Brian Rudman: The big roosters who cocked up and became feather-dusters

Someone must have slipped some bromide into the water carafes at last Friday's mayoral forum because by meeting's end, it was as though the week of madness had never happened.

Instead of carrying out their threat to march regional council chairman Mike Lee out to a tumbril for a quick ride to the guillotine, the big four city fathers were all but genuflecting at his feet. Waitakere mayor Bob Harvey reflected the sudden reversal of fortunes when he reportedly quipped to his colleagues: "Last week we were roosters, today we're feather-dusters."

If roosters are responsible for cock-ups, then how right he was.

The First Roosters of Auckland, Manukau, Waitakere and North Shore had hatched in great secrecy a plan to replace the regional council, Mr Lee included, with a directly elected Lord Mayor and a Greater Auckland Council, made up of city mayors, Government appointees and/or some elected representatives. The cities would be reduced to three - maybe four - service delivery agencies.

Somehow they sold this pup to Helen Clark and top Beehive officials. But the moment details emerged, the opposition of the unconsulted - which was just about everyone else - was overwhelming.

By midweek, Heather Simpson, the Prime Minister's general factotum, was tapping on Mike Lee's door belatedly seeking his advice.

By Friday the tables were totally turned. Outcast Lee was not just back in the fold, he was top of the pecking order with three of the big four feather dusters busy singing from the song sheet of resolutions the ARC leader had submitted. (Luckily for Auckland mayor Dick Hubbard, he had a prior appointment in Japan.)

Instead of the mayors' earlier revolutionary programme of local government reform, which was never going to happen, they now agreed to an evolutionary model, voting "that the councils develop, in consultation with Government, a proposal to strengthen regional governance in Auckland prior to Christmas 2006 that can secure public support".

Key areas to be addressed included an examination of what functions should be delivered regionally and which ones locally, issues of funding, and "agreed shortcomings of current arrangements".

The proposals must "support the democratic purpose of local government" - a total flip-flop on the proposal of the week before to appoint councillors - and be "inclusive" and "enjoy public support".

It's hard to imagine this new model being put together within three months, but just maybe, with the mayors on their best behaviour trying to recover their dignity after their failed coup, they can pull it off.

As for popular input on the issue, the one positive you can take from the mayors' collective brainstorm is that it has got the rest of us talking dry constitutional issues. As North Shore mayor George Wood said to me after Friday's meeting, "If we hadn't done it, it [last Friday's resolutions] wouldn't have happened. The big thing now is, councils are going to have to get into action and get issues sorted out. If they don't, the time will come and go and they'll have lost the opportunity."

The silliness of the attempted mayoral putsch is underlined when you realise that their slogans in favour of rationalisation and those of the ARC are interchangeable. Both sides want stronger regional governance, and a rationalisation of control over issues such as stormwater, rates, civil defence, economic development, sports stadiums and administrative savings. The only area of difference that leaps out is the place of democracy in their respective brave new worlds.

Alarmingly, the mayors were happy to propose that one version of their all-powerful Greater Auckland Council be stacked full of non-elected people - mayors of the neutered cities and Government appointees. The ARC seized on this with its emphasis on "the need to protect local democracy" and a call for a regional forum for all councillors, community board members and mayors. This is the model the newly united mayoral forum now endorses.

So what happens now? Well that's up to our 264 elected mayors, councillors and community board members. Friday's timetable gives them less than three months to agree on and dispatch a reform programme for Government approval.

Even a born optimist like myself doesn't hold out much hope of that happening. Then again, if the Government were to dangle a $320 million stadium and a set of electric trains before our eyes as an incentive, who knows ...