An exquisitely preserved fossil of a giant tadpole which saw the light of day on Earth 150 million years ago is one of humankind’s most recent geological findings.
It is good to know that those tiny, spatulate fingers and the sinuous, fragile bodies of soon-to-be frogs were here, back when sharks, crocodiles and cockroaches were honing their survival skills and humanity was 100 million years in the future.
With all the magnificent architecture, customs and the art of 11,000 years of (notional) civilisation at our backs, this is the first Christmas in decades when Aucklanders could finally reclaim downtown’s Queen Elizabeth Square from demolition sites, chain fences, parked trucks and glacial development.
It should have warranted a Christmas tree with some civic wizardry to showcase our new and striking piazza.
Yeah, nah. No strangers to spending money unwisely, our cash-strapped city fathers have spent up large on a rigid steel triangle thick with programmed LED lights and outcrops of painted baubles in a crude orange and lime-green colourway.
It would look more at home in the forecourt of a fast-food outlet and is probably the ugliest thing in Christendom – if anyone remembers that epoch in human development when humanity’s morals and social obligations were constrained (for the better) by its awe of divine retribution and an omnipresent deity.
We live, by the grace of that God, in one of the most blindingly beautiful natural landscapes anywhere, ever, and both our Sky Tower and Harbour Bridge frock up nicely if we want random electronic lightshows to pass a summer evening.
The newly liberated square has its lovely white stone Central Post Office building, the Edwardian ferry terminal, the older Customs House and the handsome façade of the Dilworth corner.
Nature doesn’t do straight lines and mastered the art of atmosphere before we were out of caves.
We lost Auckland’s brilliant City of Sails logo to a council official’s geometric representation of a pōhutukawa flower decades ago and are obviously still ruled by the engineers and the career rule-makers at the top of Auckland Council’s bureaucratic heap.
Queen Street’s benighted retailers need the creativity and delights of an authentic seasonal vibe – one that delivers the mesmerising crystalline perfection and intricacy we knew from joyful Queen Street Christmases of yore, now only present in remnants like Smith and Caughey’s and Queen’s Arcade (which is already charmingly decked in rich red and forest-green garlands).
Of course, I may be wrong. Maybe cruise ship passengers will flock to rearrange their travel plans and dormitory suburb mothers will flood in with their children to the centre of town of an evening to marvel and scream for every change in the coloured lights.
Since this technological wonder only comes into being after dark when shops have been closed for hours, probably not.
Maybe a council functionary will be despatched to some remote basement to retrieve handsome and probably not cheap decorations from earlier, more generous times to raise the spirits of hard-working citizens in these faux-austerity times.
Again, probably not, although as of June 2019, Auckland Council had 12,538 employees on salaries between $37,912 per year for a contact centre representative to about $999,125 per year for a store manager.
It’s a big heap but the same old story on remuneration, and – island visitors beware – no shortage of people to collect traffic infringement and roadside parking fines which have rocketed into a handsome revenue stream for the council (see story in this week’s paper).
On Waiheke, we worked for years to have bespoke Christmas banners on Oneroa village’s main street to welcome summer visitors. Genuine pōhutukawa blooms, vivid seascapes and summer scenes eventually fluttered against genuine blue skies and were still there when they were in tatters years later.
All we have so far this summer are copious new green bicycle signs painted on the main road to indicate that cyclists (but only fit ones, the Waiheke Local Board was assured) need to share the road too. Who would know?
Simultaneously, Auckland Council’s ratepayers’ update has arrived with quarterly rate demands, big with specious news of its $332 million of savings over the last three years.
This island’s annual capital budget of a miserly $880,000 – scoped for a cycle lane through Surfdale – was an early casualty of this fiscal hole. Of Waiheke’s $31 million in annual rates (the highest per household in all Auckland), $24 million likewise disappear without trace.
In reality, ratepayers were scrounged on every front, from future capital works to infrastructure to library services and jobs for local staff.
We are the frogs being boiled slowly in the lethargy of the supercity’s fiscal and social trainwreck, and time is running out for the many initiatives a community of 9000 should be putting in place to safeguard life in a world becoming, at best, unpredictable.
• Liz Waters
© Waiheke Gulf News Ltd 2024
