Hooton on Auckland
April 9th, 2009 at 10:07 am by David FarrarMatthew Hooton has an excellent column in NBR (as he unlike me, remembered it was being published today not tomorrow). His description of the problems with the status quo in Auckland is so good, I have repeated an extract here:
Auckland has always been ripped off by the rest of New Zealand, paying far more tax to Wellington than it has ever received back, even including benefits to South Auckland.
The city’s infrastructure has never been a priority. Reefton had electric street lighting before Auckland; the first telephone call was made from Roxburgh; Auckland had to wait for STD to first be rolled out in parts of National’s provincial heartland; and its roading network was never completed because of political priorities in marginal electorates.
Today, the city’s roads remain shambolic; electricity supply is not guaranteed; cellphone calls can’t be maintained driving from Queen St to the airport; public transport is more primitive than in Queen Victoria’s London; Cath Tizard’s opera house stands at the wrong end of town; Auckland couldn’t competently respond to Trevor Mallard’s offer of a free rugby stadium; it idiotically runs a major port at the foot of its CBD, separating the city from the sea and with no possibility of ever achieving streamlined transport links to the country’s manufacturing base; and its kids were recently at risk of losing their elephants because politicians couldn’t agree about funding for the zoo.
If Auckland were some Pacific island, we’d call it a failed state.
And this is the status quo that Labour now has decided it wants to protect?
Labour have been quick to say what they don’t like, but are being very careful not to offer any constructive solution of their own. Would they have Maori seats on the Auckland Council? Depends which Labour MP you listen to according to John Carter who said in the House that a senior Labour MP was reported ruling out Maori seats as recommended by the Royal Commission.
Tags: Auckland, Matthew Hooton, NBR
April 9th, 2009 at 10:14 am
Auckland Mayors: Auckland ratepayers will pay at least $550 each in restructuring costs for a Super City
Rodney Hide: “That’s scaremongering… restructuring costs would not be known until the Government appointed an establishment board in the next few weeks to do the transition.”
Sooo….. we are going ahead with this anyway, even though we haven’t quantified the costs and we aren’t clear on the benefits. Also Rodney is giving Auckland ratepayers the bill for the transition, but at the same time wants to legislate to cap rates.
Is this turning into a farce?
[DPF: The RC estimated the cost and the savings, and concluded the savings will be greater. No decision has been made on who will pay for the transition costs]
Vote:April 9th, 2009 at 10:22 am
..and its kids were recently at risk of losing their elephants because politicians couldn’t agree about funding for the zoo..
Aaron Bhatnagar came to the rescue with $13m of ratepayers money for a ‘herd’
Vote:April 9th, 2009 at 10:23 am
Of course, there was another National MP who wondered aloud why Labour list members of the House, who were elected at large, were speaking out against Auckland having a similar proportional at-large voting system, so just because it’s said in the House doesn’t mean it’s worth all that much
Vote:April 9th, 2009 at 10:40 am
Yes but if the Government wants to cherry pick just bits of the RC, then surely the costs and savings need to be reassessed.
Vote:April 9th, 2009 at 10:55 am
Auckland has always been ripped off by the rest of New Zealand, paying far more tax to Wellington than it has ever received back, even including benefits to South Auckland.
The city’s infrastructure has never been a priority. Reefton had electric street lighting before Auckland; the first telephone call was made from Roxburgh; Auckland had to wait for STD to first be rolled out in parts of National’s provincial heartland;
Hooton is being disingenuous here:
Reefton’s streeet lighting was not funded out of any Auckland taxation. It was built and paid for by Reefton’s local authority of the time, so trying to link Auckland’s failure to get its act together with how much tax it pays is mischief. ( Reefton was in the middle of a gold mining boom, so had plenty of money)
Until 1900 Dunedin was the largest and wealthiest city in the country, Auckland was being subsidised by national taxation from the wealthier South Island at the time.
If he wants to talk about current taxation, I have no worries with him claiming Auckland does is subsiding the rest of the country, but to go back and say it has always been the case since Auckland’s inception is just plain wrong.
Vote:April 9th, 2009 at 11:01 am
It’s a funny thing that Hooten uses the “Auckland pays more tax to Wellington than it receives” line. Centralisation necessarily leads to money and power being drawn to the centre at the expense of the outliers, which is where the soon-to-be-formally known as cities of Waitakere and Manukau are understandably upset. Screwed by central government as well as central Auckland. Great!
