Kiwiblog

I agree with a large amount of the NZ Herald editorial on the Royal Commission’s report:

The royal commission on Auckland has been as radical as its instigators could have hoped. Under its proposals all existing councils and community boards would be abolished. In their place a single Auckland Council, so named, would be the sole rate-collecting body and repository of all local government power in the region.

And that is a big step forward. One level of rates. One district plan. One set of resourcing consents. One set of bylaws. One Council to decide things (and in the darkness bind them

Crucially, it would be led by a directly elected mayor. The commission has not listened to arguments that only celebrity dilettantes would be likely to win such a race. It suggests the mayor be invested with a degree of executive power, to appoint a deputy and council committee chairs, establish an administrative office, propose an annual budget and initiate policy for the council’s assent.

That sort of role ought to attract the sort of leader Auckland sorely needs, inspirational and, in the commission’s words, “inclusive in approach and decisive in action”.

Again the proposed powers for the Mayor look very good. The Mayor can not rule by fiat, but the Mayor will have significant authority. What this means is that the Mayor can stand on a platform, and be held accountable for what they achieve or do not achieve.

The person would doubtless lead a ticket of candidates for the 23-seat council, 10 seats elected by the whole region, 10 from wards, two from the Maori electoral roll and one appointed by the tribe with mana whenua status. That composition, though, does not look like a recipe for unity, particularly if there is pressure to use proportional representation for the seats elected across the region.

As I said yesterday I am not a fan of the Maori electoral roll, and mana whenua seats. I do like having the at large seats so not everyone is an area rep.  Personally I would divide the four urban wards into smaller wards so each ward has only one Councillor from it. Incidentially the elections will be FPP.

Today’s four cities of Manukau, North Shore, Auckland and Waitakere, and the districts of Rodney and a redrawn Franklin would be wards of the council. Each city would fill two seats and the districts one each. The six would also keep their own elected Local Councils, so called, but they would be comparable to today’s community boards.

On page 322 of the Commission’s report (yes I am reading all 800 pages) they look at an alternative to six local Councils – namely a 20 Council model and 11 Council model. They say the 20 model Council would cost too much and 20 local Councils would be too hard for the Auckland Council to support and manage. But their 11 Council model is well worth considering as an alternative to their six Council model. With 11 local Councils (and I would call them Community Boards) you would have:

1. Hibiscus-Albany
2. North Harbour
3. Waitakere
4. Auckland West
5. Auckland North
6. Auckland East
7. Howick-Pakuranga
8. Manurewa-Papkura
9. Manukau Central
10. North Rural
11. South Rural

This gets away from the new Councils being seen as similiar the existing Councils, and brings them closer to the community. Each local Council would have population ranging from 54,000 to 198,000. Under the six Council model they range up to 397,000.

They would be subservient to the Auckland Council, financed by it to oversee the delivery of its services, with certain functions spelled out by Parliament and others delegated by the parent council. There would be no third tier of local representation. Today’s suburban community boards would disappear.

The royal commission was asked to satisfy two divergent aims: to give Auckland unity and to keep decision-making reasonably close to the people concerned. If it has erred, it is in the direction of unity. Its prospectus for the Auckland Council offers all the power and cohesion that is lacking in the present regional set-up. But some will question whether the existing cities and districts are as small as community representation need be.

I agree they are not. I think the 11 council proposal is superior to having just six Councils. And even the Royal Commission didn’t see much differences between six and 11. They did make a strong case against 20.

The commission pretends they would be more than community boards. “They will be a new type of body – a local representative body, which operates within a larger local authority and which provides services and acts as an advocate for the residents …” It is describing a community board.

To be fair, they will also have powers to hear resource consents etc.

Local councils will be further reduced in the public eye by their lack of a directly elected leader. Each will be chaired by someone elected by the council. The commission has rather neatly turned their submissions against “celebrity elections” on themselves.

I think it is more having just one directly elected leader for the Region.

But it is the powers of the proposed Auckland Council and its mayor that deserve most attention.

The commission proposes they go far beyond water mains, drains, land use and transport planning to encompass electricity supply, broadband, telecommunications, social and economic development.

The nervousness of central Government at some of the proposals can be imagined. Auckland is being offered a prescription for a level of self-government greater than any New Zealand city has known. It is a plan that assumes there are capable city leaders ready to step up to the platform the commission has designed. Some of those who instigated the exercise may have to stand for election to prove it has been worthwhile.

