KEY POINTS:
The Royal Commission of Inquiry into Auckland Governance is doing its utmost to interest citizens in the subject. A background paper aimed at Maori, for example, invites iwi to think about how they might deal with local bodies in different ways. Rather than dealing with seven city or district councils and a regional council, it suggests, iwi might find it better to deal with fewer. And if new bodies or forums were created, Maori might wish to have specific representation on them.
Those who instigated this exercise may have a sinking feeling. They campaigned with horrendous charts showing the confusion of councils, planning authorities, subsidiary bodies and service providers that have a hand in the running of Auckland. And they believed that the logic of a single, united structure would be overwhelming if the territorial instincts of the existing bodies could be overcome. The Government agreed and the royal commission was established.
The instigators came from the business world with a degree of political naivety. They may have imagined that most people would take an interest in a subject as arcane as administrative restructuring. It did not seem to occur to them that the few whose interest would be attracted are those for whom no amount of government can be too much and no system of interlocking accountability too complex.
For such people, the inquiry into Auckland's governance could be an unexpected opportunity to advance democracy in diverse and pluralistic ways. They are excited not by centralised power but by the expression of different group identities and the endless negotiation of their interests.
In its appeal to Maori the royal commission has suggested there may be benefits for iwi in dealing with fewer public bodies, and seeking dedicated seats on them. But that may not be the way Maori look at it. Iwi councils are more likely to press for parallel roles for themselves in public decisions. It is all too possible that the inquiry could result not in fewer local bodies but more.
In fact, it is almost inevitable that a commission which sets out to consult "the many interest groups of this region" will hear strenuous pleading for a place for each in the power structure. Introducing its first discussion paper, the commission described its purpose as being, in part, "to ensure we have a system that will take into account Auckland's growth and ethnic diversity".
It notes that Auckland is the most ethnically varied region of New Zealand with 18.9 per cent of the population Asian, 14.4 per cent from the Pacific and 11.1 per cent Maori. The last might not be the only group to feel the need of an institutional voice.
As if the commission did not have enough to do in dealing with the physical division of the region into four self-regarding cities, Auckland, North Shore, Waitakere and Manukau, and the subsidiary community boards that make government truly local.
Yet Auckland does need a more powerful co-ordinating body for making decisions that could improve the cohesion and development of the city as a whole. Hopefully the commission will hear from plenty of citizens whose main interest is not sectional pleading but in making "Greater Auckland" greater.
But it is asking a lot of people to focus on this goal in the absence of a clear proposal. Local government discussion usually starts with a published scheme. Instead, the commission's opening pitch threatens to send the whole exercise in the wrong direction. Diversity has its place but not at the level of leadership Auckland sorely needs.