Vote:April 9th, 2009 at 11:07 am
[DPF: The RC estimated the cost and the savings, and concluded the savings will be greater. No decision has been made on who will pay for the transition costs]
Hide said in an interview on 1ZB that Auckland would pay, which seems fair if Auckland is going to gain overall – I live in Auckland btw.
Vote:April 9th, 2009 at 11:07 am
If Auckland were some Pacific island, we’d call it a failed state.
“Their opera house is in the wrong place! Failed State!”
Vote:April 9th, 2009 at 11:15 am
I see that John Key, Rodney Hide and Michael Barnett of Auck Chamber of Commerce have all conceded that there will be no savings.
This should not be surprising as recent studies of mega mergers show that they don’t. Wendell Cox concludes his report on the Toronto merger:
Vote:“The experience of large municipal amalgamations is clear. Toronto is just one of the more recent examples. Municipal amalgamations are virtually always sold on the basis of saving money. They virtually never do.”
See:http://www.nzcpr.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=697
Despite predictions of major efficiencies, Toronto’s costs have gone the other way – $1.25 billion higher today than projections.
For a local literature review go to:
http://www.waitakere.govt.nz/HavSay/pdf/royalcommission/7-literaturereview.pdf
Amalgamation is a politically risky activity because surveys reveal that amalgamation gets less popular over time. For example:
“Pole (2000) uses a 1999 Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM) Citizen Survey to study
citizen responses to a municipal amalgamation that created the Halifax Regional
Municipality. This survey explore citizens assessments of amalgamation three years after
the experience and what factors best explain citizens’ views towards amalgamation. The
survey found that opposition to the amalgamation legislation and its outcome increased
since amalgamation took place. 66% of citizens opposed amalgamation in the 1999
survey compared with from 42% in 1995 (when the amalgamation occurred).”
Where Auckland goes the country goes in general elections so if Aucklanders are not happy they may well express their unhappiness through the ballot box.
I cannot comprehend why this government is finally delivering on Sandra Lee’s great dream.
April 9th, 2009 at 11:24 am
huh? Free?
I dunno, but letting Fletchers write their own checks sounds remarkably UNfree to me. Was there a memo going round in Auckland that said not to pay any more rates or tax I didn’t get?
You can blame the founding fathers for a fair bit, but not having the foresight to have Auckland’s harbour in a convenient place for city not yet built or discovered for 200 years is going a bit far.
Ports evolve from where sailors land to get laid and drunk. Cities evolve from ports. History can be a real inconvenience sometimes.
Vote:April 9th, 2009 at 11:25 am
I also take issue with the “pays more than it receives” line. And let’s be clear that central government is not Wellington.
I suggest that ever region pays more than it receives precisely because there are vast areas of this country that incur costs without having a taxable base within them. Who would you suggest should pay for the desert road, for example? Or the road through the Lindis Pass? Rabbits can’t pay taxes, but those roads are important to the whole country, including Auckland. We depend on them to move mountains of freight, and revenue generating tourists. Auckland (like all other centres) gets to share in the cost of places like the defense establishments Ohakea and Waiouru and Tekapo (and for that matter, in Dili and Bamyan. It pays its fare share for the maintenance of a nation wide air traffic control system, and a whole lot of other infrastructure.
And when people like Banks and Hooton spit the word “Wellington”, they tend to forget that the people who allocate how the tax revenue is spent, may do their work down here, but they tend to be people sent here to represent you from other places. Wellington (as a place) has to fight every bit as hard as Auckland to get a share of the pie.
Vote:April 9th, 2009 at 11:25 am
“I see that John Key, Rodney Hide and Michael Barnett of Auck Chamber of Commerce have all conceded that there will be no savings.”
Where? I remember Banks was cautious on Breakfast yesterday though…
Vote:April 9th, 2009 at 11:33 am
Hooton is so right about the port. It needs to be moved to Tauranga. goodgod – yes, cities evolve around ports, but when the city grows they usually get moved. Sydney no longer tries to run its port at The Rocks or Darling Habour, it moved it to Port Botany in the 1970s. Auckland is just 35 years behind as usual.
Vote:April 9th, 2009 at 11:34 am
“Today, the city’s roads remain shambolic;” Rubbish. There’s the Grafton Interchange, the Victoria Park expansion is going ahead.
