Latest / Best of Business / Viv Beck: Heart of the City chief executive agrees with growing calls to get Auckland's economy moving again

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Viv Beck: Heart of the City chief executive agrees with growing calls to get Auckland's economy moving again · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talks'd be follow
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  Speaker 2: On another matter, there is a growing chorus of Auckland
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  Speaker 2: voices who are calling for more action to help Auckland's
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  Speaker 2: economy thrive again. Simon Bridges from the Chamber of Commerce
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  Speaker 2: is called for a corporate tax cut. Mayor Wayne Brown
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  Speaker 2: has now renewed calls for a bed tax. Viv Beck
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  Speaker 2: from Heart of the City is with us on this,
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  Speaker 2: Heybiv Viv, Hello, sorry for stuffing up. You know what
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  Speaker 2: a start. Hey listen, Do you agree with these guys
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  Speaker 2: that there is not enough help at the moment for Auckland.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, I do absolutely, And I think the operative word
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  Speaker 3: you just said then is action and I think speed
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  Speaker 3: because things do tend to go round and round of it.
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  Speaker 3: And you look at that bed tax. If the government
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  Speaker 3: doesn't like it, what there needs to be is discussion
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  Speaker 3: around what are the alternatives so that we actually can
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  Speaker 3: get moving. Because we're talking to people on the street,
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  Speaker 3: businesses who have struggled through ten years as you know
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  Speaker 3: here and they need people, they need customers, they need
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  Speaker 3: peace here and events are a proven way of doing that.
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  Speaker 2: So what's your preference. Is it for a corporate tax
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  Speaker 2: rate cut or is it for a bed tax?
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  Speaker 3: Well, tax cuts are sort of a little bit out
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  Speaker 3: of our organizational field, but the reality is what we
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  Speaker 3: deal with. There's a lot of street trading businesses that
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  Speaker 3: need people here and we can't just have this sort
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  Speaker 3: of stalemate stuff where things don't go anywhere. So we
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  Speaker 3: need people here. If they don't like a bed tax,
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  Speaker 3: give us our GST back and let us get on
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  Speaker 3: with it. America's Cup was a great example, totally missed opportunity,
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  Speaker 3: and I think with a different attitude, that could have
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  Speaker 3: been a different outcome.
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  Speaker 2: So what do you think is going wrong? Do the
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  Speaker 2: guys and I mean, do you sheep this home to
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  Speaker 2: central government? Well, I think it can't all go back there.
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  Speaker 2: But I look at our situation here and it's going
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  Speaker 2: to need all the players working together with speed to
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  Speaker 2: determine how we actually get the action we need. You
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  Speaker 2: look at crime that's worked.
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  Speaker 3: It's had a minister that's been wanting to sort of
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  Speaker 3: grab it and get on with it. We've had all
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  Speaker 3: the right people here working together and we've had a
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  Speaker 3: significant reduction in crime. We met Minister's Bishop and Brown
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  Speaker 3: last week and said we need the same level of
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  Speaker 3: ministerial support to deal with the social issues because we
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  Speaker 3: know that it's troubling a lot of our businesses and
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  Speaker 3: many others and we want it's an attitude with the
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  Speaker 3: right people working together to make stuff happen. And it
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  Speaker 3: actually can happen on social issues because it happened before COVID.
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  Speaker 2: Right, and so who would be the right minister. Who's
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  Speaker 2: the minister who you think should be the one who
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  Speaker 2: does something here?
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  Speaker 3: Well, Actually, on the social issues it's cross agency. It
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  Speaker 3: is mental health has been missing in action. We need
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  Speaker 3: mental health, we need housing. So we've got Minister Bishop's attention,
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  Speaker 3: mister Brown, and also we do need Louise Upstein because
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  Speaker 3: at the end of the day, this is it affects
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  Speaker 3: tourism and it's a social development issue. So it's a
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  Speaker 3: cross agency approach. Actually, we don't think it needs more money,
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  Speaker 3: it's actually how do we work together to solve the issue,
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  Speaker 3: make sure people are housed thoughtfully with the right support,
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  Speaker 3: that we've got the right mental health support for them.
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  Speaker 3: Before COVID we had two hundred rough sleeper is successfully
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  Speaker 3: housed and We've developed a great alternative to begging. Let's
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  Speaker 3: be bold and aspirational and make stuff happen.
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  Speaker 2: Do you think that they do not realize in other
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  Speaker 2: parts of the country, like perhaps in Wellington, how bad
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  Speaker 2: it is in central Auckland.
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  Speaker 3: I don't think they do. And when I presented at
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  Speaker 3: the COVID inquiry recently, I had it on a graph
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  Speaker 3: the stark reality of the central city versus the rest
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  Speaker 3: of Auckland versus the rest of New Zealand, that it
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  Speaker 3: may not be as severe as it was during COVID,
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  Speaker 3: but the gap is still there. They need to understand that.
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  Speaker 3: I heard the Prime Minister say this afternoon apparently he
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  Speaker 3: said something like, well, they're getting a six billion dollar rail.
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  Speaker 3: You cannot seriously think that you're going to open up
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  Speaker 3: a rail and it's mysteriously going to magically going to
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  Speaker 3: take away the woe of ten years of disruption, the
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  Speaker 3: worst impacts of COVID in the country and the residual
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  Speaker 3: social issues is not going to happen. So we've said
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  Speaker 3: to ministers last week, please be cautious about this. We
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  Speaker 3: need action urgently and it's not all on them, but
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  Speaker 3: they need to work with us locally and not leave
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  Speaker 3: the small business voice out. It's critical to this. You
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  Speaker 3: don't want to go to a city without retail and
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  Speaker 3: hospitality on the on the streets.
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  Speaker 2: Fair point, viv Thank you so much, Vive Beck, Heart
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  Speaker 2: of the City.
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