In August last year, Russian president Vladimir Putin told a group of manufacturing industry bosses that he had instructed government officials to swap their foreign cars for local ones.
It was “totally unacceptable” for them to continue buying foreign cars and they should only be riding in cars manufactured in Russia, he said.
"Our officialdom is wonderful and they should realise that we must strive to develop domestic brands of cars as well as other domestically produced products."
Never mind that leading car manufacturer Avtovaz has been forced to build its latest Lada car without airbags or anti-lock braking systems. It would be profligate and unpatriotic to drive anything else.
This week in Wellington, New Zealand’s central government has been accused of cooking up a similarly Soviet-esque scheme to force public servants to prop up the city's struggling business district.
Public Services Minister Nicola Willis announced she had issued updated guidance for flexible working arrangements in the public sector. She wanted to see more public servants working in the office five days a week, and less working from home (WFH) or flexibly.
This policy is officially motivated by valid fears that flexible work could erode long-term capability and productivity in the public sector due to weak mentorship and team culture.
But many were quick to link the new guidance to noisy complaints from Wellington hospitality business owners, many of whom blame WFH culture for poor sales.
Ayesha Verrall, the Labour Party’s spokesperson for the public service, said Willis just wanted to be seen to be helping local businesses, after laying off thousands of their former customers.
The idea promoted by business owners, such as Roger Young of the famous Fidel’s Cafe, is that government workers should be shopping, eating, and drinking in town, instead of working from home.
Howls of protest
Young should tread carefully though. Two unhappy public servants took to Reddit shortly after Willis’ announcement and promised to boycott any business that had lobbied for this.
Each comment received a thousand ‘upvotes’, which are similar to Facebook likes, and a third user replied: “this is exactly the backlash we need”.
It is easy to see why these workers are fired up. Flexible work arrangements are one of the most enduring and beloved changes that occurred during the pandemic years.
People were once obligated to sit at their desk from 8:59 am to 5:02 pm, grinding out spreadsheets in a noisy, ugly office surrounded by difficult colleagues. Now, they can work in a quiet environment that has been carefully catered to their individual needs, wants, and aesthetics.
At lunch, they can make a meal from fresh ingredients that is cheaper, healthier, and tastier than cafeteria food. Homemade coffee costs less than 50 cents a brew, so they can have nine cups before matching the cost of single flat white.
They’ve already saved between $6 and $20 by skipping their 30-minute commute; a lifestyle shift which will also claw back 10 days of their precious lives each year.
And, yes: they can hang their washing out between meetings, and put a casserole in the slow-cooker before knocking off work at 5:45pm — roughly when they would’ve got home on the bus anyway.
Research in the United States found, even pre-pandemic, that employees would be willing to take an 8% pay penalty in exchange for these perks.
A recent survey by a Kiwi recruitment firm found 90% of professionals would try to look for a new job if their employer demanded they work in the office five full days a week.
“Govt can remove wfh over my dead body,” another anonymous public servant posted on Twitter.
Short-term gain, long-term pain
But this enthusiasm for flexible work is not shared by all employers. The same survey found only 26% thought WFH “definitely” boosted productivity, compared to 61% of workers.
For what it is worth, most research sides with the employees. However, researchers are becoming concerned the productivity benefits could be short-lived and self-defeating.
A paper written by the New York Federal Reserve and Harvard University last November found remote working led to a trade-off between productivity and team building.
“It increases output today, particularly from more senior workers, but remote work decreases training of more junior workers, which has future costs,” they wrote.
Understandably, senior workers get more stuff done when they are at home and not getting interrupted by pesky juniors asking how the filing system works for the third time.
Productivity increases until these unguided juniors have gummed up the paperwork system so badly that all gains are eventually lost — or, so the story goes.
Employers initially got behind flexible working, as productivity was holding up and workers were wielding enormous negotiating power in the years after the pandemic first hit.
However, many have now cooled on the idea as labour markets have loosened and some of the longer-term costs of remote work have started to show.
This was what Willis and her boss Christopher Luxon have said they are worried about in the public service, which appears to have embraced flexible work with extra gusto.
Powerful forces
One reason for this may be the tendency for government jobs to pay lower wages than similar roles in the private sector. Flexible work is a free perk agencies can offer, instead of big pay.
If that is the case, public service chief executives should be able to make the case to the Government that WFH supports the capacity and productivity of the public sector.
