KEY POINTS:
Auckland needs greatly improved regional and local government. To spell it out, it needs two levels of government for Auckland rather than the present three. Auckland City Council as we know it today must go.
The last thing the Royal Commission of Inquiry on Auckland Governance has to achieve is keep the plethora of existing mayors, councillors, chief executives and their respective bureaucracies happy.
The councils seldom agree on significant matters and what Auckland typically ends up with time and again are political and bureaucratic tugs-of-war and compromised outcomes. And self-preservation can be added to the mix.
The commission needs to hear from Aucklanders. Councils and business groups should not be the only people talking to the commission.
What would you want to say? What's important to you? For me, it's all about my local community and the region as a whole.
It's about doing great things locally, while also getting one council to do the high level regional things right. It's not too much to ask for, is it?
Our fours cities - North Shore, Waitakere, Auckland and Manukau - are an artificial overlay given to us by the 1989 local government amalgamation. Their work is often not well co-ordinated and in a short time they have become out of date. The relationship between the ARC and Auckland City is particularly unproductive, the problem occurring at both political and organisational levels.
The eunuchs of the 1989 amalgamation were community boards, and that was a mistake. Places like Whangaparaoa, Devonport, Mt Eden, Onehunga, Henderson, Titirangi, Howick, Manurewa are the villages of Auckland and are core to how people think of their place in the big city. Communities are where people take an interest and are prepared to put their effort in, and it is where local democracy starts.
The current review provides an opportunity to strengthen communities and give them more authority to achieve more locally. That will require larger local budgets, perhaps even the opportunity to introduce targeted rates set by the communities themselves for local projects.
Beefed up community wards will help strengthen community identity, community engagement, and most likely the turnout at the polls. Local government will become more relevant.
Each of 20-30 wards across the region would elect a councillor and four ward representatives who would form a ward committee, and each ward would have an office that focuses on local issues, projects and services.
This would be a solid foundation for good local governance reform.
Talking about one council for the region then becomes a lot easier. With local interests served well by ward committees and offices, it's a matter of considering how to best address the big regional issues for Auckland. They include long-range urban and regional planning, co-ordinated transport and land use planning and implementation, uniform and efficient delivery of services for water, wastewater, stormwater, power, and rubbish, as well as regionwide community infrastructure and services including libraries, parks and tourism.
The list goes on, but there is no logical argument that these services would be supplied by the current eight councils, or even three. Regional plans and services should, can and need to be co-ordinated by a single council, with representatives from right across the region.
Three councils would leave us with the same set of problems we have today. It would be an ugly compromise Auckland cannot afford the royal commission to make. With one council Auckland will be able to better co-ordinate its long range plans and delivery of the big ticket items, it will also be able to more productively co-ordinate its plans with central government departments like Transit and Housing New Zealand.
It being "hard to get Auckland to agree" has been successive Governments' excuse for inaction, slow action and failure to help Auckland respond to growth. With one council that cop-out by central government gets thrown out the door.
We don't need a lord mayor and we shouldn't want a titular head. Auckland needs a leader who has the genuine support and authority of the elected councillors to lead. We don't vote separately for a Prime Minister in this country, nor should we vote separately for a mayor. In Auckland the current best practice is up at the Auckland Regional Council, where the elected councillors vote for a chair. Call the chair the mayor for sure - it's a word that is generally synonymous with city leadership.
Some rural areas may change to adjoining districts. Whatever political structures are adopted should support the planned long-range urban form Auckland is to take. In my view, we need at some point to draw a green belt around Auckland and say "sprawl no more". The last thing any new Auckland would need is a rapidly growing area with disconnected growth plans on its boundary.
The two-tier ward-council solution delivers improved local representation and decision-making, and better regional planning. When it comes to regional implementation there are clearly large and specialised organisations involved, each with their own chief executives and boards - Watercare, Ports of Auckland, and Vector, for example. These assets should be owned by the council but controlled more strongly than in the past. The boards should be appointed by and answerable to council. Auckland District Health Board representatives should be appointed as well, and answerable to a Crown agency.
The appointment of separate boards has pluses and minuses. On the one hand you get some experienced hands, but on the other each new board is yet another body, causing potentially more fragmentation. In principle their numbers should be kept to a minimum and the core competencies within council developed. Council officers and politicians have sometimes promoted creating Council Controlled Organisations to move decision-making away from elected politicians, and that is poor democracy.
At a recent meeting at Auckland City one councillor tried to edge forward the idea that there might be a place on council for appointed representatives, "because there are industry leaders out there that would have something to contribute". Well yes, but if they want a vote around the table let them stand. I don't see a whole lot of appointed folk voting in Parliament.
But the most disappointing part of Auckland City's first cut last week was their blatant attack on the local community boards. That only a few councillors attempted to control the content of such an important submission points to a need for a culture change in that organisation.
Here's the point. There wouldn't be a royal commission if a major change was not required. Auckland needs a two-tier system of government, local and regional. But you won't find the councils axing themselves from the system. The royal commission needs to hear directly from Aucklanders.
* Written submissions will be accepted by the royal commission until 4pm on April 22, 2008 and can be made via the www.royal commission.govt.nz website.
* Greg McKeown is a former Auckland City councillor and former member of a local community board and the Auckland Regional Land Transport Committee.
