Rudman's city: Warren byelection could unite left ... for a while

By BRIAN RUDMAN

Political schemer that he was, I suspect Phil Warren would have been quite tickled at the thought of the byelection to replace him becoming a de facto referendum on John Banks' performance as Auckland mayor. With the late regional council chairman's funeral still to take place, no one's talking about it openly but among the chatterers of the left, it's an idea that's been keeping the cellphones warm.

And on the face of it, it's not a bad one. Mr Warren's constituency on the ARC covered the whole of Auckland City. Mr Banks and his Citrat allies have, in their short time in power, polarised the community with their pro-road and cost-cutting proposals.

The byelection, while having no effect on the make-up of the city council, could be the ideal focus for the anti Banks-ites.

The big flaw in this scenario is that it presupposes some sort of unity among the opposition. As you've guessed, that's about as likely as a family of little blue penguins inviting the neighbourhood ferret to dinner and expecting to live to tell the tale.

Teeth and hair and fingernails have been flying about the western suburbs, where the majority of the lefties live, since election day last October, and not even the holidays seem to have calmed things down.

City Vision is the popular front of Labour and the Alliance which managed, in the previous council, to act as a powerful minority block. Before the last election, this group tried, but failed, to do a deal with the Greens over the three seats in the Eden-Albert ward. City Vision offered to put up just two candidates and leave the third for CV defector-turned-independent green Maire Leadbeater. The greenies got greedy and wanted two of the three. There was no deal, the vote was split and both Maire Leadbeater and City Vision councillor Kay McKelvie lost.

To add to the CV angst, Ms McKelvie's billboards were defaced during the campaign by Water Pressure sympathisers.

In City Vision circles you don't even mention the Water Pressure Group. Led by the highly excitable Penny Bright, these extremists suspect that mainstream politicians of the left and the right - to say nothing of editorial writers and columnists - are possessed by the water-privatising devil. Like the witch hunters of Salem, the crusaders of the WPG regard denials and protestations of innocence as confessions of guilt. And the louder you protest, the guiltier you are.

One senior politician who finally spat the dummy over the WPG activities was Auckland Central Labour MP and Minister for Auckland Judith Tizard. In a stinging pre-Xmas e-mail, she loosed both barrels at Ms Bright.

"Penny, I am really tired of your snarling and vitriol ... Perhaps you could stop bombarding people with electronic nastiness and sit down with City Vision and try to work with good, decent, hard-working, politically experienced people who have a sense of history and who have made a long-term commitment to the good of Auckland instead of trying to destroy them ... Until you begin to see that politics works for the things you believe in when you cooperate with people who share your goals, you will go on dividing the liberal/left vote and the conservatives will win. Every time."

She concluded: "Penny, I would like to believe that you actually do want to achieve the things you claim to care about, but your selfish, stupid, egocentric, political behaviour makes that hard ... Merry Christmas."

It was in this spirit of comradeship that the anti-Banks-ites gathered last Tuesday night in the Freemans Bay Community Centre. I missed it but I'm told all the old names were there - Bruce Hucker, Ms Bright, Ms Leadbeater, Marney Ainsworth, Graham Easte and a supporting cast of, they say, 200. There was talk of lobbying councillors, of a street march, of petitions, letters to the editor and talkback. All the old stuff. Miraculously they saw out the evening without coming to blows and tomorrow evening they're meeting again.

I can only put the sweetness and light down to the presence of a new activist on the scene. One who inspired the initial gathering and dreamed up the catchcry "Wake Up Auckland". Her name? Leading fashion designer Marilyn Sainty.

Ms Sainty says she was so disgusted when the expenditure cuts on things like pensioner housing, tree-protection and the art gallery were first announced that she immediately went out and hired a billboard in Jervois Rd to express her concerns.

"Banks is not my leader. Wake up Auckland," it read. She says she had the choice of stewing over the proposals all the holidays or acting, so she acted. What's happening is "offensive".

Now she is planning a march "to fill the streets with Aucklanders saying no".

She seems a strange ally for the old cloth cap brigade. But just maybe, a fashionable outsider will succeed where all others have failed, and unite the left. If only for a march or two. Or maybe even for a byelection.