Willis’ new guidelines do not come anywhere close to banning flexible work. They only require WFH arrangements to be negotiated on a case-by-case basis, and data to be collected.
The power dynamic between employees and employers has shifted dramatically over the past couple of years, so bosses who want to recall staff may be able to do so. But they shouldn’t expect them to come willingly, and should be conscious of the hit to morale that may occur.
Business owners in the precinct surrounding Parliament should also temper their expectations for a sudden public servant spending splurge.
These workers face wage restraints and deeply uncertain job prospects, as the Coalition prepares more cuts. Those who have mortgages will be paying high interest rates for another year or two, and it will be years before recent housing reforms lead to cheaper rentals.
Wellington’s appetite for discretionary spending has been bitterly curtailed.
It is unclear to what extent Willis has been motivated by wanting to rescue Wellington’s CBD, versus the explicit policy goals, but it has certainly inspired Auckland’s Soviets.
Viv Beck, chief executive of Auckland city centre business association Heart of the City, has joined the chorus calling on elected officials to force public servants to support central shops.
She told the NZ Herald that Auckland Council should ditch its flexible work policy, which allows WFH two days a week, and set an example for private businesses.
“It would make a positive difference if more people were back in the office,” she said.
As if guided by an invisible hand…
This sort of thinking completely misses the point of a market economy. Businesses are supposed to cater to the needs and wants of consumers, not the other way around.
If WFH is here to stay, and many experts think it is, then businesses will need to adapt to the new patterns of consumer behaviour and market prices will shift to accommodate them.
There is a half-serious joke in policy circles that every single problem stems from the housing shortage, and struggling CBD businesses are almost certainly another example.
Restrictive residential zoning rules have pushed urban workers further and further away from the central district, and made the option of skipping the commute more and more attractive.
This has meant more lifestyle spending has been happening in outer suburbs, and less in the expensive and inaccessible inner cities — this policy choice has been locked in forever.
Stuff’s report on WFH included quotes from several hospitality bosses who were expanding or relocating their Wellington CBD businesses into the suburbs.
It is tough for those who cannot shift, but that is the cruel reality of creative destruction.
Commercial property owners should take note: Rents are likely too high in many parts of these business districts, relative to reduced foot-traffic, and should be slashed.
This would make it much easier for businesses in these now less-desirable locations to compete on price and slowly rebuild the appeal that has been lost.
By all means, chief executives should call public servants back into the office if that looks like the way to build better teams — but don’t do it for the cafes and shoe shops.
59 Comments
For all the people working real workplaces in all weather/traffic/coffee shortages such as nurses, doctors, police, construction workers, farmers etc etc, to all the WFH'er moaning about having to work at the corporate office....suck it up cupcakes. You are deluding yourself on how good you think you don't have it.
Definitely jealousy driven. A conversation between an employer and staff around WFH is between those 2 people. Sure, we're all entitled to an opinion on the matter, but some of the anti-WFH brigade are definitely overreaching in their negative assertions.
"You don't know how good you've got it", "stop moaning and get back to work".
Only jealousy would drive someone to speak so disparagingly about something that really has zero impact or anything to do with them.
I see your trying to set up a constructive dismissal & discrimination against HR by ability case (Clippy). Can I recommend some lawyers? Oh and BTW, most real jobs also include those who are WFH. I also now think you cannot understand what roles in procurement, client management, design, and analyst entail either. In fact of the things you do not get what is left is very limited considering most nurses & those in nursing roles in the country are also mobile, most trades are also not in an "office". The fact you cannot understand what the jobs entail is not on us to educate you in skills and comprehension you obviously don't have. Why on earth are you on a financial website because most jobs around finances are WFH & WFH compatible from the outset. Aka mobile work where ever it is needed and suitable that can have portions done outside of the main company office space. Even front of house in bricks and mortar is a very small % of the bulk of the roles. Most accountants now are WFH and there is very little in person. In fact the entire development of accounting software & customer, corporate support can be WFH. But I get it. Computers are still scary to you as well and those mobile phones will give you cancer eh.
The morning sun had barely begun to crest the peaks of Mount Victoria when Workforce Commissar Willis roared her sleek, state-issued vehicle down the damp, winding streets of Wellington, leaving a trail of exhaust and disdain in her wake. The city was a desolation of shadow and drizzle, a labyrinth of cracked pavements and rusting street signs that stood like the broken teeth of some ancient, starving beast. As she drove, a fog rolled in from the harbor, cloaking the skeletal remains of the once-proud buildings in a shroud of sickly yellow haze. The world was gray and brown, tinged only by the faint glimmers of neon that buzzed and flickered like dying embers.