I think the ambitions of having the Auckland Council also take on a role for social well-being may be too ambitious – at least for now. I would be tempted to advocate that you don’t expand the aims of the Council for now, so they can initially concenrate on a smooth transition, and making sure current services get done well. And maybe five years or so down the track look at whether the Council is doing well enough to take on additional responsibilities.

The Herald rates the chances of potential contenders for the Mayoralty of Auckland (assuming the Government adopts the key recommendations):

They are:

1. John Banks – the front runner
2. Len Brown – good to very good
3. Mike Lee – good
4. Bob Harvey – average to good
5. Paul Holmes – average
6. Peter Leitch – poor to average
7. Andrew Williams – poor
8. Judith Tizard – poor
9. Blair Strang – dead on arrival

I have not read the full report yet. It will be interesting if the vote for the Mayor is FPP or STV.

The Royal Commission report is now online.

Comments shortly. Key details:

• ARC and the seven TLAs to be dissolved and replaced with one unitary authority called the Auckland Council.
• Some adjustment to the boundary with Waikato
• Six elected local Councils within the Auckland Council to oversee delivery of services and local engagement.
• Community Boards to be abolished except for the Great Barrier and Waiheke Island Community Boards which get wider delegated powers
• An elected Mayor of Auckland will have greater executive powers than currently available in NZ, but less than some overseas models.
• The Mayor will appoint the Deputy Mayor and Committee Chairs, propose a budget, initiate policy and have an appropriately staffed Mayoral Office.
• The Auckland Council approves policy
• Auckland Council to have 23 Councillors. 10 elected at large, eight from four urban wards, two from two rural wards, two from Maori electoral roll and one directly by mana whenua.
• Council should have a role to improve social well-being
• Estimated efficiency gains of $76 to $112 million a year.
• Integration costs of $120m to $240m over four years

There are some good parts to this. The one Council is a real step forward. Having control of all infrastructure and planning will make a difference.

I’m not convinced the six local Councils under the one Council will be of great value. I’m not sure you need elected reps on them to oversee delivery of services. I do think local engagement is vital, but thought that would be better done at community board level. There is a risk too, the local Councils may just become internal lobby groups. But on the plus side, the overall Auckland Council will hold the power and can make decisions.

Good to see Waiheke and Great Barrier recognised as unique communities needing their own community boards, and that they are to get more powers.

The Mayoral powers look good. A good Mayor should be able to achieve and lot and be held accountable for what happens.

I do have a problem with having three of the 23 seats race based. There certainly is a need for there to be significant consultation with tangata whenua, but I have never though having elected seats restricted to those of Maori descent is the best way to achieve that. This will probably be a highly challenging area for the Government.  Incidentally on that front, people may want to note my updated disclosure statement.

Also I thought giving Councils the power of general competence was a step too far, To also make the Council to have to focus on social well-being risks it taking the ball off core services.

Overall the report would be a significant improvement on the status quo, and the Commissioners should be thanked for their work. What lies ahead is for the Government and Parliament to make decisions. There isn’t much time to get it all done by October 2010!

I like many were wondering what the likely cancelling of the regional fuel tax would mean for projects like the electrification of Auckland’s suburban rail network.

Transport Minister Steven Joyce has not been idle. The regional petrol tax funding method was set up when Toll was in private hands. He is now proposing that rather than have central Govt hand over petrol tax money to the Regional Council for them to buy the trains, they do it directly through KiwiRail.

This means Auckland gets electric trains, yet no hike in petrol tax. It means the cost is funded by taxpayers rather than motorists.

As I said at the weekend, I think public transport should not be funded from petrol tax – but directly by the Crown as a competing public good. So this looks good to me.

In theory the left should love this, as it is increasing the fiscal stimulus they care so much about.

Matt McCarten writes:

Unless the left gets itself together, it’s pretty evident the National-Act aligned Citizens and Ratepayers Now (C&RN) party will take control of Auckland’s new super city next year.

That would be excellent. Lower rates.

C&RN strategists have been plotting the takeover of regional governance for years and are well advanced in their planning for October’s local body elections. The super city idea has been around for a long time, but local parochialism and fears in Wellington of a powerful Auckland state-let kept it off the agenda.

The scale of our region’s problems has finally forced everyone to accept it’s the only logical solution.

Good that Matt supports one Auckland. Almost everyone south of the North Shore does it seems.

