About two years ago Christchurch International Airport Ltd revealed a plan to transform the sleepy Central Otago township of Tarras into an international airport. The proposal caused disbelief initially – soon followed by anger. What follows makes for a fascinating story, the latest chapter of which perhaps offers a little bit of vindication.
Sources
Debbie Jamieson (23 October 2024). Tarras Airport ‘stupidest bloody idea’ – departing mayor. https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360461141/tarras-airport-stupidest-bloody-idea-departing-mayor
Higham, J.E.S. (2023) and co-signatories (Distinguished Professors Salmond, McLaughlin, Professors Boston, Hayward, Hendy, Noy, Ratuva, Renwick, Huhana Smith, Wreford). Informed leaders launch and letter to decision makers. 26 January 2023. https://informedleaders.com
Higham, J.E.S. (2023). The future of tourism and plane travel. The Platform. Interview with Michael Laws (13 March 2023). 38 minutes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pygNETDMR9E
CIAL (2023). Unlocking Potential: Central Otago’s runway to a future -focussed airport (August 2023). https://www.centralotagoairport.co.nz/uploads/images/Unlocking-potential-31-Aug2023.pdf
Transcript
A couple of years ago or more Christchurch Airport, which had secretly purchased 790 hectares of farmland in the vicinity of the Central Otago township of Tarras, made public its intention to build an international airport. Secrecy surrounded the details of the proposal for commercial reasons. But many people in the local community and surrounding districts were quick to express their disbelief. Not only at the proposal to build an international airport, but that fact that it was being orchestrated not by a local initiative but by Christchurch International Airport Ltd.
Little effort to engage with the local community or to offer any reassurance to those who had been sideswiped by the announcement followed. The promise of further details at a later date, and a “you’ll have to wait and see” attitude caused a lot of anger. Further details finally appeared August 2023, revealing the intention to build one of the longest runways in the country, a capability to receive long haul international arrivals from up to 15,000km range (a range that would include flights from Dubai, Shanghai and New York) and the capacity to bring 3.6-4.3 million passengers annually directly into the region in addition to the 2.5 million capacity of the nearby Queenstown International Airport.
For those who are not familiar with the district of Central Otago or the township of Tarras, it is important to know that Central Otago is one of the most beautiful parts of New Zealand. Crossed by the Mata-au and Kawarau rivers that flow out of Lakes Wānaka and Wakatipu respectively, Central Otago sits between the Pisa, Hawkdun, Knobbies, and Old Man/Old Woman ranges, with fertile farms and orchards in the valleys and the smell of thyme in the hills in summer. The Southern Alps provide for hiking and tramping in summer, skiing in winter and outdoor sports and adventure activities year around. It is a unique and special place.
Within this setting, Tarras is no more than a small collection of dwellings set adjacent to the iconic Bendigo sheep station. It barely registers a dot on Google Maps. Drive through Tarras and you barely notice it. It is a beautiful historic town set in an idyllic quiet rural corner of Central Otago. It is the gateway to Central Otago from Omarama to the north via the Lindis Pass. Driving into Central Otago via the rolling golden tussock hills of the Lindis, particularly in the soft sunlight of dawn or dust, is breathtaking. For many, the very thought of arriving from the Lindis to the sight of a long-haul international airport in the upper Clutha Valley is a crime.
Following the Christchurch earthquakes in 2010 and 2011 Christchurch lost a lot of airport growth to Queenstown. For a time international arrivals from Australia bypassed Christchurch as it was rebuilding, flying directly into Queenstown which by the end of the last decade was beginning to run up against capacity constraints. So too for that matter was Queenstown itself with dwindling social acceptance of tourism due to the pressures of sustained high tourism growth. Locally, further tourism growth was being viewed with increasing scepticism.
Not that this was deter CIAL. At the time the CEO of CIAL was Malcolm Johns. To sell the idea of a new airport – for a region already well served by international airports in Queenstown, Dunedin, Invercargill and Christchurch itself – the CIAL campaign was built on the two arguments:
- Central Otago would win economically by having an exit point for local export produce, as well as serving the local population growth needed to justify amenities such hospitals;
- Positioning Christchurch as the first carbon neutral airport in the world, bringing world-leading commitment and technology development to the building of a new airport in Central Otago.
Neither argument could be sustained. Central Otago residents themselves expressed the wish to limit growth to protect the special qualities and lifestyle of Central Otago. And carbon neutral claims proved, as the science clearly states, to be an exercise in corporate greenwashing. After much contention and public debate, earlier this year the CIAL was directed to remove is carbon claims from its website.
I personally found the debate impossible to ignore. In January 2023 I wrote a letter to Christchurch City Council and CIAL, copied to the then Prime Minister and key government ministers including the Ministers for Climate Change among others. The gist of the letter was to share insights into the science of climate change and particularly the science of aviation to highlight the lunacy of the Tarras proposal. Most particularly the science informing the impossible task of decarbonising global aviation had to be shared with decision makers to reveal the greenwashing underpinning the airport proposal.
