Now, I'm not part of the tribe who automatically thinks that Auckland Transport is a bunch of ideological toss-pots who want to force us out of our cars.

I'm the sort of urbanist that gets there's a limit to the number of cars that can use our roads, and when that limit is hit then you have offer choices so we can all get somewhere.

I don't reflexively hate cycleways or bus lanes. I comprehend congestion charges and I'm excited for the Central Rail Link and even Light Rail. Mostly because I've seen the good a co-ordinated public transport system has done elsewhere in the world.

But AT's 24/7 parking charges change is beyond the pale.

Having developed the city centre with apartments, it will inconvenience residents who have been trying to take their cars off the roads by living in town. It's going to cost ratepayers. Either directly, such as the residents who reckon it will cost them $11,000 a year to park their car now. Or by funding a bureaucracy to run resident parking schemes.

It's said it will affect hospo workers. It won't stop punters who tend to cab or even use public transport into town because they're on the lash. The people it will really affect are the minimum waged workers who need to get in and out of the city outside public transport times - and who are least able to afford it.

But the most chilling part of the story is that the mayor and the Council are powerless to stop it, even though they've helped to cause the problem.

Councils fund council controlled organisations but they don't run them. In this case, the Council looked to reduce its funding so AT unilaterally increased its external fundraising by hiking the parking charges.

But that is AT’s constitutional right. The main Council body, including the elected representatives, have no operational control.

Rodney Hide designed them that way so politicians couldn't get the filthy, compromised hands on big assets.

Which is why I've always laughed about National's plan for council controlled operations to run all our water.

Councils may own and fund CCOs, but they certainly don't control them.

Just look at Auckland Transport.

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I was surprised that the news that Auckland had inked a deal with the Government over water wasn't the lead story on last night's TV news.

I would have thought that John Campbell would have had a deep dive on its repercussions for Auckland and the country.

Basically, water and housing are the biggest issues for this country because every single person, business and animal needs water - and we all need a roof over our head.

But maybe the kids we call journalists these days have never got water and its reforms.

There is a lot about the deal that has not been said.

Compared to 3 Waters, it's essentially 2 waters.

Watercare deals with drinking water and human waste. Waste is sewage.

That's a billion-dollar-a-year operation.

But they don't deal with stormwater and drains. That's called sewerage and that's dealt with in Auckland by an entity called Healthy Waters. Now that's a $200 million dollar a year operation. It's not a council controlled operation. It will still be funded by council borrowings.

So when people talk about polluted waterways being fixed, that's not really covered by the Watercare deal. Which is partly why Auckland's water rates increases are still at 7.3 percent.

That 7.3 percent is, as we all know, higher than the rate of inflation and a major part of the cost-of-living crisis which the Government promised to tackle. But that's another kettle of wastewater.

This deal happened because Auckland is the only council with CCO or council controlled organisations. They are the product of Auckland's amalgamation into a Super City by Rodney Hide. CCOs were actually designed to prevent Councillors fooling about in core business they know nothing about. And because of that they've never been overly popular. Yet it is claimed that this keeps water under local control.

Ask Auckland's Mayors and Councillors about how much control they really exert over CCO's like Watercare, or Auckland Transport, or Auckland Unlimited.

So, Watercare will have the remit, which is to provide water and remove waste. Operationally, they're in full control of their processes. The Council's control is limited to a majority of places on the board. So just a reminder that CEOs run companies not boards. They purely appoint a CEO and then assess how well the CEO has done.

The Auckland deal was low hanging fruit for the Government, because the structure was already in place. The real test is how this works for everywhere else in New Zealand.

The first real test will come this week when Horowhenua, Kapiti, Wairarapa, the Hutt Valley, Porirua and Wellington City meet on Friday to work together on a plan for a greater Wellington region water deal.

They will have to set up an entity with bureaucracy and thrash out a deal about which region receives what in funding. Just like 3 Waters.

