James Roberts: WCC Chief Operating Officer on the library website

An admission Wellington Central Library's costly new website could have been done in-house A new report has found a lack of oversight and a rushed procurement process were to blame for the Wellington City Council spending up to half a million dollars more than it needed to on a website for the Central Library. Chief Operating Officer James Roberts says the council has up to 90 people in its IT team, and the website could have been developed internally. He told Newstalk ZB's Nick Mills officials got it wrong, and he takes the blame. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Wellington's Hnry Stadium will be converted into a motorsport track in January, playing host to some world-leading drivers. The international Race of Champions showcase event will make its New Zealand debut in the capital on January 9 and 10. Formula One's Sebastian Vettel and Valtteri Bottas, Supercars' Chaz Mostert and rally driver Hayden Paddon are confirmed on the starting grid. Organisers say more competitors are set to join the cast, and Race of Champions president Fredrik Johnsson confirmed to Newstalk ZB an invitation has been sent to Formula One's Liam Lawson. They'll link up in identical cars to go head-to-head on a purpose-built tarmac race track inside the venue. Nick crossed live to sports host Adam Cooper who was at the announcement. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Nick Mills is joined by music guru James Irwin for music time - and to celebrate Kiwi star Tami Neilson's Country Music Award nomination. Nick and James reminisce on throwbacks and one hit wonders and then hear the latest gig guide for the capital.  LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

EDITORIAL:  I saw this story on TV about a week ago, last week, a Kiwi bloke called Simon McCartney. He's 65 years old, he moved to London to be closer to his grandkids, struggled to find work. 65, moved to London, struggled to find work. Oh, I wonder how, why? And eventually he thought, right, I'm going to try something completely different. Now he drives a big red double-decker bus. What a job. He drives across London Bridge, looks across to the Tower Bridge, sees St. Paul's Cathedral, and on diversions he goes past Picadilly Circus, Parliament, the London Eye and Leicester Square. How about that for an office at 65 years old? Then, yesterday I had coffee with a business acquaintance. He's from Auckland, but he's in Wellingtonian. Went to TawaCollege, not with me, a lot younger than me. Mid 50s, has a successful business doing well. He sits there telling me, I'm moving, selling up and moving. I said, selling the business? "No, I'm keeping the business, but selling my home.” “I live in Auckland on the North Shore and I'm going to the Gold Coast.” He said he'll keep his business going here. He can fly back four or five times a year, can do everything by Zoom or everything by phone. That's the modern world. But he's had enough of New Zealand. He reckons the Gold Coast will give him a better lifestyle. And that got me thinking about Wellington because I hear it consistently now. Rates, water bills, insurance, cost of doing business, cost of our council, cost of owning a home, the cost of absolutely everything. Wellington is becoming a very expensive city to live in. And then you look around and ask, is Wellington actually heading in the right direction? I love Wellington. I've invested my whole life in the city. My family's here, my business is here, my work is here. But actually, when I got into bed, because when you get into bed, and I was reading about someone the other day that was saying that thought when you hop into bed is kind of like the end of your day, it should be really your happy place and your happy thoughts. And I thought to myself last night, could I get to an age where, right, enough is enough, I'm off. Melbourne, absolutely. I'd love to live in the outskirts of Melbourne. Not in the expensive part, but in the outskirts where I could afford. Gold Coast, you know, the weather is so damn good there. It feels so exciting there. London, maybe, you know, a bit more expensive. You'd have to have a little bit more money, but a place in London? France, a little village way out in the ultimate of nowhere. Good wine, good food. Now we're getting somewhere. And I know people that have done it. And it scares me because 20 years ago, you never heard of people doing that in their 50s, 60s or 70s. That's it, I'm going, taking off. And maybe the new OE isn't at 21, but maybe it’s at 61. If money wasn't the issue, where would you go? Would you leave Wellington or would you stay right here? And despite everything that Wellington throws at us, would you, could you ever simply pack up, sell up and move out? LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