I shared the draft letter with various colleagues across New Zealand and some of the most distinguished scholars in Aotearoa, across a range or disciplines agreed to co-sign the letter. The letter was sent with twelve signatures on 26 January 2023, later increasing to 79 when international researchers were made aware of the proposal. It received wide media attention, and the CCC accepted our offer to present the latest scientific insights in the next meeting of council the following month. Christchurch Airport is a subsidiary of the Christchurch City Holdings Ltd, which is majority owned by the council. So ultimately it is the elected councillors of Christchurch that have the authority to rein in CIAL.
Prof. Bronwyn Hayward (Canterbury), Prof. Ilan Noy (Victoria) and I presented to council. Bronwyn and I presented in person and were delighted to find the public gallery full of local Christchurch residents who also strongly opposed the proposed airport development.
This led to the development of a website – Informedleaders.coom – which was developed as a clearing house for the latest research on aviation emissions and a host of other climate-relevant topics that we felt should inform those charged with making decisions – most immediately the councillors in Christchurch.
This initiative was warmly welcomed by the CCC and by the media. The Informedleaders website became an important clearinghouse for cutting edge research of direct relevance, making claims of “sustainable aviation”, “climate neutral aviation” and “green aviation” simply untenable. I must say we have been really pleased with the engagement of CCC with the Informedleaders initiative. International research of relevance and importance has been made available and councillors have expressed a wish to be informed.
Enter Michael Laws. Following quite a lot of media engagement in the weeks following the letter to decision makers, I set off with a friend on a South Island mountain bike ride from Ship’s Cove in Queen Charlotte Sounds at the top of the South Island – to Piopiotahi Milford Sound in Fiordland National Park in the South Island’s south-west.
About a week into the ride I received a request from Michael Laws’s radio show at The Platform for an interview. At the time we were riding through the Makenzie and the day before the interview we were planning to stay in a cabin at Lake Alexandrina which I was really looking forward to. But internet coverage there was inadequate for the interview so I reluctantly agreed to ride an extra 60km by myself to Twizel, eating my dinner on my bike as a rode along the hydro canals into a strong wind.
I mention this because I did put myself out for Mr Laws and his interview request, which as it transpired was a complete waste of my time. Mr Laws had adopted his anti-science, anti-academic stance and set about conducting an interview that wasn’t really an interview at all. He wanted to push the case that the authors of the letter were not Central Otago residents, did not live in Cromwell and had no right or authority to comment on a proposal that might create jobs for some of his listeners. I found myself disagreeing with everything Laws said, when he gave me fleeting opportunities to actually speak. It was a frustration that Mr Laws had will little or no willingness to engage in a constructive conversation.
Against the backdrop of growing public opposition, Malcolm Johns resigned as CEO of CIAL and moved to Genesis Energy, but not before receiving the 2023 TIA Environment Award – and promoting the environmental claims of CIAL through the Environment ITP – Industry Transformation Plan – and other important forums. Many hoped that his departure would signal the end of the Tarras Airport proposal. It seemed the perfect opportunity for CIAL to stop trying to swallow a dead rat. But for whatever reasons CIAL decided to push on.
Notwithstanding the relentless arguments in favour being put forward by CIAL work on the project slowed in February 2024 following pressure from the Christchurch City Council to “reconsider budgets”. That was great news. Sanity seemed to be finally beginning to prevail.
So why am I talking about this now, and why the reference to vindication at the start of this podcast. Well… let’s finish on a positive note. Despite directing our efforts towards the CCC, it is actually the Central Otago District Council that would be the consenting council for the airport proposal. CODC had received various submissions and deputations opposing the airport, including youth against climate change from across the province, but had remained silent on the proposal. Of course as consenting council it was important that the mayor and councillors remains muted on the proposal – much to everyone’s disappointment – simply in order to maintain independence in advance of the details of the consent application eventually arriving on the council table.
Last week that silence ended.
Central Otago mayor Tim Cadogan resigned from his position last Friday to take up a new role in Wellington. During his eight years as mayor he remained impartial on many contentious topics including the proposed airport. However, with three days left in the role he broke his silence on the Tarras airport proposal in his final weekly Facebook Live address, and his views are very newsworthy.
Mr Cadogan described the proposal airport as (quote) “the stupidest bloody idea I’ve ever heard of,”.
Cadogan said the airport was “absolutely” not needed in Central Otago, which already has three international airports within two hours driving time – in Dunedin, Invercargill and Queenstown. He expressed the strong view that “An international airport at Tarras would be a disaster for the environment and a disaster for Central Otago”.
It would be “a complete failure of ourselves as a nation” if the Tarras proposal proceeded and would result in two massive infrastructure projects – airports at Queenstown and Tarras, which were 60km apart – competing with each other.
“For the environment it would be a disaster. We have a taonga in Central Otago. We have a precious jewel which is our world of difference. “Tarras Airport will scuttle that world of difference and I hope like hell it doesn’t happen.”
How refreshing the honesty. Thank you Mr Cadogan.
This is not the end of the story – we will have to wait to see how it ends. For now, however, a little bit of vindication.
