Auckland still cheap compared to other international cities
There has been a few complaints about Auckland Transport hiking on-street parking prices for the City Centre and City Centre fringes. The idea is to encourage fast turn around of car parks (if you need long-term parking the Downtown parking building has 1,000 spots free as of 11am) as well as encourage public transport use.
Auckland Transport also has a policy of adjusting parking rates to demand. That is if demand sits over 85% of all on-street parking in the City Centre area then AT hikes the prices. The same applies in lowering prices if demand falls below a certain percentage as well.
Newshub compared prices of Auckland’s city centre parking compared to other cities. You can look here: How Auckland’s parking compares internationally
But if you want expensive check out Melbourne:
And Sydney is no better either.
In the end if we diverted our energy from complaining about parking in a City Centre to a City Centre that is accessible by public transport and a City Centre that is easy to walk through then I would say we are on more to a winner.
Talking Southern Auckland 
You are comparing Auckland with some of the world’s major cities. By international standards, we are not a large city, but a smallish city. And in smaller cities parking charges are generally much less than in Auckland, as is the cost of public transport. Portland, Oregon, a little larger than Auckland and often described as the greenest city in the US, is a much fairer comparison. Downtown metered street parking varies from $1–2 /hr and an all day bus and train pass is $5. For those over 62, (whom they describe as honoured citizens, including visitors) the all day pass is $2, which is more sensible than our $0. Incidentally, there is none of our electronic complexity. Get on the bus, pay your fare and you get a paper ticket which you show to all subsequent bus drivers and train inspectors if they want to see it.
Thanks for that, in the same token I am going to have a look at Portland and might do a comparison on them and us.