EDITORIAL: I want to start this morning with something that I genuinely cannot understand,  the more I think about it the more it frustrates me, and the more I look at it the more I don’t understand it.  The Harbour Quays bus corridor.   Think about that. An eleven million dollar price tag.  History will tell us that everything we’ve seen done in this part of the world, when you start with a price of eleven million dollars, you know it’s not going to end anything under that – and could be double that.  We’re talking about bus lanes down Customhouse Quay, Jervois Quay, Cable Street and Wakefield Street — taking road space away from general traffic to create a public transport corridor through the outskirts of the CBD in Wellington.  And I think it is nuts.  We do not need it.  This thing was conceived when Wellington was planning for substantial population growth, more commuters pouring into the CBD and enormous growth in public transport.  But circumstances have changed.  The Golden Mile project that it was supposed to complement has stopped.   The wider transport plan isn't settled.   The SH1 changes aren't settled.   And serious questions are now being asked - whether the population and passenger growth originally anticipated is actually going happen.  Yet we're still marching ahead with the solution.  Why?  Because we've already spent money planning it?  That’s not a good enough excuse.  That is possibly the worst reason imaginable to spend another dollar.  And anyone who actually drives along Jervois Quay, Wakefield St, Customhouse Quay and Cable Street at busy times knows exactly what happens when you start removing general traffic capacity.  Remember when we put those drainage systems down Wakefield St and what happened then.   Where do the cars go?  They don't magically disappear.  You create a thing called congestion.  And here's another thing.  We have tried for decades to convince Wellingtonians that the waterfront side of the city is somehow an extension of the Golden Mile.  Now a lot of us will remember the old Harbour City Centre.  Remember when that was conceived and built, at great fanfare?  It was going to be the massive city shopping centre.  It was supposed to be fantastic.  It even had a McDonalds in it!  Well it closed very quickly.  Getting people across several lanes of traffic, particularly on a cold, wet, windy Wellington day, was never particularly attractive.  Now we're apparently going to do it with bus passengers  and tell them somehow: Don't worry — you can walk across to the Golden Mile.  Seriously?  With horizontal Wellington rain? The wind? The cold weather?  And we're spending $11 million to do it, when we don’t need it!  Greater Wellington has endorsed it. Wellington City Council gets its turn on Thursday.  I desperately hope councillors have the courage to say:  No don’t do it, we don’t need it right now.  Forget what was predicted two years ago.  Look at Wellington today.  Do we need it?  Does it stack up?  And is removing road capacity from one of the busiest routes through our CBD really going to make Wellington better, quicker?  I think you know my answer to that.  Because from where I'm sitting, this has all the ingredients of another Wellington transport cock-up. A massive cock-up  Eleven million dollars. Remember I said it first here - they say eleven million dollars.  We don’t want to pay eleven million dollars to create another problem that’s not really there and could possibly make it a hell of a lot worse.  LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Greater Wellington Regional Councillor Simon Woolf joined Nick on the show this morning and shared his concerns for the Harbour Quays bus lane proposal. The proposal, which entails moving certain routes away from Lambton Quay and Willis Street to the waterfront Quays passed the Regional Council vote, and moves to a Wellington City Council vote this week. Councillor Woolf said this is the next in line of many failures from our council, "we need amalgamation". He said there are other possibilities that haven't been considered, like moving the bus lanes to Featherston St. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For Friday Faceoff this week Nick Mills is joined in the studio by former Wellington City Councillor Tim Brown and entrepreneur JD Trask. Our panel get heated from the start as Nick heard a senior official at the Wellington City Council commutes to Wellington from Auckland. Is this acceptable for a high paid, infrastructure position? Does it matter what city they live in?  Then an issue raised in our Business Panel earlier this week brought up Wellington's lack of international flights. What effects are our panel seeing themselves and what paths do they want?  Brown, who was on the board of Wellington Airport said he'd be surprised if there weren't new airlines coming here "before the end of next year". The panel then faceoff over confidence in Tiaki Wai. They question Tiaki Wai's plans, costing, and if anything has changed since Wellington Water?  