KEY POINTS:
Bob Harvey is comfortably ahead in his bid for his sixth term as mayor of Waitakere City, a Herald-DigiPoll survey shows.
Nearly half, or 48.9 per cent, of decided voters chose Mr Harvey as their preferred mayor, ahead of former MP John Tamihere, who got 32.2 per cent support.
Their nearest rivals, city councillors Linda Cooper and Peter Chan, gained 8.7 per cent and 6.8 per cent respectively.
Mr Tamihere, who heads a large urban Maori authority in West Auckland, surprisingly outpolled Mr Harvey in the Massey ward, where Mr Harvey this year launched "Massey Matters" - a campaign to turn the area of about 25,000 people into a united and lively community with more facilities.
But Mr Harvey polled slightly ahead in Henderson where Mr Tamihere is well known.
Mr Harvey drew strongest support in the Waitakere ward and in New Lynn, where the council has won $120 million support from the Government for putting the railway underground, paving the way for town redevelopment.
Mr Harvey said he was "humbled" by the poll result. "I'd like to thank the people of Waitakere for having faith in me. It's been a great partnership in this city for a long time and I guess the difference between Mr Tamihere and I is that I build bridges and he burns them.
"They trust me here and that's showing."
Mr Tamihere said he was comfortable with the poll result because most of his campaign energy was kicking in over the next fortnight.
"There's an arm wrestle going on, no doubt about that."
He was receiving a positive response to his ideas for safer streets and his "Proud Westie" campaign.
Nearly a quarter of those polled in Waitakere had either not decided who they would choose or said they would not vote for any of the six candidates.
Turnout at the last election was among the lowest in the country, with just 35.8 per cent of 118,696 registered voters having their say.
Other results from the poll showed the most important election issue for voters was property rates (24 per cent), followed by council spending (22.4 per cent) transport (20.3 per cent), environmental sustainability (14.4 per cent), leadership (8.1 per cent), water rates (5.3 per cent) and urban design (4.3 per cent).
Asked about the performance of the current council, only 24.8 per cent of those surveyed rated it excellent or very good, 57.9 per cent said it was good and 17.3 per cent marked it poor or very poor.
The Government is setting up a royal commission of inquiry into Auckland to look at how the region is governed. Asked whether the eight councils in the region should be replaced by one council for Greater Auckland, 50.7 per cent said yes and 49.3 per cent said no.
The recent inquiry into rates made several recommendations to control big rate increases over the next 10 years. Only 31.4 per cent of respondents were in favour of the council taking on more debt in order to spread payments for big projects over many years.
But when it comes to councils making more use of user charges, 66.3 per cent were in favour.
The suggestion that the Government put a small amount of GST into a fund to pay for water infrastructure won the approval of 73.5 per cent and 75.8 per cent wanted the Government to start paying rates on Crown properties such as schools and hospitals.
