Garry Law: Brisbane no cure-all for council troubles

A humorist once wrote a travel guide with an introductory note, "This one is different: it is by a man who has never been there in his life".

The puff for Brisbane as a model of local government for Auckland is singularly ill-timed. The state government has recently declared a state of emergency over water supply for southeast Queensland and imposed projects and a timetable on local government which seemed incapable of taking any concerted action on their looming water crisis.

A Brisbane City north-south bypass tunnel project, originally scheduled to cost $1 billion, has blown out again and the total cost is pushing $3 billion.

Anyone reading recent articles might think the Brisbane City Council ran all of southeast Queensland. Not so. Gold Coast, Logan, Ipswich, Pine Rivers, Redland, Redcliff and Caboolture are all significant urban local authorities. And they rarely get to agree about much for their region.

There are some "talk shops" which do some co-ordination but they have little power. The vast sprawl happening in that region is in great contrast to the urban fence that the Auckland Regional Council has put around its city.

Brisbane is touted as being much more efficient than Auckland's many local authorities. Sure it is larger than any in Auckland, but it is not efficient. When I worked there as a senior manager it was a vast and hugely bureaucratic organisation where huge staff committees pondered every decision.

It was overstaffed and under a Labor administration was never going to change quickly. It employs more than 6000 people. Its ratio of employees to residents is 70 per cent higher than Auckland City.

Much has been made of how few politicians it has compared to the many in greater Auckland. Yet that is not the whole story; there are many more people involved in governance on numerous advisory boards.

The cost of democracy, as it was called there, was emphatically a huge problem for the council. With politicians being paid a full-time salary, having a car and a staffed ward office, this is no wonder.

Beyond that, the committee chairs and Lord Mayor have many more support people in city hall operating to their behest. With marketing having a substantial degree of political control, its cost is not small.

It is asserted that Auckland needs better governance if it is to be a world class city. Well it is one already, and so is Brisbane. Brisbane got there by a combination of being the state capital and by being far more pre-eminent in size in Queensland than Auckland is in New Zealand.

Brisbane gets heaps of assistance from the infrastructure the state provides.

Brisbane has had a series of Lord Mayors with a broadly similar vision for the city.

Auckland's governance is a problem but Brisbane is not the perfect solution.

Its politics attracts the national parties. A super city in Auckland would be easily the most important political venue after Parliament. No difficulty predicting that the major parties would be impelled to treat it as such.

Do Brisbane's Lord Mayors have good relations with the State Government as a result of being able to speak for more people? Generally not and that is natural from the power rivalry. The same would certainly apply here.

The worst risk with a super city is that decision-making moves to party caucus rooms and meetings of the committee chairs held behind closed doors. This is how Brisbane runs the debates in public meetings about trivia or matters already decided by the majority party. For its faults, local government here is far more transparent than that.

Auckland also has a large degree of subsidiarity; local areas can set their own priorities, be it an art gallery upgrade in Auckland, the environment in Waitakere or beach water quality on the North Shore. This should not be abandoned carelessly.

By all means look at Auckland local body governance, there are ample opportunities, but please look beyond Brisbane as the model.

What can be done? Political leadership is needed. Former cabinet minister Michael Bassett showed a rare example of this in action but the normal mode is for Parliament to wait for Auckland to agree. That is the challenge to councils: put up your political champions and dedicate some time and money to finding a new model for Auckland. If it is the right one it may just fly.

* Garry Law is a past senior manager in the Auckland Regional Council and Brisbane City Council and an Auckland-based consultant to local government in both places.


Reader commments:

Two of us ... still 'going around'! Good to hear the other side of the Brisbane CC story. Seems to me an Auckland Super City would consolidate under its roof a lot of the fragmented planning left for the moment 'with region'. Yes we must suggest what is best for us here ... not leave it to the Wgton Poli's to decide. I am off shortly to NA and UK looking for 'more accountable loc guv' models' Today's Herald editorial appears to agree with my view that Council's need it ... 'accountability'. I also see signs of cost effectiveness concerns appearing after a very long absense ... vis today's Ch Ch City's proposed $400,000 savings from a rationalisation of its M/V fleet. We live in hope!
- - - posted 1.08pm Aug 24, 2006 by Larry Mitchell