KEY POINTS:
This time last year I was looking forward to 2006 as the year Auckland finally came up with an "inspirational" plan for redeveloping the downtown waterfront.
Stupid, fate-tempting me.
The only person to take my suggestion to heart was Sports Minister Trevor Mallard, who eclipsed his earlier Blake memorial glass-coffin folly with a crystal sports palace-on-water of truly breathtaking inappropriateness.
The result: Instead of debating the inspirational, we ended the year down a blind alley, battling a nightmare.
Still, the fight to save the waterfront from a stadium had its positive side. First, it showed that the oft-maligned regional council could rise to the occasion in our hour of need, willing to risk the wrath of central Government in defence of Auckland's long-term interests. Second, with the spotlight so brightly focused on the waterfront, everyone could agree on one thing - how ill-used the proposed stadium site presently is.
The outcome: The port company and its owner, the Auckland Regional Council, got the clear message that Aucklanders are not prepared for Queens Wharf in particular to remain an underused park for second-hand car imports for much longer. Certainly not for the 10 to 15 years proposed in the present grand plan.
My hope for an independent redevelopment authority for all waterfront land considered surplus to port company needs has yet to come to fruition, though the ARC's decision to remove the tank farm area from port ownership and put it under the wing of its investment entity, Auckland Regional Holdings, was a move in the right direction.
What the stadium fiasco did highlight was yet another year of strained relations between central Government and Auckland. It's said a bit of tension in a relationship is healthy, but surely not seven years of on-again, off-again head butting?
When all those years ago Mt Albert MP Helen Clark became Prime Minister and appointed Auckland Central MP Judith Tizard - the daughter of her good mate and former Auckland mayor Dame Cath Tizard - as Minister for Auckland, I thought this city and its growing problems would at last get the proper attention a rural-favouring National Government had never given it.
And, in all sorts of ways, catch-up programmes in areas such as roading and public transport have begun to kick in. But it's done with such bad grace by the likes of Finance Minister Michael Cullen and his Treasury henchmen that it's as though we're still the humble supplicants, expected to tug our forelocks, down on dusty knees, each time a bauble is thrown our way.
It's as though they see the Auckland votes that guarantee them longevity in office as theirs by right.
The master-servant approach that Mr Mallard adopted in offering to part-pay for a new stadium was perhaps the worst example of this relationship model.
Can you imagine if one of our "bright ideas" men, say Waitakere Mayor Bob Harvey, had rushed to Wellington with the old have-I-got-a-proposal-for-you, and thrust it at the Government with no accompanying business plan and only the foggiest of details about costs and design.
He'd have been booted back home without so much as a courtesy round of gin and tonic.
But when Auckland reacted this way to Wellington's harebrained proposal, we're treated as nothing but a bunch of ingrates.
Yesterday, the Greater Wellington Regional Council proudly announced a short list of three preferred providers for the capital's new electric commuter train fleet. We can only look on enviously.
Despite what seem like 101 reports in support of Auckland's passenger train network going electric, they who know best in Wellington keep asking for yet another report. Maybe 2007 will be different.
Coming into the new year, the two big issues in this relationship will be the stadium - big or small, temporary or permanent and where - and local governance reform.
Both offer the Government the chance to treat Auckland as partner, rather than troublesome brat. The result might come as a surprise. After all, if you treat people as adults, they often act the part.
This is the last column until mid-January. Thanks for all the input over the year. I've tried to reply to everyone but haven't always succeeded. Enjoy the holidays.