“electricity supply is not guaranteed;” That’s a Transpower thing. Breakages occur. Maybe if Auckland started making its own power without dragging it from the Clutha and across Cook Strait, there would be less links in the chain that might snap.
“cellphone calls can’t be maintained driving from Queen St to the airport;” Talk to the telcos about that one.
“public transport is more primitive than in Queen Victoria’s London;” Well, there’s noticeably less horse shit.
“Cath Tizard’s opera house stands at the wrong end of town;” Que? Too far for the Devonporters to walk from the ferry??
“Auckland couldn’t competently respond to Trevor Mallard’s offer of a free rugby stadium;” A picture of this stadium is still affixed to the Mallard household’s fridge.
“it idiotically runs a major port at the foot of its CBD,” It’s almost as if Auckland was founded as a port.
“separating the city from the sea and with no possibility of ever achieving streamlined transport links to the country’s manufacturing base;” Auckland City Council has the Tank Farm to play with. Britomart was a council initiative. It’s not greater Auckland’s fault that the ACC is a bunch of idiots.
“and its kids were recently at risk of losing their elephants because politicians couldn’t agree about funding for the zoo.” Talk about spreading the load.
“If Auckland were some Pacific island, we’d call it a failed state.” Quite the opposite. Auckland has regular elections and hasn’t yet installed a powerful monarch.
Vote:April 9th, 2009 at 11:47 am
If Auckland were some Pacific island, we’d call it a failed state.
Failed states tend to be more concerned about things like cholera epidemics and famine than poor cell-phone reception and whether or not the opera house is in the right place.
Vote:April 9th, 2009 at 11:54 am
Will – spoken like a true bureaucrat sitting comfortably in some departmental tower.
Anybody who has driven the roads in Auckland can attest to the shocking state they’re in. Jams everywhere, endless roadworks that don’t ever see progress. Not to mention the trucks from the port rolling through the city suburbs. Absolutely ridiculous.
Auckland doesn’t seem to want to take a risk to actually develop, and Hooton’s point about the stadium is spot on. It was a chance to really cast the city in a new light, show some foresight, and what happened? Mad panic and a meaningless redevelopment of Eden Park which meant less cricket games this summer (maybe a good thing).
Vote:April 9th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
How to kill 2 birds with one stone:
Move the CBD.
Obviously Hooten and DPF are overlooking the fact that making Auckland a supa-city will move its actual centre to Otahuhu. This shall become the new CBD.
No longer will the lives of our local government bereaucrats and councillors be ruined by having to work in the shadow of an “idiotic”port nor worry about power outages nor be cut off from the country by grid-locked traffic.
And think of the money rate payers will save. The hideously expensive council offices in inaccessible locations (Central Auckland or Takapuna), are mere excentricities of Auckland’s old balkanised past that will be replaced. In the new supa-city there will be a new greenfield site on the Tamaki River (sea views) and beside Otahuhu powerstation (no more worries about power supply). The sale of the old and over priced (Auckland/NorthShore City) complexes in prime commercial areas will easily cover the cost of the transition and benefit all rate payers. It will free up office space in the central city and ease the commute of thousands of Aucklanders and realise rateable income from prime realestate – there is no downside.
Oh, who the f*@k am I kidding? Of course that won’t happen. Our councillors will buy up some more land in the existing CBD at great expense and slap up some godawful testament to their combined edifice complexes and Rodney “small goverment” Hide will sit there with a smile telling us this is progress.
Vote:April 9th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
A particular structure will never guarantee savings. It will really depend on what the new Council does.
The Government is right not to hype savings.
Certainly the new structure chosen by the Government will provide for more efficient decision making. But tt is still possible that politicians and bureaucrats will make poor choices efficiently.
But that is democracy. That is why I favour limiting what governments both central and local do. But that is a different issue from the structure.
However the Government’s chosen structure will also allow voters to efficiently locate responsibility for poor decision making.
Auckland Local Government elections will be meaningful and voters will be able to both reward and punish those who are now fully responsible.
The real problem with the “Let a hundred flowers blossom” in terms of local government structures is that they uniformly are bad and costly.
Where are the local government exemplars in the Auckland Region – and if some do a particular thing well, why not replicate that across the region.
I am not convinced by Owen McShane’s function is dictated by form (structure) when it comes to government. Government structures are subject to fashions and fads irrespective of their form. Yes, on the margins form may act as a restraint (say on the size of the government) but it’s only on the margins.
