A woman who takes life by the horns

By WARREN GAMBLE

After 18 months of relative obscurity, everyone suddenly wants a piece of Gwen Bull.

The formerly low-profile Auckland Regional Council chairwoman is the focus of irate ratepayers, unhappy mayors and a questioning media over the rate rises dropped with a resounding thud in letterboxes this week.

The Weekend Herald's interview on Thursday followed a walkabout with the Holmes show, including a visit to the North Shore call centre where ratepayers are venting their anger at bills up several hundred dollars for some.

Bull insists the feedback has not been all bad, and says that when she explains that the bulk of the increase will go to tackling Auckland's traffic congestion, she gets a reasonable hearing.

But she looks as if she has been in the wars. Poking out from the sleeve of her sensible suit, a blue plaster cast covers a wrist broken when she fell off a ladder while window-cleaning at her Clevedon home.

She says some people have suggested the injury came from clobbering Auckland mayor John Banks.

Until the end of the interview it is the closest the 65-year-old grandmother comes to hitting back at her most vocal critic.

Bull took the regional council leadership last February in what was widely seen as a surprise result of a split vote with three male rivals following the death of flamboyant leader Phil Warren.

Despite two terms on the council, including a stint as chair of the powerful strategic policy committee, she was largely unknown outside the rural South Auckland communities where she has spent most of her life.

Soon after she took the reins she told the Weekend Herald of her plans for the region: "My vision is to see everybody in this region getting along working for the best of the region ... "

Not quite world peace, but in Auckland's fractured political environment, almost as difficult to achieve.

A year-and-a-half later she is still emphasising the positive, despite the rough ride over the rates and fierce criticism of the council's inability to deliver on public transport, particularly a rail service to match the finery of the just-completed city council terminal at Britomart.

Even her critics acknowledge the switch to direct regional rating - previously the ARC rates were part of local body bills - and the flashpoint over rail have made Bull's tenure difficult.

Banks' verdict is typically forthright. "You won't meet a nicer woman, but she is out of her depth and drowning in a bureaucracy that gets worse by the day. The ARC is completely driven from the office of the chief executive [Jo Brosnahan] and there is no political leadership on any single issue and no political accountability on any decision taken.

"They will be feeling the bitter cold winds of reality with their completely over-the-top and outrageous rates increase."

Banks makes no secret about wanting the regional council out of public transport, saying its failure to get better trains has been abysmal. He says other local bodies agree the commercial side of public transport should be left to the Auckland Regional Transport Network Ltd, the company set up by local councils to run the rail network.

By law the ARC cannot own infrastructure, creating a complex situation where the regional body has refurbished rail carriages and handed them over to the transport network.

Bull denies she is anyone's puppet. She says Banks has his own super-city agenda, and she defends the rates rises as a hard but necessary step to help to solve Auckland's transport problems. The other component of the rise, the removal of the differential under which businesses paid more than householders, is seen by some as a hallmark of Bull's National Party background.

Bull says the system is simply fairer.

She shares Banks' frustration over rail progress, but says the regional council's ownership restrictions, and the tangled web of rail financing, infrastructure and operations, have slowed the council's ability to act. She also puts Banks' comments down to frustration over the longstanding lack of investment in Auckland infrastructure.

"Sadly in local government there's a process, and you have to follow the process, and it's not easy. It's frustrating that you can't go out and do these things, that you need more reports and investigations."

Bull says she does not want to get into a public fight with Banks, but says "it's time John started trying to work with us".

There are times, she admits, when she wishes for peace of the country that 12-hour days at the council leave little time for. Eight years ago she and husband Colin were headed for a quiet early retirement after selling the Clevedon farm which had been in his family for three generations. But local businessmen told her she should have a shot at local politics.

Bull had moved north to Clevedon as a teenager with her Hawkes Bay foster family after a traumatic childhood. Her mother died aged 29 from tetanus after being badly burned in a caravan fire. Bull was only 11.

"I remember her well because her and I [the oldest of four] were great mates," she has said. "It was difficult. You kind of almost shut these things out. You can't live in the past ... It's made me a better person, I guess, in the end. It's given me a better understanding of people."

Her father was unable to cope and the children were sent to an orphanage and then fostered out.

After marrying her husband at 19 - they met on a bus to Otahuhu College - she taught at primary, intermediate and secondary schools around South Auckland.

She has been a long-time National Party member, serving as an electorate secretary and chairwoman as well as a northern division councillor.

She and her husband also became accomplished ballroom dancers, once representing New Zealand at the Asia Pacific championships.

Bull initially laughed at the idea of local politics, but finally decided to stand for the regional council in 1995 after being approached by local businessmen. "I don't like to be sitting still." Lately there is no chance of that, no time for dancing either. "I don't have a private life."

She is proud of what the council has achieved so far.

"I don't like to say I'm proud of the council for a big rate increase, but I'm proud in that they have looked beyond what will get them re-elected."

Bull initially earmarked three terms as her lot, but says she will not decide until next year whether to stand again.

"I'm not looking to have Gwen Bull out there everywhere. I'm here for this organisation and this region. I'm passionate about it."

As we leave her office, she gets in a parting shot at Banks, who she says cannot take credit for many of the transport initiatives, like Britomart.

"What has he achieved in the last 18 months? He's made a lot of noise but what has he achieved?"

Waiting for her in the foyer is her next appointment, National Party leader Bill English. It's probably just coincidence, but who better to ask about weathering the slings and arrows of public opinion?