When the previous government set up a three-person committee to produce a proposal, I assumed they’d come back with mere tinkering of our regional structures. But it seems they plan to go the whole hog and merge the region into a single super city.

Great – a Royal Commission that leads to real change.

Predictably, the centre-right is coalescing around Auckland City Mayor, John Banks, as their standard bearer. It seems the new mayoral role will be a powerful executive role with wide-sweeping authority. Insiders are already saying it will be the most powerful elected role in the country, next to the Prime Minister.

It’s clearly a prize worth having, and Banks will be hard to beat. He isn’t the Banks of old who was intolerant, bigoted and a right-wing street brawler. Since he won back his mayoralty in 2007 he’s a changed man. Even ardent detractors say Banks goes out of his way to be inclusive and non-sectarian. That’s because he knows that to win a majority of votes across the region he needs to appeal to unaligned voters as well as carve off a chunk of centre-left voters.

Indeed Banks 2.0 is a much harder target for the left to attack.

I’ve no doubt the real agenda by the pro-business lobby in Auckland is the privatisation of our public assets if they get control.

The old privatisation bogey. We don’t even have parties and policies yet, so Matt is ahead of himself. I would point out that the current climate isn’t exactly a good time to be selling companies.

I was dismayed when the best the Labour Party could come up with to stop this juggernaut was to run Judith Tizard for mayor and form a joint ticket with the Greens. They obviously didn’t look at the recent general election in which Tizard lost her safe seat and only one in three Aucklanders voted for that combo.

No, no ignore Matt. Tizard vs Banks would be a great competition.

A centre-left coalition would need to include the Labour, Green and Maori Parties and pull in NZ First as well as other leftist organisations, trade unions and social movement groups.

I assume there will be fewer than 20 super city council positions, so managing the egos of potential candidates will be challenging. But this is where we can take a leaf out of the American elections. If, as expected, the new councillors will be elected from parliamentary boundaries, then we could run a series of “primary” candidate selections. All members and supporters of the coalition groups should attend pre-selection meetings to vote on a candidate. The winner of this primary would be officially endorsed by all these groups for the contest against the C&RN candidate.

A region-wide primary contest to select a single candidate to run against John Banks would bring a lot of strong nominees and drum up publicity to enthuse and invigorate voters before the October election. You only have to look at the US Democratic Party primary process to see how successful that was in mobilising support for the eventual winner, Barack Obama.

The centre-left cannot allow itself to be marginalised and hand over governance to C&R Now. They can only avoid this if they form a unity ticket now. Tick tock. Time’s awasting.

That’s quite a smart suggestion.

A good editorial from the Herald on local government in Auckland:

The commission is known to be developing a proposal that would see not just a single council for the whole city but a concentration of power in a single office, its mayor.

An “executive mayor” would run the city with the help of appointed officers. The council, it seems, would be a sounding board, or perhaps a budgeting, rating and policy-setting body to which the executive presumably would be answerable.

Some people may say this is taking power away from the Council but it is really taking it away from the bureaucracry. Executive decisionmaking lies with the CEOs at the moment, and this was one of the biggest areas of complaints to the Royal Commission. An executive Mayor actually increases accountability to the public, as they will be elected or sacked by the public.

An executive mayoralty sounds like a strong and effective force for unity and direction. It may allow the elected person to appoint a team of public officials and thus bring into the city’s service able and forceful people who would not otherwise be available.

Indeed – London has been able to attract some top talent.

Obviously, the leader of such a team would have to be democratically mandated and answerable through direct election by the whole city. This puts an end to the argument that the mayor should be chosen by the council as the chair of the Auckland Regional Council has been. The lack of a direct election for the chair is probably the main reason the ARC has never acquired the mana and confidence to unite its constituent cities and lead Greater Auckland strongly.

Absolutely – the position must be elected by all Aucklanders.

The royal commission’s plans for existing councils remain to be seen. North Shore, Manukau and Waitakere cities have argued for their own survival, with acquisitions from outlying districts, but it is unlikely the commission will accommodate them. It seems more likely to preserve local government in units approximating parliamentary electorates.

More powerful community councils is the answer, and yes you would expect around the same number of community councils as you have MPs – a bit over 20.

The commission is also said to be giving a united city some sort of role in social welfare advocacy or services. It is hard to see a reason for that. Social welfare is properly national policy, financed from taxes not the property rates that mainly sustain regional and local government.