Evidence for this is compelling: most modern governments are consuming more resources irrespective of the differences in structure.
Vote:April 9th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
Hooton sounds like a typical whinging Aucklander IMHO. Reminds me of why I left that town for our fair Capital…
“cellphone calls can’t be maintained driving from Queen St to the airport”
Is it the Gummint’s fault that neither Telecom or Vodafone can be bothered improving their network coverage?
(The drive/conversation he describes will soon be illegal anyway, therefore no problem. )
“Cath Tizard’s opera house stands at the wrong end of town”
Bollocks. It is easy to get to the Aotea Centre carpark from any of the motorways.
“it idiotically runs a major port at the foot of its CBD, separating the city from the sea”
Vote:Yes the colonials were real idiots like that, setting up their new cities so that you didn’t need to cart goods miles from the ships to the traders’ warehouses. Auckland is far from unique like this. Find an aerial photo of Manhattan on the interweb thing.
April 9th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
Aucklanders should flee now.
The language used in the government propaganda shows the true agenda behind this so-called supercity. I’ve got some quotes here:
Note to Aucklanders: prepare rectum for implant of jackboot
Vote:April 9th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
“couldn’t competently respond to Trevor Mallard’s offer of a free rugby stadium”
I agree with this one. The Waterfront stadium just over the road from the Vector Arena and just along from the new Public Transport hub would have created a truly stunning entertainment precinct; which would have re-acquainted many Aucklanders with their inner city. And that could have built a bit of the community spirit that Auckland is so sadly lacking.
Vote:April 9th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
Matthew follows the principle of “If you are going to tell a lie make it a big one”
Vote:April 9th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
“Auckland has always been ripped off by the rest of New Zealand, paying far more tax to Wellington than it has ever received back”
Er, to the *government* maybe, not to Wellington. I’m sure Wellington pays far more tax to “Wellington” than it gets back also. And most of the government is made up of MPs from Auckland, who have inner city apartments in Wellington, never try to go anywhere outside the central city, and then fly back to Auckland for the weekend where they drive around in SUVs and complain how bad the roads are.
I’ve been in Wellington for 24 years now and I’m struggling to think of anything central government has done for the region. Certainly not roads. In the time I’ve been here Auckland has gotten new motorway or double-laning from Bombay to Huntly (50 km), and from Albany to Puhoi (30 km). Meanwhile Wellington has got Paremata to Pukerua Bay (6 km), 5 km of bypass for Upper Hutt, a few hundred meters of extension in central Wellington, and a handful of new interchanges on existing motorway. Pathetic.
Vote:April 9th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
Interesting article. DPF, clearly you didn’t listen to Phil Twyford’s speech in parliament yesterday when he said Labour supported a unitary authority, supported one rates bill, one District Plan and one transport agency.
What Labour doesn’t support is the removal of power almost completely away from the local boards, and they don’t support the councillors that will be elected “at large”. From memory you were more keen on all councillors being elected through a ward system, and were concerned about the loss of “local” from local government. Hence it appears you’re actually more in favour of Labour’s position on this issue than National’s.
[DPF: What is their position on Maori wards? I do agree on at large. The local boards are not having powers removed 0 they will have more powers than existing community boards but it would be impossible to have 20 - 30 service delivery councils so if Labour wants that, I disagree.]
Vote:April 9th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
I do wonder if Key and Hide are risking an awful lot with the attempt to amagamate Jafaville councils, considering there is likely to be no/minimal $ savings. This tactic may very well be a case of the cart and the horse in the wrong place.
Yes we have rising rates throughout NZ
Yes we have some incredibly useless Mayors and Councillors (lack of experience in the business world, struggling with governance issues and often allow the bureaucrats on their staff to control their every move. This final issue can and has proven to be dangerous as often these staff members are complete watermelons with no concept of who actually pays their wages.)
Back to the cart & horse. It seems to me that the changes that Clark et al made to the Local Government Act in 2002 have brought about (probably intended by Cullen) changes that means the tax base is continually increased and passed to rate payers.
The act states that councils “provides for local authorities to play a broad role in promoting the social, economic, environmental, and cultural well-being of communities, taking a sustainable development approach.”
This effectively gives these watermelons an open field to grow their empires.
Therefore: Change the Act to stop the empire building. Make councils provide for basic services like water rubbish, shit removal etc THEN look closely possible amalgations.