Commissar Willis, ensconced in her plush leather seat, smirked as she peered through the rain-streaked window at the masses of miserable souls plodding through the morning gloom. They were bent low, hunched against the wind, their threadbare coats and frayed scarves doing little to fend off the bite of the dampness that seeped into their bones. These were the proles—the wretched workers, the eternal laborers condemned to trudge down Cuba Street in an endless procession of misery. Their faces were hollow, their eyes vacant, and the pallor of their skin matched the ashen sky above. To Willis, they looked like ants—insignificant, expendable, crawling toward a destiny of toil and degradation.
The car lurched forward, tires splashing through the rain-slicked potholes, sending a filthy spray of water cascading onto the sidewalks. A group of workers staggered back, clutching their ragged coats against the sudden chill, and Willis laughed—a sharp, cruel sound that cut through the morning like a blade. She reveled in their discomfort, savoring the way their eyes widened in panic, the way they cowered and shrank back into the doorways, their faces twisted in expressions of impotent rage.
As the car sped on, she tightened her gloved fingers around the steering wheel, feeling the power that hummed beneath her touch, the power that allowed her to bend and break the world as she saw fit. Her mouth curled into a smile, a thin line of malice that only deepened with each passing moment. She thought of the mandates she had signed, the new regulations that would chain these wretches even further to their stations—longer hours, reduced pay, stricter quotas. How they would sweat, how they would beg, their voices rising in a desperate, collective wail against the iron fist of their commissar.
She glanced into the rearview mirror and caught a glimpse of herself—sharp eyes, lips painted blood-red, a visage that seemed to draw in the very darkness that swirled around her. She was beautiful in her cruelty, an empress of suffering, draped in power and privilege like some dark, velvet cloak. Her laughter echoed through the car, mingling with the hum of the engine, the heartbeat of the machine that propelled her ever forward, ever upward.
The streetlamps flickered as she neared the Parliament, their dim, sputtering light barely cutting through the gloom. The proles moved slower now, their legs heavy with the weariness of yet another day of labor that stretched out before them like an endless, unyielding road. And Willis, with a final sneer, jerked the wheel sharply, sending a sheet of muddy water spraying into the gutter, where it soaked the feet of an elderly man clutching a torn cap to his head. He stumbled, cursed under his breath, but did not look up—he did not dare. For this was her domain, and all who walked these streets walked under her shadow.
She parked her car at the gates of Parliament and stepped out, her heels clicking against the wet pavement, each step a reminder of the authority she wielded. The door slammed shut behind her, and as she strode toward the grand, looming structure, she took one last look at the sea of downtrodden figures below, still trudging forward, still struggling against the tide.
“Work harder,” she whispered, her voice swallowed by the wind. And for the first time that morning, she felt truly at peace.
Yeah those businesses should really pull their socks up and actually work towards real offerings rather then complaining, whining, whining to the MPs, setting up a lobby group to whine for them and demanding a trapped customer market just for them solely so they can put their prices up and justify bad retail & hospitality leases that made very little sense 6 years ago as they do even less today. The two industries that are already known to have high closure rates and overheads already. If the only thing the business has is that people are physically and financially forced into their space with little opt out then that is not true capitalism. If anything customers should be able to choose the locations and businesses they support and for many the options for those WFH are far more varied with more true competition and benefits to the smaller town centers. Capitalism encourages true competition, not closing off the options of customers towards a limited area.
How big are the cups... I tend to average 4Ltrs but I also am trying to reduce fluid stored without the severe steep drop of water tablets. Last time I brought coffee for work I realized it was cheaper and more effective to by my own blend & grind even with a plunger at work. Benefits are better time spent at the desk and the grind itself can go in the bin or work compost (home compost if you have a sealed container to transport it back). Downsides everyone treats open office as a massive playground daycare for adults so it is very hard to concentrate or work on tasks without interruption and so the walking away to a cafe might be the only good time to make work calls or focus on problem solving complex design & architecture issues.
