There was a bit of a Mexican standoff in Cabinet last week until John Key stepped in and made the call.
A bloc of cabinet ministers fought tooth and nail to try to overturn some of the Royal Commission on Auckland Governance's proposals on the make-up of the council and
the lack of local democratic voice allowed under the commissioners' scheme.
The two sides reportedly slugged it out for more than an hour before Key rendered his own verdict to shut them up.
He decided there would be 12 ward councillors and eight more elected across the Supercity.
Sorry Pita Sharples, no automatic iwi representation. Actually, that was a smart move, a little like the call on flying the tino rangatiratanga flag from the Auckland Harbour Bridge.
Key and the Cabinet didn't actually say yes or no, they batted the decision on to someone else. In this case they left it up to the Supercity council to make the decision whether it has iwi representatives or not.
The creation of the Supercity and the way it is structured is a brave decision for the Government to make. When anyone in politics describes something as a "brave decision" they usually mean it's a gutsy call that could explode nastily at a later point. Think about it. The Government has created a city containing more than a third of the country's population and wealth. It will run on an annual budget of $3 billion to $4 billion.
In New Zealand's political universe that is like having a new large moon suddenly entering the solar system and start orbiting Earth. Central government in Wellington must soon feel the gravitational pull of a unified Auckland's political power.
The temptation would have been to water down the power of the Auckland council through a complex structure of elected community boards which, in turn, elect councillors who, in turn, appoint a mayor.
It would have meant those at the top were continually beholden to those at lower levels in the political food chain and their actions would be more limited by the demands of small factional and parochial groups. Instead, the Government has bravely concentrated power at the top of the pyramid - everyone in the structure is elected by the people of Auckland.
Yes, the 20 to 30 local boards are largely toothless.
They can't raise rates and all the big jobs are decided by the main council.
But if, say, the Supercity council tries to ride roughshod over, for example, a North Shore local board on a hotly contested issue I suspect the Shore would rise in revolt.
It would be a brave Supercity mayor who wanted to alienate a quarter or more of the voters who elected him or her.
The Supercity scheme met predictable howls of outrage from councils and councillors who see their own power base disappearing and are staring at political oblivion.
However, I don't think most people in the region give a damn. In 2007 less than 40 per cent of Auckland City voters cast a ballot and there were similar dismal turnouts throughout the region.
People tend to vote in local body elections only when they are hosed off about rates, inefficiency, or stupidity by the council.
Hence the opposing councils are trying scare tactics, saying the transition to a Supercity will cost each ratepayer $550 and there will be no cost savings.
Hello? No cost savings?
All city and regional councils are being compressed into one overall organisation.
The duplication of services in each of the old local authorities must be huge.
Surely all those multiplied bureaucratic positions must shrink? What about the old economic concept of the economies of scale?
In voicing the opinion that we will all pay through the nose and that there is no more efficient way to do things than the way they were always done, the opponents from the dead duck councils are simply demonstrating why the city needs to be restructured.
What we had was not good enough for the 21st century and we had to change to meet the times.
The extraordinary thing is, after more than a century of concentrating power in its hands and keeping Auckland neutralised through its many feuding local bodies, the Government is finally devolving power to the monster in the north.
The Government has deliberately unchained Auckland so that it can speed up the region's growth and development as the economic powerhouse of New Zealand.
National gambles that the change will work, the economy will benefit and Auckland voters will be grateful. If it fails the voting power of Auckland will speed them back into opposition at the next election. Brave call.
* In this column last week it was said that WSD Global Markets Ltd which is controlled by Riaz Patel, was "thrown out of the Cook Islands" due to an investigation into money laundering by the Serious Fraud Office. In March 2009, WSBC Bank Ltd and the Cook Islands regulators settled a long-running dispute, one of the terms of which was WSBC Bank Ltd agreeing to relocate its banking business elsewhere by the end of this year. Although the SFO has conducted an investigation into WSBC Bank Ltd, WSD Global Market Ltd's only involvement in that investigation to date has been to answer a request to produce documents relating to WSBC Bank Ltd.
The Herald on Sunday apologises for these errors.
WSD Global Markets says that it has never operated in the Cook Islands and its only connection with WSBC Bank Ltd is an outsourcing agreement with WSBC Bank Ltd.
