KEY POINTS:
The most telling sentence in the latest report from the Auckland regional governance task force is that all will be for nothing without a "willingness from all parties involved to cede a greater degree of autonomy" in the interests of regional advancement.
Just how the gaggle of mayors and city functionaries who signed those words off could do so with a straight face I have no idea.
After all, it's their parochialism that's helping hold Auckland back.
If I was the Local Government Minister, I'd wave this hypocritical waffle in their faces, toss the other 35 pages in my rubbish bin and tell the squabbling civic leaders to start practising what they preach.
Back in March, when minister Mark Burton gave an earlier version of these reform plans a dismissive yawn, I suggested the obvious solution to strengthening regional governance in Auckland was not to set up a whole new structure, but to enhance the powers of the existing regional council.
At the time the Auckland Regional Council had shown great regional leadership by being the only political body in Auckland willing to stand up to the Government's crazy waterfront stadium project. Now, with the Government finally conceding the point about rail electrification - a cause that the ARC has long fought - we have another example of the worth of the existing regional body.
Of course there are areas where Auckland's regional governance structure needs improvement, but the most sensible and least disruptive solution is to bolster the existing structures, not to do a Pol Pot and bulldoze everything.
With rail electrification and the Tank Farm redevelopment about to begin, to name but two key regional projects, the last thing Auckland needs is the distraction and the costly time-wasting that creating a whole new governance structure would involve.
What stands out as you read the new report (www.strongerauckland.org.nz) is how much effort has been expended to produce so little. But isn't that the way with committees of the self-interested?
In the mayors' determination not to surrender a smidgen of their own power, they've had to resort to the classic bureaucratic solution of creating yet another level of power instead.
In this case it's something called the Regional Sustainable Development Forum - and guess who they're suggesting sit on it. Why them, of course.
This body will draw up a grand "One Plan" - or if you're of a cynical bent, "Yet Another Plan" (YAP) - for Auckland.
The regional forum will be a subcommittee of the proposed Greater Auckland Council.
Just how binding the One Plan will be is up in the air. Not very, I suspect, given all the other statutory plans councils are bound to establish and respect.
It's worth remembering that the mayors' sudden love affair with regionalism began in the aftermath of the ill-fated coup of last October. That's when the big-four mayors and a shady group of millionaire "Champions for Auckland" declared plans to replace the ARC and existing seven territorial councils with three super cities and a monarchical Lord Mayor.
Emerging from that fiasco, the sulky plotters suddenly became born-again regionalists, but only if the existing order was replaced by a renamed lookalike.
It made little sense then or now. Everything they say they want to achieve can be accomplished using the existing ARC structure.
However, that would mean the mayors having to treat the ARC as a partner, not as the enemy. And the plotters would have to deal civilly with ARC chairman Mike Lee, who mocked their failed putsch.
Instead of drastic structural change, what we need from the mayors is some of that "willingness to cede a greater degree of autonomy" they all signed off on.
They might sound a bit more convincing too if they gave us a practical demonstration of their new love for regionalism.
The new report says the Greater Auckland Council would provide "regional leadership for Auckland [and] assume responsibility for regionally significant issues associated with the social, cultural, economic and environmental well-being of the region".
But what happened when 11 key arts and community service organisations sought support for a private bill giving them regional funding?
They got the bum's rush from everyone but Auckland City.
We don't need new structures. We need less parochialism.