Which is the crux. A lot of government staff really are just doing busy work in an effective daycare for adults. Toxic workplaces, bullying and harassment are also up more then a quarter of staff with expensive cases often occurring in office workplaces. We effectively moved a lot of these individuals from schools to cheap poorly designed uni courses to govt work with no real checks on policy or management skills. I think I needed more drugs (meds) to compensate for the behaviour of those people because some where actively trying to cause harm and ER visits to colleagues and put actual damage to projects just to serve their ego, (which caused months of set backs when they threw toys out of the cot). E.G. much like the Sky City toxic poisoning of the security team... as a "joke" intended to cause harm which resulted in multiple ambulance callouts and a shutdown of most operations for the team that day. Some colleagues even saw triggering anaphylaxis, or infections in recent organ transplant recipients as a fun prank... except for the very real long term harm it can cause colleagues
"Public Service Minister Nicola Willis told RNZ working from home was not an entitlement and more public servants needed to be in the office."
Correct
Theres an entitled mentality that needs to be pushed back on. You are paid to work and generally to show up at work unless specified. The higher management need to model this behaviour not "be more productive" while managing no staff
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/528939/how-do-wellingtonians-feel-a…
WFH should still be on-offer for high performers and people who can function with a high degree of autonomy - as a reward, but maybe not by default.
That's what it's evolved to in the private sector; if you're responsive and a hard worker, the payrises may not be what they were a few years ago, but there are extra benefits that employers could offer those who have shown themselves worthy.
I'm lucky enough to have a provided car, office and park at multiple locations so I'm here five days a week, but if my team came to me and asked for a WFH allowance within company policy I'd probably allow it. If you don't trust them enough to just say yes, then you have a different issue - the problem isn't work from home as a concept at that point.
A lot of government staff really are just doing busy work in an effective daycare for adults. Toxic workplaces, bullying and harassment are also up more then a quarter of staff with expensive cases often occurring in office workplaces. We effectively moved a lot of these individuals from schools to cheap poorly designed uni courses to govt work with no real checks on policy or management skills. I think I needed more drugs (meds) to compensate for the behaviour of those people because some where actively trying to cause harm and ER visits to colleagues and put actual damage to projects just to serve their ego, (which caused months of set backs when they threw toys out of the cot). E.G. much like the Sky City toxic poisoning of the security team... as a "joke" intended to cause harm which resulted in multiple ambulance callouts and a shutdown of most operations for the team that day. Some colleagues even saw triggering anaphylaxis, or infections in recent organ transplant recipients as a fun prank... except for the very real long term harm it can cause colleagues
On top of that lets remember the most health risks of disease or illness come from in person workplaces with those most affected by viruses (and needing more time off) especially in professions that have high interactions with others. With the highest being the most in person social work e.g. teaching & medical work, with office workers in close contact poorly ventilated/separated spaces follow closely. Less sick days are taken by staff that have low transmission probabilities (unsurprisingly). With the high potential rates of disablement from covid this is not something to be ignored. Those office spaces and Wellington in general is a petri dish that is best to be washed out & disinfected.
Viv Beck has got to be the worst advocate for the city centre of anyone out there. She is only ever in the media to talk about how shit it is in the city centre, how many problems there are and how many businesses are closing.
Her approach demonstrates the typical victim attitude of incompetent leadership.
Viv, it's literally your f****ng job to make the city centre more appealing and you're doing the opposite. Please step down and let someone with actual leadership and vision step up.
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2409/S00038/on-nicola-willis-perverse…
"In fact, Willis and PM Christopher Luxon are dictating basic operational matters that have serious implications for staff morale, the departmental budgets for office space, increased road congestion, and work productivity... without Luxon having any idea (a) how many staff will be affected, and (b) whether working from home is better, or worse, for productivity."
Working from home only works for people who don't need to learn skills from other people in order to get better at doing their job. I worked in the Internet industry for 20 years with no technical qualifications, all my knowledge was gained from my colleagues that I worked with. Zoom calls would have achieved nothing because the people I learned from I didnt have meetings with (and meetings are not for personal learning anyway) - I needed to build relationships in the IT and Engineering departments so that I could go ask questions, and have people take the time to teach me. Often this meant playing pool with the IT guys on Friday night drinks. Or having a cigarette in the basement with the Engineers. These new skills then enabled me to become a highly paid specialist and be promoted. So sure, you can do "your job" from home, but can you learn what you need to learn to do someone else's?
Not to mention that most organisations run on informal networks not official hierarchies. Its not what you know, but who you know. And if you don't know anyone, you will be left behind. Which is why research is showing that WFH is the new "Mummy Track". You'll be the first to be made redundant because nobody has a personal relationship with you and therefore no desire to save your job. And in a country the size of NZ, those personal relationships you build will be required to get future jobs not just being promoted within your existing organisation.
