Rudman's city: More power to the mayors? No thanks

By BRIAN RUDMAN

Power, we are told, corrupts. Lack of power, on the other hand, causes the frustrated ones to throw their toys noisily from the cot. This week it's been Waitakere City mayor Bob Harvey's turn to spit the dummy.

Three years of battles with his councillors have finally got to him and he's demanding constitutional reforms which would elevate him to the status of Westie president.

He wants mayors to have the power to pick - and sack - their deputy mayor and the chairs of council committees. At present these positions are decided by council vote.

The shift in power in favour of the mayor proposed by Mr Harvey would be dramatic, particularly given that these positions usually involve significant increases in remuneration.

His argument is that his political foes in Go Waitakere, the party that dominates council business via the committee chairmanships, have shown "lack of commitment ... to meet the mayor and sustain any reasonable dialogue on issues affecting the council." He says they "run their own game, caucusing outside of council."

Ironically, what Mr Harvey wants is exactly what he is accusing his rivals of doing - the right to run his own game.

As a mayor, he is not alone. Auckland City's Christine Fletcher recently bemoaned the fact she did not "have the luxury of reshuffling when people are not performing." She was discussing her dealings with the mayoral wannabe, councillor Victoria Carter.

Such tensions are an inbuilt consequence of our model of local government, one which has us elect at large a basically powerless mayor, then asks him or her to chair a collection of councillors elected on a ward basis, who might or might not share the mayor's political philosophies.

One mayor memorably described his struggles with councillors as like "trying to herd cats."

Of course, from the councillors' side the view is rather different.

They can find their consensus, or majority decisions, being white-anted or openly attacked in public by a mayor who refuses to accept the democratic vote.

My solution would be not to give the mayor more power, but to do away with the directly elected model altogether. Instead, adopt the parliamentary system, by which the mayor is chosen by the majority vote of councillors.

North Shore City councillor Tony Holman has written about this. He points to how directly mayors feel they have a "semi-autonomous position" which allows them "to air opinions and viewpoints which are at complete variance with council policy or intent.

"The problem this creates is one of credibility. In the eyes of the community, the mayor is perceived as speaking on behalf of the council, so his or her viewpoints are seen as those of the council as a whole."

He talks of the "artful mayor" promoting himself or herself "as a populist community leader ready to sound forth expansively on any number of crowd-pleasing issues.

"Although these may be totally out of step with carefully assessed council planning, the mayor's sound bites can unfairly make the other councillors appear as mean-spirited reactionaries."

He points approvingly to regional councils, in which the leader is elected by councillors and the result "is a more cohesive political wing that gives a more affirmative lead to the council officials and sends out a positive, unified message to the community."

I have to temper my support for the internally elected mayor model with the knowledge that in Britain they look enviously at our structure. The Blair Government sees a directly elected mayor - with no power, as in New Zealand - as the brave new world of local government.

Talk about grass being greener. In Britain they see our system as a way of reinvigorating interest in local government. Over there, it seems, few people can even name their local "leader of council," and voter turnout is well below our 50 per cent.

British local leaders were no doubt tempted by the direct election of London's new mayor last May, elected from a constituency of 4.9 million voters.

Meanwhile, back home out West, Mr Harvey is busy preparing his model of the brave new world. It will form his submission to a review of local government to be launched next Thursday in Wellington. Not surprisingly, Mr Holman is promising a response.