Defiant Hubbard repeats call to ditch ARC

Dick Hubbard

A defiant Auckland City Mayor Dick Hubbard last night repeated the call to abolish the Auckland Regional Council and set up a super council in its place immediately after being ticked off by his council for hatching a contentious one-city plan.

Mr Hubbard's role in the plan was variously labelled "dictatorial" and "undemocratic" by councillors at an extraordinary meeting to discuss the issue. Councillor Faye Storer said it amounted to "disembowelling democratic institutions".

The contentious plan to restructure Auckland was ditched on Friday - only a week after being mooted by the region's four big-city mayors. The plan would have created a Greater Auckland Council with a directly elected Lord Mayor and a council made up of city mayors, Government appointees and/or some elected representatives.

The four city councils and three district councils would be reduced to three or four "service delivery arms".

The Auckland Mayoral Forum jettisoned the "radical overhaul" - which Prime Minister Helen Clark welcomed 11 days ago - but agreed on a need to strengthen regional governance in time for next year's local body elections.

Mr Hubbard was in Japan on Friday and missed the forum meeting.

Last night, he voted for a motion that opposed the process by which the four mayors proposed a review of the future governance of Auckland. Asked afterwards how he could vote against a process he was part of, Mr Hubbard said the motion opposed the process - which was over - not the proposal.

He said he stuck by the proposal to abolish the ARC and set up a greater council in time for next year's local body elections.

"I still believe it should be starting again rather than having a morphed or revamped ARC. I accept there is debate to be had on the exact make-up of it. There are some suggestions it would be business-led. I believe we talked about two possible Government appointees and I reject the suggestion that makes it business-led.

"The Government made the point and I totally agree with it that the structure of the Greater Auckland Council has to pass what they call the democracy test," Mr Hubbard said.

The council also voted to hold a workshop to draw up a position on stronger regional governance to present to the Government for possible legislation before Christmas.

Several councillors spoke in favour of further amalgamation. Vern Walsh, Bill Christian, Doug Armstrong, Richard Northey and Richard Simpson supported major change towards a one-city model. Mr Armstrong said one good thing about the plan was it had opened the issue up for debate.

But Water Pressure Group spokeswoman Penny Bright told the council the plan was breathtaking in its total lack of democracy, lawful due process and chilling subservience to the interests of big business.

Western Bays Community Board chairman Graeme Easte has written a scathing report for tomorrow's board meeting calling the mayoral plan "undemocratic" and not worth discussing.

"Its greatest flaw is to put so much emphasis on leadership from above - presidential politics."