Banks generates buzz at commission briefing

John Banks (left) getting a word from chief of staff Nick Clelland-Stokes. Photo / Paul Estcourt

The Crowne Plaza hotel's ballroom is full of reporters but glaringly short on mayors.

Around 40-odd members of the media, along with a couple of veteran water lobby protesters who have gate-crashed, are waiting for Rodney Hide and the members of the Royal Commission on Auckland Governance to arrive for a press conference.

Hide and the commission are fashionably late, but suddenly it doesn't matter.

Auckland City mayor John Banks has slipped into a seat in the front row and is sitting quietly but with an air of repressed happiness.

When the media does spot him, he is instantly mobbed.

In the absence of any other mayors, a throng of media surrounds Banks, firing off questions about Auckland becoming a super city.

The region's other mayors, apart from North Shore City's Andrew Williams who is away, have been at their own briefing moments earlier. They have already taken off, perhaps emotionally flattened on hearing the royal commission was recommending their cities be rolled into one huge super city which would be headed by just one all-powerful mayor.

That leaves just Mr Banks and Auckland Regional Council chairman Mike Lee.

Once Rodney Hide and the royal commission members arrive,

the media start asking plenty of questions on the structure of the new council.

Eventually Mr Hide thanks the commission for their hard work and reads a prepared statement about how the desire is to make Auckland "the most exciting, vibrant metropolitan centre in Australasia."

And then it's over. John Banks slips unmolested out of the room after being nabbed by a television reporter. He repeats to her what appears to be his new mantra: "... We can look forward to one council, one voice, one district plan, one set of rules, one bureaucracy - and one mayor."

He still has to be elected, though, and he acknowledges there is plenty of competition and nothing is certain.

Others who have said they will throw their name in the ring are broadcaster Paul Holmes and former Shortland Street actor Blair Strang.

Oh, yes, there's going to be a lot of interest in the mayoralty, Banks tells the Herald with a bring-it-on gleam in his eye.