KEY POINTS:
Whenever any Aucklanders venture past Bombay Hills and are asked where they come from, they say they live in Auckland. If pushed, they mention their local suburb, right? Surely no one says they are from North Shore City, Waitakere City or Manukau City.
So why is the debate about the future of Auckland centred on city boundaries? We are being offered two options, one led by vested business interests and the other by vested interests of local politicians.
The option advanced by Auckland's business and right-wing elite is a gobble-up of the whole region into one undemocratic entity. This new pro-business city would be overseen by a cabal of super councillors (the fewer the better).
The city leader's so-called job title of this role is seriously proposed as "Lord Mayor of Auckland". I thought it was a joke when I first heard it. The job is essentially a kind of a local grand pooh-bah who opens flower shows and the like. To add to this pantomime, our local lord would be assisted by lesser area mayors from north, south and west. Presumably they would get smaller cars and less gold embroidery. Someone clearly has a wicked sense of humour.
While the collective mayoralty were kept busy kissing babies at local fairs, the senior city bureaucrats and their private corporate equivalents would get on with business of amassing more money and power.
A city board - oops, I mean council - made up of a small number of people can't pretend to broadly represent the people of Auckland.
The proposal is that they would be elected from parliamentary seat boundaries. With such large constituencies it would cost a candidate $20,000 just to send one election letter.
Therefore our super councillors would be professional politicians or public celebrities, white Anglo-Saxon, mostly older males and have ready access to money. And frankly, they would represent those interests.
Of course, we'll be fed all sorts of nonsense about how cost-effective all this will be. If we fall for this model, I suggest we give our new city a name that reflects what it really would be: Auckland City Incorporated.
But the other alternative gaining support from local politicians isn't much better. It's effectively the status quo, but instead of merging seven cities into one they are advocating that Manukau, Auckland and North Shore annex the other four cities and districts to create three new cities. Talk about political cannibalism. I'd hate to be in a lifeboat with these guys.
We do need a strong regional structure, but reducing city Mafia clans from seven to three won't fix anything. What is missing from both proposals is control by local communities. There is little democracy now and there will be even less under either of them.
There's nothing sacred about our current cities. They were created from Wellington out of frustration because Auckland politicians were unable to resolve governance issues.
What matters to Aucklanders are issues such as transport, environmental waste, power, water, hospital services and parks. Then there are local issues, including building consents, parking, noise control, dogs, footpaths, and so on.
We do need a regional governance structure, but not one run by a small elite. It has to represent all of Auckland's many constituencies.
In our current city wards, we elect up to 20 politicians from more than 100 candidates to at least five layers of local government. You won't even remember who you voted for. There are more than 250 local politicians in the Auckland region. We elect these people every three years then have no idea what they do after that.
I propose a third option: what about just one layer of local government? A regional parliamentary-type council made up of the current 250 politicians. And, before you sneer, I suggest that sometimes having more politicians is better. With a small number you enviably get "capture" by bureaucracy or vested interests.
If we put all of Auckland's governance and public services, including hospitals, under this structure we would get transparent and robust decision-making. The politicians would elect from among themselves sub-committees to oversee specific functions and there would be local community committees and anything else needed. Political tickets would form for elections and that would be a good thing - you would know what you were voting for.
I lean toward just one mayor being elected by the whole regional council. After all, we know how useless mayors are when they don't have majority support on their council. I suppose the chairs of each committee would form some sort of executive committee, every other representative would be on a stipend. My largesse doesn't include bankrolling salaries.
The key thing is that we could have one councillor for every 1500 households. It would cost nothing for decent local people to run for public office and it would strengthen local democracy and identity.
Wouldn't it be great to pick up the phone and talk to our local councillor to fix a problem rather than deal with the faceless empires currently offered?
