Minister Chris Bishop has swung his ministerial wrecking ball at Wellington. He will strip the Gordon Wilson Flats of its heritage protection. At last, the bulldozers can begin.  

What a loss to world culture this will be. Forget Paris, Cairo or Rome.  For over a decade Wellington has been conserving its own decaying monument to another time.  

Workers lugged giant stones across desert sands to build the Egyptian pyramids. Wellington achieved its own monolithic effect with prefabricated concrete, and a harbour view as a bonus.  

Rome’s Pantheon boasts a perfect dome crowned with exquisite geometry. It draws pilgrims from around the globe. Our local slab honours bureaucracy with a stolid cuboid. It draws graffiti artists and pigeons from across metropolitan Wellington.  

Istanbul’s majestic Hagia Sophia bridges Christian and Islamic civilisation in layers of brick, marble and mosaic. Our flats bridge nothing, but their deserted corridors and broken windows form wind tunnels that provide spiritual resonance with our windy city. 

Windsor Castle grandly commands the Thames with turrets, ramparts and royal banners. The flats ordain The Terrace with rust stains and sheets of fluttering polythene.  

In the US, Lady Liberty lifts a beacon to immigrants and poets yearning to breathe free. The flats lift poles to scaffolding while poets yearn to breathe elsewhere. Liberty’s copper patina ages gracefully, while Gordon Wilson’s rusty steel reinforcement ─ just ages.  

Tourists queue for selfies in front of the Eiffel Tower while seagulls vie for nesting rights atop Gordon Wilson. 

Architects study Barcelona’s La Sagrada Familia, which blooms upward like ocean coral, vibrant with faith and wonder. In Wellington, bio-hazard officers and earthquake engineers can study the Wilson flats. Others might run sweepstakes on what the next strong wind will blow away. 

Heritage NZ may mourn the passing of our heritage icon. Those who care about the rights of building owners and the need for useful assets will rejoice, albeit with irritation at the wanton waste. The rest will just be glad to see the end of an embarrassing eyesore.  

But the red tape gridlock that created and perpetuated this situation remains in place. Bowling derelict buildings should not require the intercession of a Minister of the Crown. RMA reform will fail if it does not significantly strengthen private property rights.