Meanwhile, the good people in the countryside not adjacent to cities will be wondering if there's any white knights riding to their rescue regarding water borrowing. Or if they're going to be left behind.

To me this deal is 3 Waters lite, with no ‘co-governance’. And that's it.

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New Zealand seems to be waking up to an issue I thought would have caused more concern.

As part of the bonfire of the public service, the Government seems to be eyeing cuts to our public research and development sector.

Principally that means the Callaghan Institute, the Crown agency that employs about 300 people and has been the target of attack, particularly from David Seymour.

He sees the agency's work as being a form of corporate welfare, a bugbear of ACT's.

Other ministries and departments conduct significant research funded by the taxpayer. The Department of Conservation has developed major techniques and processes that have been adopted around the world.

The Primary Industries ministry also funds valuable research, including work into climate change mitigation.

It's feared that all this work will be affected as the Government saves costs in the backroom.

Last week, Stats NZ revealed that private industry is starting to put their money where their mouth is.

The New Zealand business sector has shown a robust increase in research and development (R&D) spending, reaching a new high of $3.7 billion in 2023.

That's $540 million increase, or 17 percent, from the previous year, marking the largest annual growth since annual data collection began in 2018.

There's value in research spending. So it would be short-sighted to reduce Governmental spending on it

R&D funding cuts could mean we will lose our best and brightest scientists, like those at Callaghan, to overseas countries who are investing in science.

As we enter a regime determined to cut spending I think it's good to remember a famous quote by Oscar Wilde.

He said - " a fool is a person who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing".

The worry is that the Government goes too far and starts to cut things of value.

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It is fair to say the country is not in a good place right now.

Job cuts dominate the headlines. A double-dip recession came true. Inflation is robbing us of our purchasing power.

Last week an IPSOS poll found that 60 percent of us think that New Zealand is in decline and 65 percent believe that the economy is rigged to benefit the rich and the powerful.

And when people bemoan our situation and wonder how we got here a common response is to blame the Labour Government and the Reserve Bank.

A common refrain is Robertson blew all the money so we can't afford to do anything now, even something as important as paying our police more so they don't quit or leave the country. You also hear that Labour caused a debt so large our children and their children will be paying for it for decades to come.

So I pricked up my ears last week when Mike Hosking talked to ASB economist Nick Tuffley about inflation and the economy in general.

Mike asked him how bad was our economy and he said pretty bad but still nowhere near what happened after the GFC.

To remind you, the GFC ended early in 2009 and John Key's government was in charge. To remedy the situation we borrowed, we opened up immigration and we went through austerity to a far greater degree than we're doing now. And it worked.

Need I remind you that within 5 years we were described as having a rock-star economy.

This is not to diminish the situation that we're in right now but it is to put a perspective on things.

But Nick was also asked why inflation and bad economic tidings were still happening here when other economies like the States, the UK and Australia are bouncing back. Economies with far greater debt and spending.

Tuffley essentially blamed our static productivity. He says considering we imported nearly 3 percent more population over the past 2 years our GDP should have raised, but it didn't.

We seem incapable of making more money per person year on year. And it's a problem that we've had ever since Ruth Richardson's Mother of all Budgets early in the 90s. And it's a problem that exists no matter the colour of the government.

It's something we need to look to ourselves for not something we can blame on the government.

And it relates to the comments that Christopher Luxon made overseas that angered some when he boasted that New Zealand is now open for business.

We've always been open for business. The real question is how much business are we open for?

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Since we were last together, the collapse of television news and current affairs has continued.

And with it, we have been subjected to a lot of highfalutin thinking about the metaphysical and cultural reasons why linear TV is dying.

You know - go woke go broke. Or- this is because nobody trusts you, because you're all raving lefties.

Meanwhile, Melissa Lee has been asked what she is going to do about it, when it's obvious that there's very little she can do.

These are commercial entities that are suffering at the hands of market forces that have been long predicted to hit.

Commercial broadcasting and journalism is an easy business model. Inventory control and labour costs. In other words, you can't employ any more people than the money you make from the advertising.