I'd say to any young person starting out that they WFH at their own risk. They are jeopardising their entire careers.
Someone younger may have less commitments outside their life which means being in an office or commuting is less of an ordeal. And that's great. They should make the most of that.
But other people do and the last thing we need is the creep of 'live to work' that the US has, and the thinkpieces from Silicon Valley about how your staff should be available 24/7 aren't going to help us build a more sustainable or productive workforce.
Real life is not LinkedIn. LinkedIn isn't even real.
I tend to agree. Where I've seen it work best is for mid/late career individual contributors who already have established skills, reputations and networks. And to be honest, it wasn't unusual for people with this profile to be working remotely before the pandemic.
However, I think there's a huge opportunity for young people who want to accelerate their career progression just by being willing to turn up and be visible at the office. I get that it's more convenient and comfortable to work from home, but a little effort early on can pay dividends for years to come.
It's a difficult topic because the benefits to working from home are immediately realized but there may be costs that only become clear many years down the track. People often make poor decisions when faced with this type of incentive structure (e.g. drinking, smoking, exercise, infrastructure investment, climate change etc.)
Each to their own though - everyone must chart their own course through life. I won't judge anyone for choosing to work from home (well, maybe if you stay in your pajamas all day!)
Let's be honest with ourselves. Govt employees generally don't increase any skills once they secure their govt dept job. If anything, at the very best, they stagnate.
Should they work in the office - who cares? They do stuff-all work WFH and stuff-all work in the office. The previous govt increased govt employees in the 2017 to 2022 period from 50k to 64k.
That is a 28% FTE increase. Versus a population change of +6.25% over the same period.
It will take years to weed out all the ticket clippers that the Labour govt hired.
Lets not forget the thousands added in 2023 as Labour embedded their acolytes in the runup to the election.
"Since Labour came to power in 2017, the number of public servants has increased by roughly one-third, up just under 18,500 to a total of 65,699 full-time equivalent staff at the end of 2023."
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2024/04/labour-s-chris-hipkins-….
That's the complete opposite of my experience. I'm in tech and working on systems that I've never worked on before. Been in this role for 18 months. First month was at the office every day then after that it was once or twice a week.
i work with various teams or specialists and with screen sharing on Teams I learn these new systems and can follow guidance very easily in real time. Also helps when I work with international colleagues or partners.
Also I've moved companies twice in 4 years. No problem settling in and building relationships online and I didn't get forgotten about and made redundant either. Relationships can be built online or in person, it's just the methods that change.
Kind of agree. But I think it’s usually important to have at least the first few months with quite a lot of in office presence. I think it’s far easier and more effective to build relationships in person. Once that baseline is established, online meetings can work brilliantly
This is 100% not how it works these days. Your entire "this is the way I did it, therefore its the only way" is not accurate now. Classic "back in my day..." and yes, this type of work has changed significantly over the past few years.
I am a senior dev and mentor junior staff all the time. There are 3 slots in a week where I mentor them, in a focused and disciplined way... which really really works, in fact far better for both of us. They get time away from me looking over their shoulder to do research, make mistakes and form questions, which they come back to me with in our regular sessions. I get focus time to deliver more value to our clients. If they really need something urgently they are free to get on a call with me as well. They have quickly become high performing, invaluable team members, both self learning AND being mentored. And I would say its a better model, they get to be productive a lot faster and add value a lot faster too. We all WFH.
The issues have been largely mitigated by adapting to modern ways of working.
Wellington has an existential crisis.
The council needs to fundamentally rethink its approaches. Chance of that happening- zilch
They should start with removing heritage listings on numerous earthquake buildings. I like old buildings, but it’s a nonsense to force their retention if it is simply uneconomic.
Next, they need to free up the consenting processes for development in and near the city centre. They changed the rules to allow for more height and density, but you still need a resource consent for every building and have to wade through months of painful, subjective push back from council planners, just like in Auckland. This is too time consuming, costly and risky. Introduce a few key planning standards. and provided compliance is achieved, no resource consent!
I get the feeling the growth in the public sector in the last six years has pushed Wellington massively out of step with the rest of the country. The chill had set in long ago around places like Auckland, the change in government was the result of it, not the cause of it. There's so much of a political bubble there than the idea that it's happened in that order is unfathomable and there's enough group-think going on down there that makes them feel like they should be untouchable.