Vote:April 9th, 2009 at 2:05 pm
you have 7 fiefdoms with 7 different agendas trying to agree on the major infrastructural and operational needs 1 region.
all this bullshit on community input is farcical. The councillors ran their own agendas despite the thousands of annual plan submissions they receive every year.
Vote:This open public submission process is one of the reasons you pay rates through the nose. It contributed to the problems, it didn’t resolve them
Having sat through many city annual plan hearings I seeb how it works – how many of you have ever made a successful submission to a council annual plan process?
Having city councilors and a mayor elected on clear policies, with a mandate to achieve them should make a difference.
April 9th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
A prediction The average rates in Auckland will increase at twice the rate of the past ten years over the next ten years after adjusting for inflation
Nowhere have I seen any attempt to address the value for rates equation. Every tin pot interest group is more interested in patch protection
FFS the Public Service wanker was banging on about how all the existing jobs must be protected.
Well as the customer ( remember me arseholes) I want to see a real reduction in headcount and the wage bill.
25% for starters And any idiot who wants to stand for Mayor and cant deliver that KPI doesnt deserve the title.
I want real KPIs spelt out NOT the BULLSHIT these gooses trot out about VISION and all the other meaningless crapola to cover the fact that they are incapable of delivering good governance.
Time to get back to basics. The current lot cant even deliver on these. The infrastructure is a shambles. Traffic conjestion is out of wack for a small city of this size
Yet I see no plans to improve the situation with a time line and fully costed. the RC was a waste of time A governnace structure is only as good as the people who work within it.
You can have the best governance structure in the world but if you have Dismal Desmond as the Mayor and a Council of Idiots it will still produce a bad result.
What the RC should have been concertrating on was how to get the BEST people to govern. People with the skills and knowledge both ‘hard and soft” to make good judgement.
What we have is just a pile of window dressing to apease the peasants.
Vote:April 9th, 2009 at 2:39 pm
There should be no connection between boundaries for representation and the boundaries for the management of infrastucture such as roads and power and water and in most countries there isn’t.
We have always presumed that the economies of scale for engineering apply to democracy. They don’t.
Vote:The problem we have had is that the RMA gave power to councils with there small territory to grant consents to infrastructure passing through.
The proposed reforms should rectify that and the proposals in the Royal commission report should confirm that.
But metropolitan Paris has 1300 councils. And its infrastructure is fine.
The San Franscisco Bay area has 101 cities and San Jose is the biggest.
The LGA is the killer with its power of general incompetence.
Have lots of small councils with highly presribed tasks which focus on local issues and then have a road czar and a power czar and water czar or whatever.
The Royal Commission was constructed so as to deliver Sandra Lee’s dream and it did. Fancy having Rod Oram write a report about what Auckland will be like in 2060!
What makes him qualified to do that – especially given that no one is qualified to do that.
April 9th, 2009 at 2:50 pm
Owen – is it true that Oram wrote a report on what Auckland would be like in 2060?
Vote:If so, this is hilarious. I wonder if anyone wrote reports in 1909 about what cities might look like in 1960?
What would the reports on London, Berlin, Moscow, Tokyo and Hiroshima have read like?
April 9th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
Were there Jet packs and flying bubble cars – sorry couldn’t resist
Vote:April 9th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
>>Meanwhile Wellington has got Paremata to Pukerua Bay (6 km), 5 km of bypass for Upper Hutt, a few hundred meters of extension in central Wellington, and a handful of new interchanges on existing motorway. Pathetic.
Why don’t you compare apples with apples? – ie Wellington with Christchurch which has got precisely nothing in the last 24 years (apart from maybe the Burwood expressway if that counts)
Vote:April 9th, 2009 at 3:48 pm
IMHO the waterfront stadium mock up looked hideous and it would have uglified (blame CS Lewis for that word) the harbour.
It seems reasonable to assume that, if Auckland had had a single council at the time, it would have been afflicted with a waterfront stadium that was akin to a 6 inch abscess on a person’s face. An abscess on the face and a jackboot up the jacksie: it couldn’t get much worse than that.
(see the link in my 12:32 comment if you’re wondering why I’m talking about jackboots)
Vote:April 9th, 2009 at 4:37 pm
“DPF: What is their position on Maori wards? I do agree on at large. The local boards are not having powers removed they will have more powers than existing community boards but it would be impossible to have 20 – 30 service delivery councils so if Labour wants that, I disagree.”