Hearing that more than 300 were employed by Newshub was pretty revealing. That's a lot of salaries.

For some perspective, NZME employs just over 200 for it's papers and radio and digital content. And the lid has been sinking steadily for a years now.

That's because digital players are siphoning off $100 million a year in advertising content

Despite the 6 o'clock news having the highest spot rates, they were unable to make the budget balance

Faced with this environment I was confused after Warner took over 3 that they added to the news output with full-service late-night shows and more. They increased their costs at a time when revenue was going down.

It seemed to me that no matter how woke or unwoke or how biased or unbiased, Newshub was increasingly modelled to lose money without a huge recalibration.

Meanwhile, despite warning bells sounding about the theft of revenue by digital companies, our TV operators seemed timid to adapt.

Facebook and Google sell clicks. They gain news content and then clicks when punters repost links. Yet the links from so many news operators continue to be free.

There's a reason the Herald is now behind a paywall, so at least we can clip the ticket. When we did it the industry thought we were audacious. It's beginning to look very smart.

Furthermore, TVNZ in particular has made a foray into the digital world with TVNZ+. But it's free to air and the ad inventory is so low it's better to watch it online with time shifting, thereby missing out on the ads that pay for the whole shebang.

The model is broken not because of politics or bias but because of fear.

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I vividly remember the first time I saw Christchurch Cathedral.

I was 10 so it was 1973. I was on tour with the Auckland Boys Choir.

It was winter and it was twilight and we went into the Square, which was bustling with cars and buses and Victorian buildings and a marvellous magic shop. People wore overcoats and scarves and there was the cathedral.

It as like being transported to England.

We went in to listen to the cathedral's boys choir performing Evensong and my choirmaster said they were the best in the land. And they were.

I say this after the news that the restoration may be put on hold due to the escalating cost.

I can't comprehend stopping something halfway through. It's too late to go back. Forward is the only way to go.

To paraphrase the Prime Minister - we have passed through the decision gate and in passing that gate there can only be commitment to finishing the job, even if it seems to be escalating out of control.

It's called aspiration. It's called determination. Perhaps this is the lack of ambition that our Prime Minister accuses us of.

Opponents say tear it down, because in 100 years who will know the difference? But using that logic, why do anything outstanding?

I'm reminded of the Notre Dame in Paris which will open to the public in December - 5 years and 7 months after being gutted by fire.

They have harvested an entire oak forest for the timber and raised 2 billion dollars through donations.

French billionaires are scrambling over each other to fund the thing so that their name lives on through generations.

The cathedral is 160 years old this year. Notre Dame is 860 years old. But they're worth the same to their cities.

Marking stones to the start of great cities. And in 100 years, who'll care how much it cost?

Sometimes it seems that New Zealand knows the price of everything but the value of nothing.

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I was not going to talk about dolphin-gate- but from first thing this morning, everyone was talking about it.

Sir Russell Coutts has had an epic meltdown over the cancellation of Saturday racing of his SailGP series.

He had to refund the spectator's tickets, which meant at least a third of his income went up in smoke.

Now he's belittling all New Zealand for their bureaucratic torpor that stops go-getters like him getting their way.

I would have raced. And if a foiling boat traveling at 80 kilometres an hour ran over a calving dolphin, turning it into sashimi, I could then say we learnt our lesson- and please pass the rice and the wasabi.

But I think it's important to realise how we got here.

Coutts sailed Lyttleton last year. With dolphin protocols. 1 race-day got delayed. He knew the Lyttleton problem but carried on.

This year he decided to race in Auckland. He wanted to build a stadium and hospitality on the site of a former oil and chemical storage site.

Auckland said you can't put people and food on poisoned land.

Russell said stuff you and flounced back to Lyttleton. There was no investigation of alternative Auckland sites. Or even going to Wellington.

He went back to Christchurch and signed a contract knowing all the protocols and the possibility of disruption. He knew the Lyttleton problem but carried on, hoping for the best.

