Matt McCarten: Brown's hope as Hide bulldozes public opinion

Len Brown is ahead of John Banks in Auckland's mayoralty race, according to polls. Photo / Greg Bowker

Friday's Herald-Digipoll showed Manukau mayor Len Brown beating Auckland's mayor John Banks 48 per cent to 37 per cent in a two-way race for the Supercity mayoralty.

That would have shocked the establishment - and a few of Brown's supporters as well.

Until this week I worried about Brown's mayoral campaign. For weeks, Banks has been successfully hogging the media and framing the campaign on his own terms. Whenever Brown got into the picture it was as an afterthought.

Banks' campaign is well funded and has a formidable team with heavy hitters: former National Party president Michelle Boag as his campaign chair; Bill Ralston as his media minder; and David Farrar as his pollster.

However letting chief head-kicker Aaron Bhatnagar off the leash as his campaign's official attack dog is counterproductive, I would have thought, given that Banks is trying to convince us he's morphed into good ol' mainstream Banksie, the champion of ordinary folk.

Banks' summary of his own polling earlier this week showing he was slightly ahead seemed a little suspicious since he didn't release the details.

In the past, Banks has made selective use of poll data to position himself as the front runner.

The Herald obviously got wise to that tactic and commissioned its own.

Banks' strategists are going to have a hard time getting media to believe their political spin from now on.

That will help Brown. From this week the mayoral chains of the new Supercity are Brown's to lose.

It was always going to be hard for Banks to live down his reputation and overcome other cities' fear of central Auckland's dominance in the new council.

But Banks' problem is not that. He will lose because of one man - Rodney Hide.

Hide, as minister in charge of the Supercity transition, has created a wave of resentment and Banks is the poster child for Hide's Supercity juggernaut strategy.

Brown, meanwhile, has positioned as himself as the careful sceptic.

Whether Banks likes it or not, he will take the rap for Hide's arrogance and high-handedness.

Hide's pre-empting of Supercity decisions, before the select committee process set up to consider citizens' input was even finished, was blatantly undemocratic.

His public pronouncement that he believed the new city's public assets should be privatised is one thing but to then set up unaccountable and unelected boards to control three-quarters of our new city's assets - and appoint individuals of like mind to run them - is outrageous.

This is the man who blackmailed the Government by threatening to resign if it even considered having councillors elected by voters on the Maori rolls to ensure a Maori perspective.

The hypocrisy of a politician, whose party has 3.5 per cent of the parliamentary vote, vetoing the consideration of Maori representation while appointing his mates to control our city infrastructure and assets is obviously lost on him.

Fortunately most Aucklanders have wised up.

The Herald-DigiPoll shows that most people think the new regime will be worse for us and don't support it.

That result is almost entirely because of the antics of Hide, aided and abetted by National's Steven Joyce and John Key himself.

The fallout will potentially affect all the Auckland local body candidates aligned to the National and Act parties and Brown will be the beneficiary of the citizens' unease.

If the centre-left strategists can position the right-wing tickets, such as the Citizens and Ratepayer, as enablers for Hide then those candidates will be toast.

On the strength of this week's poll, the centre-left has a chance of winning not only the mayoralty but a majority on the new council. If it does, this will be defeat for the right-wing elites in Auckland.

More importantly it raises Labour's election chances for 2011 from the dead.

With a third of the country under centre-left leadership, the current party political dynamics are turned on their heads.

The National Party and Key will have Hide to thank for it. With friends like Act, who needs enemies?