Labour MP Tracey McLellan. Photo: VNP / Phil Smith
A Christchurch MP has accused the government of misleading the public over almost $80 million set aside for public transport improvements in the city, but the Transport Minister says there is "nothing to see here".
A Christchurch city councillor, who has long fought for information over the decision, also said the process has lacked transparency.
The previous Labour government allocated the money for new bus infrastructure in 2023 to increase the frequency of services on key routes, deliver hundreds more buses and shelters and 22km of bus lanes.
The $78 million did not make it to the city council coffers before the election, with the Transport Agency (NZTA) and Transport Minister saying they were waiting for a business case from the council, who in turn said it could not access the funds.
Minister Chris Bishop said the money had now been reallocated to an upgrade of Brougham Street and a second bridge for Ashburton.
"In December 2024, government agreed to reallocate the $78 million from [an infrastructure programme] tagged contingency previously identified for the greater Christchurch public transport futures bus improvement project for two key transport projects in the Canterbury region - the upgrading of Brougham Street (SH76) and the second Ashburton Bridge," he said in a statement.
However, Labour MP Tracey McLellan said the government had misled the people of Christchurch.
"They're literally taking money from one project that was already funded, to pay for another one that was also already funded. This is not new money - it's robbing Peter to pay Paul," she said.
"Christchurch doesn't deserve to have them played off against each other - both public transport and the Brougham Street upgrade are vital.
"No one's been able to find this money, but if there was a misunderstanding, the government could have rectified that."
Bishop said there was "nothing to see here" with unused money reprioritised to where it was needed.
"The Christchurch City Council is still progressing the public transport futures programme in line with its available funding," he said.
"The $78 million that was agreed to in 2022 was reprioritised - the council advised it had stopped work on the business case and would instead pursue a low-cost bid for a public transport infrastructure programme. Unspent funds for the business case were then returned.
"The reallocated funding is being used on various priority projects, including ones in Canterbury. While one of these is Brougham Street, Brougham has an allocation of more than $100 million.
"It goes without saying that Christchurch transport is important, and the government will continue to contribute to various services and projects, as it has done."
Chris Bishop. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
Christchurch city councillor and mayoral candidate Sara Templeton said Bishop's characterisation of events was disingenuous.
"While the government have blamed council for stopping work, it's clear from very early on after the government was elected that we were told that there was no money available anymore. And yet it wasn't reallocated until December," Templeton said.
"So, it seems like there's been some really unhelpful commentary from ministers or officials early on in the piece, which has led to us stopping work, which has then given the government the excuse to say 'oh we can take the money away because they don't need it'."
Templeton said it was unclear how the decision was made and when the council lost the ability to access the funding for its public transport programme.
"It's incredibly frustrating to know that there was a period of time where if we had submitted the business case, the funding would have been available and it's still not clear and I'll be asking for more documentation through an OIA process to see actually where those communications happened that told council that their funding was no longer available."
Councillors were never able to get an answer as to why the funding could not be accessed, Templeton said.
"My understanding is that council staff were unable to get the answer to the why as well," she said.
"I wish that someone, and whether it was me or council staff or whoever, had done this official information request at the beginning of last year, because at that point the money would still have been there and we would have been able to work out how to access it. It wasn't reallocated until December."
Christchurch City Councillor Sara Templeton. Photo: Supplied / Christchurch City Council
In March 2023, the Labour government announced it was spending the $78 million to accelerate the city's public transport futures bus improvement plan, cutting the proposed 12-year timeframe in half.
But many months on, there was no sign of the money and confusion in some quarters about how to access the funds or whether they still existed.
Former Transport Minister Simeon Brown and the NZTA consistently stated the funding was contingent on the council submitting a detailed public transport futures business case.
By May, the city council's head of transport and waste management Lynette Ellis told a council meeting she "had no mechanism for getting it. I called Waka Kotahi and they said the same thing".
At the same meeting, Christchurch mayor Phil Mauger described the money as "toast".
At the time, a NZTA spokesperson said the money was never made available to the agency, while a Ministry of Transport spokesperson confirmed there had been no cabinet decision to rescind it, and the minister's office continued to insist the ball was firmly in the council's court.
In July 2024, in reply to a parliamentary question from Labour's transport spokesperson Tangi Utikere about the funding's whereabouts, Brown reiterated the next step was for the Christchurch council to finalise and submit the business case.
In a letter to a coalition of councils, NZTA and iwi known as the Greater Christchurch Partnership, Bishop set out the winding road the money had taken.
According to the letter, the city council advised the NZTA it had stopped work on the business case in February 2024, months before Ellis told the council she had no means of accessing it.
The council advised the government it had "lost momentum" on the project and would pursue a "low-cost bid" for public transport infrastructure instead, the letter said.
In March 2024, the council returned unspent funds of $94,000 it had been given for the business case, noting "no further claiming" would occur.
In response to a request for comment, Christchurch City Council sent a memo updating councillors on the $78 million, while NZTA declined to comment.
Canterbury regional councillor Joe Davies said the city council and government should to clear up any confusion.
"The government and city council needs to release all communications regarding this money because it's in the public interest. It's $78 million dollars of taxpayers' money that needs to be accounted for and the process that's gotten us to this point," he said.
Davies said it was not clear at what level of the council the decision was made to reject the funding, but it was a decision that should have been brought to the Greater Christchurch Partnership, a broader coalition of councils and government agencies.
The public transport futures programme money was destined for was a critical first step for the city's oft-delayed mass rapid transport project, he said.
The long-awaited upgrade for Brougham Street - a major east-west thoroughfare and one of the busiest roads in the city - had been discussed for at least a decade.
A $90 million budget was approved by the previous government, and it was understood to have made the coalition's funding list right up until June 2024, when the government policy statement on transport was released.
That document relegated Brougham Street to be funded only as far as "pre-implementation" at a cost of $20 million, placing an indefinite pause on the project that was just months away from breaking ground.
Nine months later, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Bishop held a press conference in Christchurch to announce the project was back on, albeit in a slightly different form having promoted it to a "road of regional significance".
Bishop said it was too soon to put a new price tag on the project, but anticipated it would cost up to $150 million.
Mauger welcomed the announcement, along with the injection of new funding for the city.
"Here we have now somewhere between $100 and $150 million worth of money raining down in Christchurch for the man who does the concrete, the asphalt, the traffic lights, the paint on the road, it's money that we didn't have, and it's that the benefit," he said.
In December, the government announced it would meet the full cost of the Ashburton bridge, estimated to be around $130 million.