When the Saturday race was delayed because of a mammal on course the telly coverage, owned by Russell, promptly played a promo praising SailGP's respect for the environment. That they were powered by nature and they look after our marine mammal buddies.

It was good press. Until the dolphin didn't move on.

Then he unleashed a spray about New Zealand holding people like him back. I don't think it's in his construction to admit he made bad choices and to assume some personal responsibility. And then he tried to make it seem like he was a victim.

I don't think this is a left versus right issue. Or a nature versus industry issue.

It was all good until Sir Russell lost some money.

So take a deep breath. Realise New Zealand loves the product. Put it on in an appropriate venue and let's move on, shall we?

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So if you've listened to me for any length of time, you'll know I respect Liam Dann very much indeed.

Liam is the Herald's Business Editor at Large. He hosts podcasts and writes stories about the business world and he's been at the NZ Herald for 21 years.

He's at pains to stress he's not an economist. He's the guy who interviews economists and then translates their technical stuff into news we can all use and we need.

He's just written a book called Barbecue Economics, which explains all this stuff for the average man and woman on the street.

He also writes a column every Sunday, and yesterday he asked the question I've been asking myself for a long time.

"Is the Government’s shock about this 'worse than expected' economy political theatre or just ignorance?"

Last August, Nicola Willis stated the cupboard was bare, and we all knew that.

They then campaigned on fixing it all up. Killing inflation. Solving the cost of living crisis. Building the missing infrastructure. And then on top of it all, giving up on $14.5 billion worth of tax revenue by giving us a tax cut.

But some of us wondered that if the cupboard was indeed bare, was all this possible or was this exaggerated rhetoric to get votes based on some magical thinking that all will be fine in the end?

Now the Finance Minister is saying the economy is worse than expected and maybe some of the policies can't happen.

I'm not sure it is worse than expected, because the government's accounts have never been secret- thanks to the Fiscal Responsibility Act introduced in 1994 to stop nasty surprises. And people were warning National of this last year.

Liam Dann reckons: "To put it generously, it looks like National was using best-case economic scenarios to justify policy promises that were marginal at best."

The question that remains is whether National knew the promises they were making were unaffordable or whether they just don't know what's going on.

Or to put it more bluntly.

Are they stupid or were they lying? And if they were exaggerating their ability to afford their policies, did they think we'd be too stupid to realise?

We all got sick and tired of the last Government gaslighting us and making promises they can't keep. I'm not going to be happy if it happens again.

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When National formed it's new government there was a snappy little phrase that supporters were fond of using.

Thank God the adults are back in charge.

Suggesting that the left wing Labour Government were naive, inefficient fools who had driven the country into the ground like a 12 year old in a ram raid.

National would lead a government run by grown ups who know what to do and how to do it and then actually DO it.

So when Christopher Luxon presented his State of the nation address yesterday, the expectation was that the grown ups were about to tell us how all our problems will be fixed.

What we got was a warning that times were going to get tough. What we got was a promise that our PM would not shy away from tough talk.  What we got was a lot of talk about beneficiaries. They were told the free ride was over. And then at the end an admission to reporters that the Government was yet to explain how it would address and finance the solutions to our woes.

We also got a lot of talk about how bad the last Government was and the implication that they were the root of the parlous state we find ourselves in.

That our water problems and our transport problems and our health problems and our labour problems and our housing problems and our energy problems and our weather problems and our farming problems and of course our economic problems all rest with one cohort of politicians who were in power from 2017 to 2023

It's that sort of blame game that got the Labour Government called childish. I would like to think that this government might have resisted that urge. To be the adults.

I think what many of us want is governance that is future focussed. That considers a time 30 years in the future when our population has doubled or even tripled.

That acknowledges that the mess we're in has taken many different governments and decades to create and will take many different governments to fix.

The most powerful part of Christopher Luxon's speech was the line that New Zealand is fragile.

We are. At a very fundamental level. And have been for a long time. And will be for a very longtime.