Labour seem somewhat agnostic on the Maori wards idea, although clearly yesterday they (particularly Shane Jones) were having a go at the Maori Party over the issue. But that came more from the perspective of pointing how the Maori Party were being screwed rather than having a clear opinion on the matter. I think Labour’s biggest point was that National had promised further consultation but were now renegging on that promise.
Regarding ward v at large, I think we all agree that ward councillors would be more fair.
Regarding the power of local boards, I guess the devil will be in the detail. Labour seemed to be of the opinion that the new local boards would be even less powerful than existing community boards, although I do not know if that is true. I like the idea of “community councils” who can propose targeted rates to be applied in their area for specific projects – and those targeted rates should not be able to be rejected by the Auckland Council. After all, it will be the local board members who have to face their voters as to whether the project was worth it or not. That would give them power and voice, without disrupting purpose of integrated regional governance.
I’m just glad we will have one District Plan and one transport agency. We might actually get somewhere with creating a half-decent city now.
[DPF: The Auckland Council has to have the power of veto over targeted rates and projects, because they will be the ones that have to cost them, and manage them. I doubt they will use it often, but if a board says a swimming poll will only cost $200,000 and propsoes a $200k extra rate and the Council says it will cost $1m, you need a way to resolve that.]
Vote:April 9th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
There is so far only one case of a group of districts writing a One Plan. That was the three districts of the Wairarapa.
Vote:Naturally it was going to promote efficiency etc.
The end result was a One Plan that was thicker than the three previous plans stacked one of top of the other.
And it cost over a million to produce – council costs alone.
So you would need a rule that said “the one plan must be no thicker than the thinnest of the existing eight.”
April 9th, 2009 at 5:55 pm
I wouldn’t measure the effectiveness of a District Plan by how thick or thin it is Owen. That’s incredibly over-simplistic.
I would agree that most council plans are overly lengthy and complex though. Auckland City’s is a damn mess, same with Manukau City and to a lesser extent North Shore City. Waitakere’s is just WEIRD until you get used to it, and is difficult to make easy sense out of (for example, try to write a brief description of each of their different business zones and then tear your hair out in frustration).
Vote:April 9th, 2009 at 6:00 pm
Anonymouse at 10.55 was nearer the truth than Hooton, whose view strike me as an echo of that Lefty National epoch of Muldoonism and Bolgerism.
Auckland will soon outbalance the rest of NZ. If New York had as high a proportion of the United States population as Auckland does of the NZ population, the New York metropolis would have more than 100 million people.
Sadly Auckland still contributes little to exports, though it adds to currency-earning tourism. It consumes the lion’s share of our imports. Look at the port – scores of thousands of containers in compared with a trickle out.
The population is increasingly distinct in culture and ethnicity from the rest of the country. So we have this large section of population increasingly disconnected from what will soon be the half of the New Zealand that produces the international economic wherewithal for the country to live.
Politically the “super city” will increasingly dominate national politics, too.
However, the economic problem is the bigger worry. Unless we find a way of making Auckland a strong export orginator South Islanders, and perhaps even North Islanders outside Auckland, would probably be better off as a state of Australia.
Vote:April 9th, 2009 at 6:47 pm
On the specific seats assigned to Maori, Goff said yesterday that he wasn’t sure.
Clearly this is an acknowledgement of the politics: significant numbers of Labour supporters would not like the idea.
Regarding the issue of Maori engagement in local government generally and in Auckland in particular, other than providing for specific seats in the Bay of Plenty Regional Council (methinks) and a mechanism for their introduction in the Local Electoral Act 2001, Labour did little over nine years.
National, Act, United Future and the Maori Party face a real challenge to put in place institutional arrangements to allow genuine engagement with Maori in the Auckland Region.
Ngati Whatua & Tainui should not be strangers in their own lands. The very life of Auckland is due in no small part to their generosity and forbearance.
On the proposed local Boards they could not possibly be less powerful that the current community boards. Again in the Local Government Act, Labour did very little to enhance the role of the Boards.
They say they believe in local democracy but they did nothing.
When Labour politicians attack boards as toothless, they attack the many committed citizens who serve on them often trying their best to stop Council wastage and officiousness and they attack an institutional arrangement that they themselves created.
