KEY POINTS:
With little in the way of empirical evidence to prove whether bigger is really better when it comes to good governance, the Royal Commissioners on Auckland Governance are going to need all the help they can get from the creative side of their brains. And hope for an occasional instinctive nudge from their guts as well.
When submissions closed last week, more than 3000 suggestions had thudded through the commissioners' front door. According to chairman Peter Salmon, obviously a speed-reader extraordinaire, a considerable majority of the people and organisations who submitted believed a regional body with greater powers than the existing Auckland Regional Council was desirable. Hardly surprising, given this was the reason for the clamour for change anyway.
The other theme that sang out was the importance of keeping the local in local government.
"People see that being done in quite a variety of ways," said the retired High Court judge, adding that he thought resolving that issue "will be our most difficult task".
With a stronger regional entity a no-brainer, the focus over the next several months will be on what powers should be devolved to, or left at, a local community level, and what form this local democracy should take.
Until now, if only to avoid the wholesale disruption that occurred during the revolutionary upheavals of 1989, I've leaned towards a model that hands a strong regional body the additional functions it needs to operate effectively, and leaves the existing cities to remain, as rather withered shadows of their present selves.
But having waded through some, but by no means all, the various proposals, the more adventurous ideas from organisations as diverse as Heart of the City and the ARC for a two-tiered model start to make more sense. Particularly as we're talking 100-year plans.
Both organisations, coming from very different mindsets, want a strong regional voice at the top and, below it, a spread of empowered community councils.
Heart of the City notes how the 1989 amalgamations weakened community voices, and it's hard to disagree. While the community board structure was an attempt to guarantee a local say for disparate communities when the old borough councils were wiped out, they were at the mercy of the new councils.
The big boys could decide what the underlings could discuss, how much they could spend and where they did it. With limited and often dwindling power and funds, the boards were quickly marginalised, becoming the home of enthusiasts and places of interest to very few of the rest of us.
The ARC model has a Greater Auckland Council as the single point of contact for central government, assuming many of the responsibilities of present territorial councils and the ARC, including water, waste management, arterial roads and district and regional plans.
But ensuring local democracy would be a layer of community councils, established by statute as integral parts of the GAC, with functions and status, "defined and protected in law". The statutory status prevents the present slave/master relationship, where community boards survive at the whim and good humour of their city council "betters".
The ARC proposes the new community councils would have specific local responsibilities defined in statute for such things as local roads, community facilities, parks and reserves and community development. The GAC could add to their powers, but not reduce them, or close them down.
Under this proposal, Devonport could rise again, as could Waiheke and Howick, while Papakura could survive, though all as rather pale ghosts of their glory days.
The more you think about it, retaining a central layer of cities within a model dominated by a strong regional council seems more than surplus to requirements. It's more a nostalgia trip for those in power - and justification for the headquarters palaces they've built themselves across the region.
Created in 1989 as mini-regional governments in their own right, the cities have proved unable to work amicably with each other, or with the Auckland-wide regional council.
Also, whatever the incumbents might say, many citizens have had difficulty bonding with each other. Most people in Howick or Mangere, for example, will admit that though both ratepayers of Manukau, they have little in common. Similarly, the people of Hobson and Avondale. Under the two-tiered proposal, they could revert to being people of Howick, Mangere, Hobson and Avondale, and as a bonus, citizens of Greater Auckland as well.
