John Robertson: Stick to the original plan

The actions of the four mayors over the past two weeks have done nothing to advance the cause of a stronger Auckland.

The way in which the four have devised plans behind closed doors and then announced them - with no consultation with their fellow district council mayors nor the chairman of the Auckland Regional Council (ARC) - reflects poorly on all of us as civic leaders.

Proposals to reform Auckland's regional governance structures deserve informed debate supported by robust analysis, sound reasoning, and proper consultation. The documents that the four mayors have put out meet none of these tests.

The so-called "One Auckland Plan" changed from a plan for one city at the start of this month, to three cities last Wednesday, and then to last Friday's proposal of four cities. This illustrates the muddled thinking around it.

The last major regional governance reform took place just two years ago, in July 2004. A billion dollars of the region's assets were transferred from Infrastructure Auckland to the ARC. The ARC was given widespread responsibilities in terms of transport.

Mayors Curtis, Harvey and Wood promoted these initiatives. Now, just two years later, with the Auckland mayor Dick Hubbard, they seek to undo them.

Governance restructuring of Auckland's public sector of the type proposed is complex and imposes extra-ordinary costs.

Ratepayers will be sent the multi-million dollar legal and restructuring bills. The institutions around which the reform takes place will lose their focus and become inward-looking at great cost to the community.

Infrastructure projects will be delayed, then re-evaluated as they make the transition from one body to another, again costing the community.

It is for these reasons that I urge caution before looking to governance restructuring once again as the means to "fix" issues in Auckland. Auckland's elected leaders need to make their first priority implementing the 2004 reforms.

To consider, yet again, restructuring before the last reforms have taken hold is irresponsible. The elected members of the ARC need to display this leadership, for the ARC holds most of the cards.

Not only has this 2004 restructuring recently been put in place, but councils have just completed and had audited their first 10-year Council and Community plans, as required by the 2002 Local Government Act. Extensive consultation to develop these community plans cost the ratepayer a lot of money.

For the four mayors to suggest that we throw these plans to the wind and replace them with a grand yet-to-be-developed "One Auckland Plan" defies all sense. Such chopping and changing will move the region backwards, not forwards. The restructuring proposal would achieve little of substance.

First, it merely removes one institution - the ARC - and replaces it with another - the Greater Auckland Council (GAC). Second, it is a dangerous model in terms of accountability, with the power to rate given to non-elected representatives. Third, the tasks to be performed by the Greater Auckland Council seem no different to those performed by the regional council, except on the fringes where you seek to have ratepayers from the region fund events like the Auckland Festival and amenities like The Edge and the Bruce Mason Centre.

It seems extraordinary that the large and supposedly mature cities which built these events and facilities need now to call upon ratepayers from the outlying districts to fund them when they rarely, if ever, patronise them.

The papers supporting this change suggest that much of what is proposed is driven by "urgency" regarding the Rugby World Cup in 2011. With due respect, simple project management, not massive regional governance restructuring, is required by those who secured this event, central Government and the New Zealand Rugby Football Union.

Mr Hubbard's letter to the Prime Minister refers to the metro project and the need to make Auckland a world-class city. This is a laudable objective, but further governance reform will do little to achieve this end.

Central Government's economic and social policy is a key determinant of this. One cannot divorce Auckland's performance from the performance of the New Zealand economy.

The Mayoral Forum needs a shake-up. It needs to move on to deal with matters of substance and become a force that represents greater Auckland with integrity, representing its stakeholders from a position of strength and unity. It needs to listen to and work with the private sector. Most importantly, it needs to deal with central Government on a range of issues - from investment in roads and rail, to cleaning up the state-owned rail corridors, and safety, like sorting out crime in greater Auckland.

World-class cities have world-class leadership. The Mayoral Forum has the duty to provide this.

The proposals by the four city mayors may well have begun with good intent. Sadly the proposals were hatched behind closed doors by a select few and have gone off the rails.

They appear like a rearrangement of the deck chairs for four mayors and an asset and revenue grab to support projects that have questionable regional public benefit, rather than a serious attempt to improve public-sector performance.

It is important that as the current chairman of the Mayoral Forum, Mr Hubbard now picks up the pieces. I trust that he will see his way to do this at Friday's Mayoral Forum.

* John Robertson is Mayor of Papakura District.