Rudman's city: Let Phil Warren's memorial be getting on with the show

By BRIAN RUDMAN

It'll be a bit of a wake on Sunday when Auckland's west highland white terriers meet the city's scottish terriers for their biennial get-together. The whites will be mourning the loss of their patron, Phil Warren, while the blacks will have just seen their patron, Grant Dalton, disappearing out of the harbour on the next leg of the Volvo Ocean Race.

Dog fancier was just one of the compartments of Phil Warren's life and I caught up with it only after his death on Wednesday. And although well aware of his glitzy early life in show business, my first encounters with him came when he entered the political arena as an Auckland City councillor in 1980.

Who would have thought that just over 20 years later we'd be farewelling this emigre from the city's darker side as Auckland's first true regional leader since Sir Dove-Myer Robinson?

Flicking through the files, it was fascinating to note that in 1973 entrepreneur Phil Warren offered to pay some of the costs of a planned fact-finding trip by Robbie to the United States to look at sewage treatment, garbage disposal and rapid transit systems.

This was after the Auckland Regional Authority, of which Robbie was a member, refused to contribute.

"It's disgusting," said Mr Warren. "Robbie is good value to the city wherever he goes."

It was a vintage cutting-through-the-crap gesture by someone who throughout his varied careers could be heard saying: "I can never understand why common sense doesn't prevail."

That was the philosophy which underpinned his leading role in the fight for the repeal of the archaic liquor licensing laws, which banned liquor sales in restaurants and clubs - and in bars after 6 pm.

Decades on, it was the philosophy that underpinned his battles for Auckland as regional council chairman since 1992. And what a successful battle cry it was.

Mr Warren's ambition had been to be mayor of Auckland. Defeated in that quest, he stood for the newly neutered regional council and in 1992 became its chairman. It might have been the city's loss, but not the region's.

It's hard to recollect how discredited the old regional authority had become at the time, in particular because of the headquarters temple which had cost $75 million to build, and left ratepayers facing mortgage repayments on it of $217 million.

Aucklanders were so exasperated with the politicians involved that when central Government removed most of its powers, we said, "Thank God."

Mr Warren inherited this discredited organisation and miraculously revived it in both status and role. Much of this success can be put down to his style, his charm and his stickability.

He was convinced that Auckland's problems and solutions were regional in nature and it was a message he delivered to fractious Auckland politicians and suspicious central Government alike. The message was important, but his secret weapon was in the delivery.

He was the ultimate believer, the supreme optimist who didn't take no for an answer. And he did it all with a smile.

I always looked forward to a phone call from him or a meeting. It was good for ego. He always greeted you like a long-lost friend, in my case even when I'd poked the borax at him. I recall his laughing off my scoffing, in that particular day's paper, at his grandiose plans for Ericsson Stadium.

Others who knew him agree. When his business collapsed in 1975 after disastrous tours by Barbara Windsor, Patrick Cargill and the Merry Minstrel Show, acquaintances of the time say there was never any doubt in his mind that he would recover. And recover he did.

In reinventing himself as a politician he also reinvented Auckland as a united region to be taken seriously - by Wellington, by the rest of the country and importantly, by Aucklanders ourselves.

Ten years ago, if the old regional authority had threatened a boycott of oil giant Mobil, who would have taken the call seriously?

Last year, when Phil Warren did just that, Aucklanders, the Government and Mobil all reacted and sulphur content in the region's diesel was reduced.

Mr Warren was in his Santa suit the last time I saw him. It was his annual pre-Christmas get-together for journalists. I must say he's the only politician I know who could have pulled it off without looking stupid.

As always, he was being optimistic - this time about progress being made with the Government over roading and rapid transit.

Now he's gone and I worry about where this optimism and leadership will now come from.

I heard talk on television on Wednesday night of the need for a monument and had dreadful images of bronze statues and the like. Heaven forbid.

What would be more fitting would be for our local politicians to maintain the regional unity that Phil Warren inspired - and to get on with his show.