You won’t keep rates down if you keep expanding the role of local government.

The Herald has an exclusive, that is great great news if true:

The whole Auckland region will be governed by a new super city council from next year.

It will be headed by a single mayor with executive powers to make independent decisions.

This is excellent, not just the removing of the huge number of individual local authorities, but the fact they have gone with an Executive Mayor. This will actually increase accountability to ratepayers because they will be able to elect and sack a Mayor who can make things happen – not just one vote amongst 20.

It is a bit like parliamentary politics – we have an executive Prime Minister who can govern, and we affectively have a referenedum on whether to keep or sack that PM.

The super city will stretch 140km from Pukekohe in the south to Wellsford in the north.

With 1.4 million people, it will be the largest city under one council in Australasia.

And may provide an incentive for the nine greater Wellington councils to do the same.

It is not known what the commission has in mind for the region’s four city councils, three district councils, one regional council and community boards.

One option is to abolish the existing councils for smaller “community councils” with elected leaders.

There does need to be a tier between the ratepayers and the overall Council and to my mind that should be small community boards – but with enhanced powers of decision making over local issues.

In another bold move, the commission will almost certainly recommend the mayor and new council become more involved in the social needs of the region, such as affordable housing.

I’m not quite so enthused on this aspect. I think Council can play a key role through zoning, land use, consenting etc in helping affordable housing. However I don’t think this should mean Council has to provide such housing.

But overall, if the Herald is correct, the Commissioners are steering in very much the right direction.

The Herald reports:

There is a strong case in Auckland for the political model that produced Boris Johnson, and before that Ken Livingstone, as Mayor of London, says a leading expert on local governance.

And to be effective, a directly elected Auckland mayor should have executive powers, possibly a four-year term and be supported by a cabinet, said Robin Hambleton, professor of city leadership at the University of West of England in Bristol.

I am quite attracted to this proposal. It does work well in London, and it allows the public to elect someone with the powers to make change or implement a manifesto, and likewise gives the public the power to sack someone and change course. The Mayor is held accountable by the Assembly

The full paper by Professor Hambleton is here. It’s an interesting read and only 38 pages.

This is one of the reasons why I have concerns over the Maori seats – the precedent it creates for other races to demand race based seats. We see this with the Waitakere Pacific Board calling for Pacific Island seats to be created on all Auckland Councils.

I see the strength of NZ is that we have so many races, and have lots of inter-race marriages so more and more Kiwis have some Maori blood, some PI blood, some Chinese blood etc etc. The US is a great example of how diverse racial backgrounds can create a strong country with an African American candidate for President, an Indian American Governor, Asian American Cabinet Ministers etc etc.

But they never have special seats for Americans of one particular race or bloodline. That is divisive.

I reject this statement especially:

Board chairman Taha Fasi said Islanders were lucky enough to have more than half of voters in Manukau City wards like Otara and Mangere, but the present system would never enable them to be voted become councillors in Waitakere.

“It does not matter how good our policies would be … at the end of the day the majority of voters are mainstream Pakeha and race is always an unseen and unsaid deciding factor,” Mr Fasi said.

This is a shameful view of fellow New Zealanders. The good folks of Wairarapa elected a Maori transsexual as their MP because they thought she was the best candidate. Gisborne and Dunedin have had Asian Mayors. Maori are actually over-represented in Parliament compared to their proportion of the adult population. Auckland City has a Pacific Island Councillor etc etc.

This shameful view seems to be shared by some in Labour:

The Pacific sector council of the Labour Party said Maori, Pacific and Asian communities ought to be represented at all levels of local decision-making through a mix of elected and appointed members.

But why stop there. Should South Africans get their own seats once they make up 1% of the population? And let us not lump all Asians in together. Chinese and Indians should have their own seperate seats. And hell the Scots hate being lumped in with the filthy English, so seperate electoral rolls for them also.

Matt McCarten proposes just one layer of local government for Auckland (which I agree with), but wants it to have 250 Councillors – one Councillor for every 1,500 households.

I am sure I can imagine a worse proposal, but not offhand!

A month or so ago, Metro Magazine got five (unnamed) press gallery members to rank the Auckland MPs. They now have a blog, so the article is now online.