John Key and Rodney Hide deserve huge credit for bring back church Hall democracy; an intimate ordinary citizen democratic involvement that was to be eliminated by Labour’s Royal Commission. It was so so Kafka. It was as if the entire problem with Auckland local government was the community boards. In this regard the report was breathtakingly inept and undemocratic.
Vote:April 9th, 2009 at 7:20 pm
Look I really agree with this. I lived in Auckland for over 20 years and have been in Wgtn for five.
Such integration would benefit both regions, quite frankly.
But I also agree that some similar experiments overseas have not been successful.
Why?
I don’t think it’s simply because they did it in the first place. Economy of scale always win through.
Those examples could not have failed simply because they did it, since many councils overseas have way bigger catchment populations than the proposed new city.
They had to have failed because they didn’t do it right.
Duh?
Those integration costs have been sharply underestimated, albeit by the RC so no political damage there, eh? Seven IT systems to be integrated. With all the duplicated and disparate processes of the largest councils in the land. Not just in te system but within the business itself. Merely to integrate automated business processes in those operations, to do it properly (as opposed to poorly, which is what usually happens – to save short-term money because its unpopular…) will probably cost more than a third to a half of the entire estimate provided by the RC. Let alone integrating those processes or stages that happen outside an IT system.
Golly. GL, Rodney.
Seriously, this is an interesting and critical task for this govt. One with huge potential for either magnificence or complete and utter failure. Only failure won’t bring down Rodney, it will bring down Key too.
The key to this is to take the best practices not just from the Lucky Seven but from every council in NZ, and use this unique opportunity to ditch everything that doesn’t make the best sense as compared to the best of the best, bar none. That doesn’t mean a shitload of money but it does mean being really smart and focused and disciplined, with respect to selecting every single person who gets onto this program.
If Rodney does this properly, he will cement his place (and thank goodness Roger, with those gray hairs, is right there with him.) Thanks to you both for taking this on. Extremely. Sincerely.
Vote:April 9th, 2009 at 7:23 pm
Crikey, one missed reverse accent within the carets and the whole post turns into an italicised nightmare.
DPF, when o’ when will you bring ole’ edit back
?????
Vote:April 9th, 2009 at 8:26 pm
Hooton must have one serious hard on, “Auckland has always been ripped off by the rest of New Zealand”. Hay Matt been to your flash big smoke and I sure know who is been ripped off. You damn fool do your sums, Auckland is about 30% of the county’s population and you are telling me, a farmer, that your sorry city is Gods gift to the tax collectors. For fucks sake man you need a lesson in animal husbandry, Auckland is a parasite that is tolerated by the host, don’t push your fucking luck.
Vote:April 9th, 2009 at 11:10 pm
Consolidation should assist achieving necessary infrastructure through lower influence of nimbyism, but cost control will depend on the ACC only doing only the ACC can do, without superflous activity which should be undertaken by the private sector (David Beckham, for example). The same applies to central government (train sets, for example). It would be great to see debate on the identification of what all levels of government should do and what they should not do; elections could then be about how far up or down the list one went, and the cost/benefit of that.
Vote:April 9th, 2009 at 11:11 pm
I missed the “what” in the second line, it will be noted
Vote:April 9th, 2009 at 11:34 pm
The good old rural vs urban monster rearing it’s head i can see, i take it none of you have seen the mass of dilapidated factory’s along the rail lines out the back of south Auckland? the potential to be a major export earner is there but the way things are now Auckland is just a black hole in the economy, new National policy will need to be adopted that uses that dormant potential.
If the other half of the country could work on ways to achieve this with us rather than bellowing “Farm is strong!!11″ we might get somewhere, the idea that Auckland is a “parasite” is a rather strange one, it is like chopping the legs of a runner and complaining he cant win a race.
Vote:April 10th, 2009 at 12:06 am
It is becoming quickly apparent that the RC and government are biting off more than they can chew. I have not seen ANY serious economic cost benefit analyses of the amalgamation and Rodney is admitting he has not got a clue what this will cost 1.4 mill Aucklanders. If a major corporation were proposing a spend up of this magnitude, I cannot imagine the bankers and shareholders accepting such a flimsy business plan. Perhaps we could get AIG to provide a credit default swap to cover the losses.
Vote:April 10th, 2009 at 4:59 am
The Waterfront stadium was white elephant waiting to happen.
Thankfully reason prevailed and Eden Park got the upgrade instead. Did you know that Eden Park is just down the road from where Helen Clark currently lives for the moment?
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