Fran O'Sullivan: Vital questions outweigh mayoral rivalry

When Prime Minister Helen Clark and Auckland's mayoral heavyweights sit down tomorrow to talk turkey about the future of New Zealand's commercial hub, only four items should be on their agenda:

ITEM ONE

How to empower the right agency with the right amount of financial muscle and directive power to ensure the Metro Auckland Project - which is designed to create Auckland as a world-class city - can deliver against its emerging action plan.

If Clark and the mayors get immediately bogged down over whether it should be three mayors, or one, ultimately governing Auckland, there's a potential for a lot of valuable work to come adrift.

There have been reports galore over the past 10 years about Auckland's future, but precious little concerted action to underpin the talking.

Behind the scenes an enormous amount of work has gone into developing an action plan to arrest Auckland's continuing slide into regional backwater status.

Business leaders connected with this project lament the prospect that Auckland may morph into something akin to the world's greatest retirement village, with most of its main businesses and brightest executives headquartered in Sydney - or further afield - if urgent action is not taken to arrest the obvious trends.

The project's co-leaders are Michael Barnett - who also chairs the Auckland Regional Economic Forum, one of the main sponsors of the Metro Auckland Project - and Nick Main, who chairs Deloitte and is a member of the Committee for Auckland.

A report was commissioned from Greg Clark, an adviser to British Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott. A strategy to propel the local economy has since been developed and broad consensus built between business leaders, local government officials and community leaders on what is needed to spur Auckland forward.

This included the One Plan for Auckland, a single strategic planning framework for Metro Auckland rather than the multiplicity of reports published by the various agencies each year; an investment prospectus which might include local and regional taxation as well as commercial and institutional finance to develop major regional infrastructure; a major projects body, energy plans and so forth.

Since then a draft action plan has been circulated which includes prioritising investment decisions, securing Auckland's electricity supply within three years, implementing high-speed broadband, building a swift link between the city and airport, growing technology-driven exports by 20 per cent a year within five years and so forth.

The trouble is that AucklandPlus - the economic development agency within the Auckland Regional Council which has been co-ordinating the overall effort - doesn't have the necessary heft or power to execute the plan.

What Clark and her mayoral cohorts need to decide is whether AucklandPlus should be left within the ARC's structure to deliver against the Metro Project action plan. Or whether it should be pulled out of the ARC and be beefed up with a mixture of funding and the appropriate powers to be the major delivery agency for the region.

ITEM TWO

What sort of transitional arrangements should be put in place to come up with Auckland's future governance structure?

Among Greg Clark's recommendations was an enhanced leadership commission for Auckland which he proposed would aggregate existing leadership activity into one body to oversee long term development.

Clark and the four main mayors: Dick Hubbard (Auckland City), Bob Harvey (Waitakere), Sir Barry Curtis (Manukau) and George Wood (North Shore) don't need to waste too much time on this tomorrow.

But they do need to at least form such a commission and appoint some transitional players to develop new governance structures while they put their existing resources behind the implementation of the Metro Project plan.

They should try and get the new governance bodies in place in time for next year's local body elections.

ITEM THREE

Deliver on the Rugby World Cup promise or be an international laughing stock.

The 2011 Rugby World Cup is being promoted as the necessary catalyst for Auckland's economic renaissance.

Its estimated the Cup will provide a $250 million economic boost to Auckland. But some 10 months after Clark and the rugby union chiefs made their successful pitch to the international rugby bosses in Dublin, nothing of consequence has been achieved.

The New Zealand team's promise that Eden Park would be developed into a 60,000 seat venue to hold the WRC finals basically clinched the deal.

But it has since developed into a standoff over who should pay for the venue's expansion: the ratepayers of Auckland City in whose precincts the park resides, or, the rugby union and central government.

Tomorrow's meeting should focus on the establishment of a regional body to help to spread funding for the Eden Park development and ensure the event is leveraged to greater Auckland's economic advantage.

ITEM FOUR

Make the case so that the rest of New Zealand understands why Auckland's success is so pivotal to our overall economic future and introduce creative financing options.

Historically, Auckland has been seen as New Zealand's business hub. Just under 30 per cent of the population is here; 32 per cent of jobs; 34 per cent of GDP and 66 per cent of the top 200 companies.

But in export terms Auckland is an under-performer.

Population growth cushions the fact that Auckland's productivity performance is abysmal.

The infrastructure is creaking and the city now faces stiff competition from Australian eastern seaboard cities and Perth for top talent and businesses.

Neither central nor local government has the financial readies to fund Auckland's growth.

What's needed is an ideological switch to support some creative options such as an infrastructure corporation which can also include private-sector funds.

Those four agenda items are far more important to the future of Auckland and also New Zealand's business future than whether it is King Dick or Sir Barry who gets to be Auckland's first lord mayor.