People DO NOT want to spend 1 minute more at BUA's(big ugly airports) like AKL or SYD than they have to, esp business types, who want to turn up, get on aircraft & fly.
Have you ever flown regionally or domestically in New Zealand?
Flying out of AKL Domestic is pretty quick and straight-forward, about years ago NZ removed the check-in counters. Which in-turn removed these ques that you talked about, I flew SYD-BNK recently as was shocked by how long it the que took to drop by bag.
In AKL it takes less than 60 seconds to get an bag tag, and drop your bag on the belt.
If you're flying regionally you can drop your car off outside the gate, head straight into the Regional Koru Club an onto the plane directly for there. In fact you have to travel less distance than most regional airports in NZ.