So the sooner the adults turn up with a real plan that we can all get behind and that will work, the better.

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So two big video interviews over the weekend.

Firstly, Tucker Carlson interviewed Vladimir Putin.

Tucker said it was because no-one but him had bothered to ask which is BS. There's always people in the media claiming they're the only people holding power to account.

My feel is that Putin knew Tucker was desperate for the scoop following his embarrassing downfall at Fox, so obliged him as a useful idiot.

But that's not to denigrate the appearance. It was great to watch and listen to Putin. Know your enemy, they say, but you can't if no-one lets you hear them.

The interview was reported 2 ways. Either Putin keen for World War 3 or Putin keen to negotiate for peace.

He alluded to both things but what I took as more chilling was his half hour history lesson on the Russian/Ukraine situation. It went back centuries.

It showed his depth of feeling. Māori would understand, having such long held historical grievance. It's a depth that means he's not pulling out or pulling back. In fact, his keenness for peace negotiation only requires USA to stop funding Ukraine. He's playing a long game. This conflict will only stop when Putin has gone which is no time soon.

So the other interview was Jack Tame's conversation with Chloe Swarbrick.

It was a shocker.

Her refusal to understand how her Palestinian chants had been received was remarkable. This after mediation by the Human Rights Commission. This after Jewish members of her electorate had spoken with her.

The left are famous opponents of hate speech, but to understand if speech is offensive you need to have the empathy to understand how the offence has been taken.

Chloe seemed unable to comprehend the fear Jewish people have of that chant. She was unable to own any blame.

The rest of the interview made me feel that the fresh and intelligent woman who entered parliament has been replaced by a hard line radical informed only by her own echo chamber.

The Greens are in deep trouble. The Ghahraman resignation and forthcoming trial. James Shaw, the one calming influence, the man billed as a relationship builder, gone. The prospect of Davidson and Swarbrick ruling a radical socialist party.

The damage is already evident in the polls this weekend with the Greens dropping 4.8 per cent to sit at 9 per cent.

They're fast becoming unelectable. A socialist party that pays lip service to the environment and has forgotten about why they came into being in the first place.

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So there was a little bit of excitement yesterday as Jack Tame caught the National Party spreading misinformation on Q+A.

Chris Bishop was talking about dropping smokefree legislation and made the claim that there would only be one outlet in all of Northland.

Tame had done his research and said there was more likely going to be 35, which resulted in a classic caught out face from Chis Bishop, who stuck to his line and said he understood there was only going to be 1.

Unfortunately, Jack never asked him where that understanding came from. It came from the Prime Minister, who made the same claim earlier in the week. It was not questioned then, but there was more than enough time for the media to research it and wait for someone to use it again publicly. Which Bishop did and walked into a "gotcha" trap.

Now you've got opponents of the Government jumping up and down going on about the lying Government. Which is a wild over-exaggeration. The factoid was not crucial to their argument about black market trade and gang involvement in tobacco.

Mr Luxon did the right thing and came out and said his team made a mistake. He has urged them to fact check more before they give his Government talking points.

But it's still a thing- and a lesson not to be loose with facts.

As the Prime Minister noted last week about the Pubic Interest Journalism Fund - he stopped short of calling it bribery, but said there was a perception of it. And perceptions are dangerous. But not necessarily true.

The Prime Minister has already been caught out amplifying incorrect statistics through the campaign, so there is a perception that making up statistics is their modus operandi.

As the numbers of outlets was clearly and easily available, a perception could be made that policy is being formulated without sufficient research.

Chris Bishop used to be a tobacco industry lobbyist. Now caught using misleading statistics to support continued sales of tobacco there could be a perceptions of favour for former employers- which is a bad look.

The Prime Minister could be perceived to be in thrall of the Dairy Owners Association who have argued against prohibition, because it would wreck dairy profitability.

The Labour Government found out that perceptions stick. Considering this new Government is only a week old, they might want to learn that lesson fast.

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