KEY POINTS:
Lord mayor is a working title for the person who might lead a united Auckland. It is time to ditch it, along with the working title for the united body, the Greater Auckland Council. Both are rather dusty British designations that sound a little ridiculous in a New Zealand setting. We do not have lords and we do not have places with greater or lesser pretensions.
If the Royal Commission of Inquiry on Auckland Governance recommends a single city council, it should be called Auckland, and if it is to be led by a separately elected person, he or she should be called the mayor. The fact that there is already a mayor and a city council for Auckland, whose jurisdiction covers only the isthmus, should not be a problem unless the existing mayors and councils were somehow to survive.
Even then, it is the isthmus that ought to be renamed, not the whole city known as Auckland. If the commission can devise a power structure that will give the city more decisive leadership, there will be no place for nebulous names such as "region" and "authority". The organism under study is a city, the governing bodies of cities are councils.
Language helps to clarify issues. If the subcity councils of Auckland had to use plain language, they might think twice about the case they are trying to make for their own survival as mayors and councils. The royal commission will be snowed under with submissions from Manukau, Waitakere and North Shore, each suggesting it is a city in its own right and needs to remain so. Even the isthmus council's draft submission contemplated the survival of existing mayoralties with an overlord of all.
The crucial question for the status and power of the city's highest office - indeed of the council that may be constituted for the whole city - is whether the mayor will be directly elected by citizens or chosen by elected council members. A direct election would attract greater popular interest. A race between individual contenders has more human appeal than a contest between tickets with obscure names. Even in parliamentary elections, where the rival parties are well known, attention is focused on the leaders.
This is precisely the reason that some oppose direct election for the city-wide mayoralty. The attention attracts celebrities and gives them an advantage in name-recognition over seasoned local body members. The recent turnover of the isthmus mayoralty, which attracts the most attention of Auckland local body elections, supports that view.
Since the tenure of Dame Cath Tizard, the office has been occupied by a succession of well-known newcomers to the council: Olympian Les Mills, popular MPs Christine Fletcher and John Banks, cereal self-publicist Dick Hubbard, and Mr Banks again. None has survived long enough to provide the sustained leadership a cohesive city needs.
But without a directly elected mayoralty, the election might not attract the interest a decisive body needs. The present Auckland Regional Council lacks a directly elected leader. Its chair is elected by its members and the contest is seldom riveting. It is notable, too, that the direct elections for the regional council seats attract no more interest than those for the average suburban council.
A council elected without much public interest is a council without a confident mandate. That may be one reason Auckland's Regional Council lacks the drive the city needs. Those who argue against a directly elected mayor of a supercity council are in danger of recreating the status quo - which is probably their intention. Auckland needs leadership elected by the whole city. It must start at the top.