This also seems to spill over into who they vote for come local body election times. You can't wish your way to a productive and energetic city; you can't fix broken pipes with aspirational affirmations and you can't fix a budget bottom line with large-scale lunches to welcome and farewell incoming and outgoing senior staff.
If it worked that way, there'd be no problems at all.
"there's enough group-think going on down there that makes them feel like they should be untouchable..."
Yes, yes and yes
I have observed Ardern-loving wgtn relatives who appeared to think they operated in some alternate universe which wasnt subject to the laws of physics that blighted the simpletons in the regions ...
Feel that's a bit tough on the Fidel's owner. His quotes are basically saying it would be better for the city (and him) if town was busier. He's hardly saying people must come into work. Not really sure what else you expect from him.
I work from home once a week. Quite honestly I don't work nearly as hard.
Public servants who WFH ought to be docked 20 % of their regular daily salary for every full 8 hours that they work from home ...
... and the funds collected should be given to other public service employees who have no choice but to front up to work & to the public ... pay rises for nurses , teachers & the police ...
( thankyou Prof MacCulloch , awesome idea ! )
You're bosses (not you're manager, they get to work from home too). The people that pay you (including the government). Don't want you working from home. But they don't want you working from the office either.
They don't want you at all. There is a recession on. There is not enough work for you to do and revenue to pay you to do it. They are threatening you with a return to the office in the hope that you will just leave. Redundancy and restructuring in NZ is an expensive process. They will redistribute the little work that you do amongst you're workmates who will happily take it on in exchange for keeping their job.
I think this is actually at the bottom of it. The Govt wants visibility of who all the slackers are, and why despite a 28% increase in staff, less is being delivered now than in 2017. The return to the office is so they can build the "hot or not" list of who stays, and who goes. If you decide to jump before you are pushed that's even better because then they don't need to pay redundancies. Good job Nicola! Next, insist on a pay freeze for the next five years.
I am not sure why you think it reasonable to penalise those who work from home as the solution to management who may not be overseeing their own staff?
Get off the back of those out their actually doing the work - be it at home or in the office.
The problem is the system which promotes managers who won't rock the boat, won't stand up to silly ideas and smooooge their way up the ladder.
Is that visibility not possible with technology? Presumably those WFH will be inputting data via laptop into some form of ERP/CRM system, number of emails/calls made, times logging into the VPN, hell even keystrokes measured.
Does having them in the office make these metrics any easier to measure? A "hot or not" list lol. I get it, it's a great kiwi pastime to put the boot into the lazy bureaucrats.
Great, so sack them if they're just writing research reports that add no value. It's not going to change if you force them into the office and if it's a task set by their manager I don't imagine the deadline will change.
Why not sack the whole public sector while we're at it? Not just the bloat that Labour added.
I think the idea is that many of those that are WFH will just come back to the office, no complaints. The govt is obviously looking for more staff to go (they need to cut down a lot more), so they are probably hoping many of the WFH that don't want to come back will just quit. It saves a lot of time and money that way.
Friends and family visiting Wellington now say that the inner-city precinct has a distinctly "unsafe" and seedy/derelict feel about it. Basically, many now think twice about going there for their entertainment options or to restaurants and bars at night, especially in the weekends.
I suggest that this has just as much to do with the downturn in the hospitality trade within Wellington as the 'red herring' explanations of people working from home or the great layoff of civil servants in the city.
As a born and breed Wellingtonian, this change in the 'vibe' of the city is, to me, a real shame because for so long it was one of the very best of cities to live, work or study in; compact, lunch-break accessible harbour or botanical garden walks, superb range of eateries, arts, etc. etc.
I was there for the Eminem concert in 2019 and thought Courtney Place was looking pretty derelict then, a far cry from when I used to live in Wellington and spent my evenings at Paradiso until they kicked us out (usually by playing Sweet Caroline). I can only imagine how much worse its gotten post Covid. Queen St in Auckland is the same - I avoid the area now and won't book a hotel anywhere close to it, as I dont want to be walking around there at night (or the day really). One of the big mistakes Labour made was to pack the inner cities with emergency housing "guests" over Covid (who havent left), making the inner city a real no-go zone.
How long before the changes in these cities start impacting tourism, and they get on the "best avoided" list of overseas travellers. Word travels fast these days.
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