Trask and Brown go hard on the Zoo asking council for $13 million for lion enclosure upgrades, and pose the question - should Wellington even have a zoo? Plus was the PSA strike strictly political, and the panel share their hots and nots. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For Friday Sport's Kick-off Jason Pine and Adam Cooper join Nick Mills to dissect the sports of the week, what's ahead this weekend.  The All Blacks play their fourth match against the Springboks in Baltimore on Sunday morning with some swaps to Rennie's team. What do our panel make of the team naming, and are we weaker without playing South Africa in Super Rugby? And Piney's biggest match of the weekend - Warriors vs Dolphins.  Piney, Coops and Nick give their predictions and debate what will be the better game Warriors or All Blacks? LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

OPINION: I want to come back to Jenny Chetwynd today, because frankly, I think Wellington ratepayers deserve some answers. Chetwynd was appointed Wellington City Council’s Chief Infrastructure Officer in 2024. This was a big appointment.   The council talked up her experience, her leadership and the enormous job ahead of her — water, transport, waste, emergency management and major infrastructure projects. She was the infrastructure fixer. And she is being paid accordingly — around $440,000 a year. Then Moa Point happens. Fourteen billion litres or thereabouts of untreated sewage ends up being discharged into the marine environment, and we get a Crown Review trying to establish how the hell Wellington allowed this to happen. And what does our Chief Infrastructure Officer do? She doesn't sit down for an interview with the Crown Review. She provides written information. Review author Raveen Jaduram couldn't have been much clearer.   He said her not being available made the investigation more challenging and increased the chances of the reviewers getting something wrong. His point was incredibly simple: if you can interview somebody, you can ask them directly what happened and where the evidence is. Finance Minister Nicola Willis came on our programme on Thursday, and went even further. "I think she should be made to front up," Willis said. "And if I was the Mayor, I'd be saying 'Actually, we are publicly accountable," "You are paid well to take on significant responsibilities, your responsibility was to build a stronger relationship with Wellington Water. This Crown Inquiry waned to ask questions about that, and she didn't front.". Now, here's where this gets even more extraordinary. I am now being told Jenny Chetwynd doesn't actually live permanently in Wellington, and that she commutes from Auckland. Now, I want to be absolutely fair here, I have not been able to independently verify the details of that arrangement, and I want Wellington City Council to tell us exactly what the situation is, but several sources have told me it's true. It raises a number of questions for me: Does Wellington City Counicl’s $440,000-a-year Chief Infrastructure Officer live in Auckland? How many days a week is she physically working in Wellington? Who pays for the travel? And where was she for last night's Tiaki Wai public meeting? Because this is about accountability. You were hired into one of the most senior positions at Wellington City Council to help sort out our infrastructure. Our infrastructure fails catastrophically. A Crown Review wants to interview you — you don't front. The media wants to interview you — you don't front. There's a public meeting about our water infrastructure — you're not there. And now there are questions about whether you even live in the city you're being paid nearly half a million dollars a year to help fix. Enough. Wellington ratepayers aren't asking for anything unreasonable. Front up, Jenny Chetwynd, and answer the questions. After several days of requesting answers to some of these questions from the Wellington City Council media team, they responded minutes before the start of our show on Friday. "That is a highly unacceptable line of questioning that we will not dignify with an answer." A Council spokesperson said. I'm bewildered.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's Politics Thursday, and this week Nick Mills is joined by Labour's Ginny Andersen and National's Tim Costley to debate the top political issues of the week. The PSA strikes called for better pay, but Nick wonders if they got too political after Nicola Willis said union workers were told to wear red.  Our panel debate the necessity of the strike, with Costley pointing out the national average salary for public servants is $100k compared to $85k in the private sector.  Plus, does Wellington need a zoo, and should ratepayers have to pay nearly $14 million for a new lion enclosure? LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.