With just one month until polling day, representatives from the top four polling parties - Labour, National, Act, and the Greens - were hosted in Queenstown last week (Thursday September 14) by the Queenstown Business Chamber of Commerce and ASB Bank.

Queenstown Lakes District Council (QLDC) mayor Glyn Lewers set the local scene in his introductory comments, ensuring the politicians focused on challenges facing this region.

“Our demand projections estimate a resident population for our district at the moment at 52,000, drawing rates from just only 24,300. Meanwhile we had just under 20,000 visitors on an average day, and on a peak day we’re hosting 62,769.”

Without a mechanism to levy visitors “we’re struggling to keep up providing infrastructure and services,” he said, adding this had helped Queenstown Lakes become “one of the most expensive places in the country to buy or rent a house and has also raised the growing question of whether tourism is to the benefit of the social wellbeing of our local communities”.

After a politie start, the Great Debate, moderated by Q+A host Jack Tame, moved quickly to a “gloves off” discussion which got heated on National’s tax plans and Labour’s spending record - among other issues.  

Read more: Candidates spar in Queenstown over spending, taxes

While the name ‘Wānaka’ was never mentioned during the debate, there was plenty of scrutiny on issues affecting the Queenstown Lakes areas.

Paying for local infrastructure

Glyn Lewers told the four politicians that Queenstown Lakes “desperately needs infrastructure to support that pressure” arising from supporting high numbers of visitors from a relatively small ratepayer base. 

ACT leader David Seymour proposed that councils identify a wishlist for infrastructure before asking for investors from both within New Zealand (“it could be ACC, iwi, a super fund”) and outside the country.

National finance spokesperson Nicola Wills agreed that “we have to let private capital help us build infrastructure”.

“We need to do better funding and financing tools, and we need to do regional and city deals that set out longer term pathways for investment, and we need much faster consenting.”

She added that National would pay the QLDC $25,000 for every house it consents above the historic average.

Labour’s finance minister Grant Robertson said the government’s urban growth partnership with Queenstown needed “more meat on its bones”.

Local visitor levy

Jack Tame asked the politicians if they supported a local visitor levy for Queenstown Lakes, refusing to allow any “wriggle room” in the answers.

Seymour said he did not specifically support a local levy but suggested that “fast growing areas like Queenstown … should be getting a portion of the GST that central government collects on development in that area”.

It was ‘gloves off’ as the debate proper began. PHOTO: Wānaka App

He said QLDC staff had told him that would result in $80M a year.

Roberston said Labour was prepared to back what the community wanted, but cautioned that there have been court cases on similar proposals 

“I’m certainly not against it in principle. We also think we need to take a look … at the international visitor levy and use that more widely to be able to develop some of the issues that have been faced here,” he said, as well as looking at other revenue sources.

QLDC mayor Glyn Lewers said Queenstown Lakes needed a tourism levy of some kind. PHOTO: Wānaka App

Willis said a local visitor levy was not National’s policy, but the party acknowledged the issue.

“We want to sit down and do a deal with Queenstown where we agree to fund some of the infrastructure that is needed.”

James Shaw said Green’s 2017 policy for an international levy was brought in when the party was in government.

“The idea that you have something local … yes absolutely,” he said. “I also agree we need to look at funding and financing local government. Successive governments have tried to run things centrally … and I think we need to empower local governments to make those choices themselves.”

Affordable housing 

There was general agreement on the need for more houses in this district but less so on how to achieve that growth. 

“We have to keep building more and we have to keep building faster,” Roberston said, while Willis said: “The most important thing we can do for housing affordability in Queenstown is get more houses built here”.

“The best way we can do that is to work with the council on the infrastructure issues and the land zoning issues that have held that back for too long,” she said.

She said the government should also work with the Queenstown Lakes Community Housing Trust and “capitalise” it.

Seymour drew rousing applause when he said locals weren’t renting their houses but putting them on AirBnB “because they don't have to meet healthy homes standards”. He said the “war on landlords” needed to stop.

But Shaw wanted to “stop the war on renters that we’ve had in this country for the last several generations”, adding that the accommodation supplement was one area that was “completely bonkers”.

Tame asked whether the politicians would commit to the incoming government rezoning accommodation supplement boundaries across the country so that non-urban residents in this district can access them. 

Seymour said it seemed fair and was “the right thing to do”; Robertson agreed, saying: “I think sometimes you’ve just got to admit the settings are wrong and need to be changed.” Willis said National would ensure the supplement was “rezoned appropriately”; and Shaw also committed to rezoning.

Tourism: high value vs mass tourism

Tame asked where tourism sat within parties’ priorities, and how the government should be thinking “about and striding towards a more sustainable, high value tourism industry in the future?”

“The role of the government is to provide the infrastructure, set the rules of the game, let the entrepreneurs do that job,” Seymour said.

High value tourism was valued over mass tourism, but how to achieve that was disputed. PHOTO: Supplied

“I don’t think having someone sitting in Wellington trying to guess what sort of experiences people offshore want, what sort of experiences people in New Zealand have the means and the desire to provide - I don’t think they have the ability to do that.” 

Robertson said he agreed in part. “It can’t be done by the government alone, that’s why we set up the tourism industry transformation plan which is driven by industry. It’s got two parts to it - the first of those is around [growing] workforce. 

“The second part is the Tourism Environmental Action Plan which does drive us to a higher value of tourism. We want as many different types of people as possible to come to New Zealand … but the bit we need to do as a government is get out and market New Zealand as a high value tourism destination, and our environmental credentials are absolutely critical to that.”

Willis said National wants “to ensure tourism continues to bring in export dollars”.

“That means ensuring the tourism industry has access to the workers it needs, dealing with these infrastructure issues that we have been discussing tonight,” she said, adding the party wants longer term Department of Conservation concessions and contestable funding for regional events.

Shaw said the Greens “strongly believe in the high value, highly productive, high wage tourism sector, moving towards more of a boutique industry than the kind of commodity mass tourism which in my experience around the world tends to destroy the countries that host [it]”.

“As we rebuild the sector … one of the critical components of that is ensuring that we price what we value and that includes things like DOC concessions and entries and so on. Those are taonga to New Zealanders, but for people who are travelling across the oceans to get here, we should absolutely price those things.”

Long story short

As the debate neared the end, Tame asked the politicians how New Zealand would be better in three years' time if their party were in power.

The highlights included “a genuinely fair and equitable place” (Roberston), “less tax, less regulation and less red tape” (Willis), “an economy relentlessly focused on productivity” (Seymour), and “access for all to a home and the means to make ends meet” (Shaw).