Who can afford to regularly go to them! Getting in is expensive and nearly impossible, food, drink is astronomical.

    While this matters and is a big deal for mps in city centers (even though labour ones block their ears) the cost of living groceries and rents is the great pressing issue economically atm (although labour mps many of them whose voters are almost entirely renters, block their ears and avoid thier constitutents there too)

    • Obtrectator 11.1
      10 February 2022 at 2:04 pm

      "She'd get voted out."

      Likely to happen anyway. 2020 was an electoral king-tide that probably won't roll round again.

      • Belladonna 11.1.1
        10 February 2022 at 2:58 pm

        Maybe. However, it was predominantly a 'Jacindamania' king tide.

        And Chloe was elected over the top of Helen White, the Labour candidate, who might have been expected to benefit most from the reflected glory. The rising tide of Jacinda-voters lifted all Labour boats.

        Chloe has a high personal profile – which, sadly, seems to matter a lot more than policy to most of the electorate. ATM, despite the fact that she's in parliament, most voters would say "Helen who?"

        It is possible that the left vote will be split, letting a strong National candidate through the middle – I guess it will depend on who National stand in that electorate. Last time was newby Emma Mellow. Don't know if they'd parachute in a candidate with name recognition, in order to grab the seat back. Politics, politics….

        I have heard that Chloe has been a good electorate MP – from those who've had dealings with her. But this has mostly been carried out personally, or via email, rather than through parliament or the press.

        • Craig H 11.1.1.1
          10 February 2022 at 4:11 pm

          For an electorate MP, policy is a lot less relevant than personality and ability to actually serve the local electorate. Policy is for party votes.

  12. coge 12
    10 February 2022 at 2:19 pm

    Anyone taken a stroll through old Wellington lately? Hardly anyone around, many businesses permanently closed. Decaying, shut unmaintained buildings, The Duxton covered in graffiti. Old town Hall, the Library. Five years ago the place was pumping, what happened??

  13. Tiger Mountain 13
    10 February 2022 at 3:04 pm

    Pique from Advantage perhaps, still smarting over Helen White going down down down to Chlöe? Sure the petit bourgeoisie are in for a further hammering, but she is doing her job as local MP just as Nicki Kaye used to.

    Ms Swarbrick is a business person as well as many other things. I like the fact that with her personal issues she charges on in a public role, and advocates very articulately.

    • Ad 13.1
      10 February 2022 at 3:10 pm

      I prefer businesspeople who can make a business work.

      Good on Chloe for beating Helen White. Belladonna is dead right there.

      Swarbrick generates more useful debate than the rest of the Green Party put together. She should be leader for the 2023 election.

  14. Siobhan 14
    10 February 2022 at 3:11 pm

    The general consensus here seems to be let the CBD die…but I cannot think of any well thought of city that has let the CBD die ..without then suffering massive regret …and then having to pump untold dollars to get the whole thing up and running again…certainly when the borders reopen and tourists are flooding back they will be left wandering the CBD like lost souls ..I guess maybe someone could direct them to the light rail so they can visit the restaurants along Dominion Road…

  15. Stuart Munro 15
    10 February 2022 at 3:46 pm

    I'm not sure that the demise of inner cities is a terrible thing. Plant a few trees and let nature re-establish itself.

    • lprent 15.1
      10 February 2022 at 4:31 pm

      Do a Cuba street on them like the section between Manners and Ghuzee

      Kick the cars out. Plant trees. Add places to sit down. It is about the only place I like going to in Wellington.

      • Stuart Munro 15.1.1
        10 February 2022 at 7:46 pm

        Seoul has done great things with Hangang Park recently – a strip of riverside has been remade into a family recreation area. The simultaneous cleanup of the river has made it a popular place for exercise and picnics. The city employed previously unemployed folk to do it too – it's a hard project to criticize.

  16. Whispering Kate 16
    10 February 2022 at 4:30 pm

    With rising inflation, grocery bills climbing, power bills rising, petrol sky rocketing and rents increasing restaurant outings have become a fiction to so many people. Its the first thing that gets knocked off their budget. What planet is Chloe is on. Sure she wants to help her constituents but she is an intelligent young woman and must be aware of the poverty and distress of many people these days trying to make ends meet.

    In the old days restaurants were considered a luxury now they a weekly/biweekly event. Times are a changin', this virus ain't going anywhere soon. Like the 19980's farmers when their subsidies disappeared they diversified and thought outside the square. Restaurant owners will have to put their thinking caps on and take up a new career. Its no use trying to flog a dead horse.

  17. Tricledrown 17
    10 February 2022 at 5:04 pm

    Unless your dining in the carmarge region of France where its on the menu

  18. Treetop 18
    10 February 2022 at 6:55 pm

    The reality is that when income gets tight the first off the list is restaurant dining or the frequency. Inflation is increasing the price of a meal. As for enjoying a restaurant meal, the risk of being infected goes up as a person cannot eat wearing a mask.

    I know that some people have put their heart into the food industry. It is important for restaurant owners to get free sound business advice and support to make the hard call.

  19. vto 19
    10 February 2022 at 7:42 pm

    I think you are miles off the mark Advantage.

    It will all come back again

    If the bigger picture is viewed as opposed to the short picture

    You will see an increasing concentration of human beings into the future, not a decreasing concentration

    And it will happen, this getting back to before or more, near instantly

    Under your very eyes

    says my 2c

    a wager shall we?

    2c?

    • GreenBus 19.1
      11 February 2022 at 9:53 am

      Yup, were not opening up the borders for nothing. We all need a downtown to go too, and hopefully be proud of. Eating out is required in a relationship even if you can't afford it. Just every now and then. Besides, home cooking is damn expensive too.

  20. georgecom 20
    12 February 2022 at 11:20 pm

    my own view is no, times about done for across the board government financial support for business. there was two years of support whilst we got ourselves ready to ease and open up. Now however we are in a new phase of no more lockdowns, more emphasis on people taking responsibility to look after themselves and not grinding to a halt when covid rears it's head. I get it things are not easy for many many people, cafes and restaurants included. I do have to say however no, I don't agree with swarbrick on this.