Now I actually disagree with a fair few of their rankings (esp their love affair with the minor party MPs), but for those interested, here are their rankings:

1. Helen Clark 8.5
2. Phil Goff 8.2
3. Sue Bradford 8.0
4. John Key 7.8
5. David Cunliffe 7.0
6. Hone Harawira 6.8
7. Pita Sharples 6.8
8. Keith Locke 6.4
9. Chris Carter 6.0
10. Murray McCully 5.8
11. Maryan Street 5.8
12. Judith Collins 5.6
13. Jackie Blue 5.2
14. Nanaia Mahuta 5.2
15. Jonathan Coleman 5.0
16. Paula Bennett 4.6
17. Tau Henare 4.6
18. Mark Gosche 4.2
19. Paul Hutchison 4.2
20. Ross Robertson 4.2
21. Lockwood Smith 4.0
22. Pansy Wong 4.0
23. Wayne Mapp 3.8
24. Maurice Williamson 3.8
25. Rodney Hide 3.6
26. Clem Simich 3.6
27. George Hawkins 3.2
28. Lynne Pillay 3.0
29. Richard Worth 3.0
30. Darien Fenton 2.6
31. Ann Hartley 2.4
32. Allan Peachey 2.3
33. Dave Heroera 1.7
34. Ashraf Choudary 1.3
35. Judith Tizard 1.0
36. Taito Philip Field 0.6

The means and median scores are:

• Labour, 4.1 mean, 3.7 median
• National 4.5 mean, 4.2 median
• Third Parties 6.3 mean, 6.8 median

As I said, I don’t agree with a fair number of the ratings.  Rodney Hide below Ross Robertson is just insane, for example.

Saturday’s Herald had two articles on the issue of arts funding for Auckland vs Wellington. I have some comments on comments in the articles:

The Auckland War Memorial Museum, he says, receives virtually no operational funding, while its capital counterpart, Te Papa, scores millions a year from the Government.

Aucklanders are asked to pay to visit their museum; Te Papa is free.

First of all, both have the same charging policy – free admission but donations encouraged.

Secondly one needs to ask how come Te Papa gets two to three times as many visitors as the Auckland War Memorial Museum, despite a population base one quarter of Auckland’s.

Wellington gets many of the national cultural facilities because we support them so strongly.  Now to be fair to Aucklanders, they are not all cultural philistines. The spread out nature of Auckland means that any facility is harder to get to for most residents than a facility in Wellington. Wellington CBD is just so trivially easy to get into, that it is easier to use the local facilities.

Auckland’s Philharmonia Orchestra often finds itself playing second fiddle to the Wellington-based New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, says APO board chairwoman Rosanne Meo. APO figures show it earns $2.56 million a year in government funding – barely a fifth of the NZSO’s $12.34 million.

The NZSO visits Auckland about six times yearly, playing about 12 concerts. The APO plays about 40 mainstage concerts a year in Auckland, she says.

Now reading this you might think those greedy Wellingtonians get to have the taxpayer pay for around 40 concerts a year in Wellington.  But as the NZSO tells us:

All its main symphonic programmes are presented in Auckland and Wellington, and as well as this, the orchestra visits some 30 New Zealand towns and cities annually.

Wellington get 12 main concerts – just the same as in Auckland. And 30 towns and cities get to hear the NZSO. Hence that is why it gets national funding. It is not a Wellington orchestra.

Auckland City Council arts, culture and recreation chairman Greg Moyle said Auckland is “desperately short of theatres. It seems only fair that some funding should come out of the central pot to help fund these sorts of infrastructure facilities that we would expect to find in a world-class city like Auckland.”

I would have thought that was something for Aucklanders to fund. As far as I know Bats Theatre, Circa Theatre, St James Downstage etc are all funded by sponsors, local Councils and lottery money.

Auckland City Mayor John Banks said there was “much inequity” between Wellington and Auckland.

It was unfair that Auckland City ratepayers alone funded Auckland’s art culture and the Regional Amenities Bill would hopefully fix that.

I agree that it has been unfair Auckland City rather than Auckland Region has had to fund many regional amenities.

As I said above, the geographic nature of Wellington means cultural amenities get far more visitors.  Stick Te Papa in Auckland and I predict it would get less visitors than in Wellington, despite four times as large a population and most international visitors.

Very amusing lunch on Sunday with Insolent Prick in Auckland.

As we head into the cafe, the waitress greets IP by name, and gives him a kiss.  Then over the next five minutes every single waitress comes over also greeting him warmly with a kiss.

I’m sitting there wondering whether this is just his usual haunt, or does this happen at every cafe in Auckland?