Matt McCarten: Hubbard's bold vision platform is being disputed by angry ratepayers

Poor old Dick Hubbard was getting done over by Aucklanders last week. I don't envy him. He's got traffic piled everywhere and, despite the soaring petrol prices, there seems no end to the car crisis.

Part of the reason is that the buses and trains are overcrowded and never on time.

Despite the millions collected by traffic wardens, the small ransoms we pay the parking building extortionists and the rest of our income going to oil barons and sheiks, we will never get out of our cars unless we are left without any choice.

We all went ballistic when Hubbard and his fellow mayors - with the notable exception of Bob Harvey - floated the idea that road tolls be introduced to raise some dosh to help pay for extra roads.

It was the roading mandarins and the Government who egged him on. But as soon as it became obvious that the masses were revolting, these players quietly slipped into the background and let Hubbard take the flak and the blame.

Hubbard wants to make Auckland a first-class town and, despite the electoral backlash, he seems to be sticking to his guns with his big, bold "visions". However, we realise that our rates will skyrocket to pay for it, so we all get very cool on his ideas. Local governments, of course, can't win.

The idea that ratepayers are expected to come up with the hundreds of millions of dollars to pay for transport infrastructure and sports arenas doesn't make sense. It seems unfair that the only place the mayor and the council can get serious money is from whacking up our rates.

I see that the New Zealand Herald has hyped-up stories about all these poor old dears who are supposedly being made homeless by Hubbard's rates rise. Funnily enough, they don't mention that the houses these people are living in are worth a cool million.

But when Hubbard spends tens of thousands of his own money trying to put the case why he has to raise more money, all we do is hound him. Everyone, it seems, tells him they want a fabulous city - but they want someone else to pay for it.

Welcome, Mr Mayor, to the world of politics and the ungrateful populace. I'm sure it's dawning on everyone by now that half-arsed measures and tinkering ain't going to fix problems that we have let fester for years, thinking it can be someone else's problem in the future.

Guess what? Time's up. Our civic leaders must break out into a cold sweat when the experts tell us that Auckland will add another half a million new residents within 14 years. Crikey, we can't cope with the million we have now.

I'm not sure who'll be living here given that Auckland homes are doubling in price every seven years.

If we think housing prices are outrageous now then wait a few more years. I was listening to an expert on the radio the other day who says that in Auckland about half the population is renting off the other half. In fact his view is - if you haven't got a home in Auckland now, you never will.

That makes sense. If an average Auckland home is about half a million, it would cost about $800 a week after tax to pay it off over 25 years. Hard to imagine a couple both working on the average wage having a hope of even buying a garage to live in. The only people who can afford it are the people who already own real estate and can leverage their mortgages.

It won't be long before we have a canyon between the haves and have-nots. The home-owning middle class is disappearing.

Even more worrying, a real estate agent told me that there is an increasing buy-up of Auckland properties by foreign investors looking for a safe and secure investment with a good return.

Hubbard ran successfully on a platform of a bold vision. Well, unless we get our transport systems fixed, bring our house prices down, cut our bureaucratic political fiefdoms and build decent services and attractions, we are going to be screwed more than ever. We'll never fix Auckland unless we take drastic measures.

In other countries, huge lotteries raise money for civic amenities.

I see Trevor Mallard and his rugby mates have come up with a grand idea to spend $320 million on Eden Park so they can watch a game of rugby in five years' time. Unsurprisingly, they haven't got the money but were hoping that Auckland ratepayers might pick up the tab. Get Mallard to run a raffle.

Next we need to stop the gridlock. That's easy: take the money we're spending on roads that simply take up more and more land and use it to subsidise public transport.

Houses would become significantly more affordable if a capital gains tax were reintroduced.

Naturally, everyone's own home would be exempt but, as for the others - why shouldn't they pay income tax when they make a cool half a million every time they sell a house?

Then, to cut a few costs, we could abolish the cities and merge them into a SuperCity. Not a new idea but its time has come. There are nearly 400 politicians in our region.

I think we could cut out two or three hundred and still cope - couldn't we?

Of course, many would say that it isn't so easy or simplistic.

But what I do know is that Auckland is going down the toilet and whatever our politicians - both nationally and locally - claim they are doing now, it ain't working.