Friday Faceoff: Should WCC senior officials be required to live in the region?

Publish Date: Fri, 11 Sep 2026, 12:35pm

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For Friday Faceoff this week Nick Mills is joined in the studio by former Wellington City Councillor Tim Brown and entrepreneur JD Trask.

Our panel get heated from the start as Nick heard a senior official at the Wellington City Council commutes to Wellington from Auckland.

Is this acceptable for a high paid, infrastructure position? Does it matter what city they live in?

Then an issue raised in our Business Panel earlier this week brought up Wellington's lack of international flights. What effects are our panel seeing themselves and what paths do they want?

Brown, who was on the board of Wellington Airport said he'd be surprised if there weren't new airlines coming here "before the end of next year".

The panel then faceoff over confidence in Tiaki Wai. They question Tiaki Wai's plans, costing, and if anything has changed since Wellington Water?

Trask and Brown go hard on the Zoo asking council for $13 million for lion enclosure upgrades, and pose the question - should Wellington even have a zoo?

Plus was the PSA strike strictly political, and the panel share their hots and nots.

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