Editorial: Conflict at heart of city plans

Opinion

Government in this country has never seen a position quite like the mayoralty proposed for a united Auckland. The elected individual will have power to appoint a personal staff and operate on an assured allocation of the Auckland Council's annual budget. He or she will have the right to establish council committees and appoint their chairpersons.

With these independent resources and powers the mayor will be expected to provide initiative and drive, even "vision", for the city. The bill setting up the governance structure enjoins the mayor to "articulate and promote a vision for Auckland and provide leadership for the purpose of achieving objectives that will contribute to that vision". The royal commission that conceived the idea of an executive mayor envisaged "an inspirational leader, inclusive in approach and decisive in action".

The commission, however, intended that it would not be the only office for which all of Auckland would have a vote. Eight seats on the council were also to be filled from a city-wide vote. That element was culled from the bill when it was returned to Parliament by a select committee last week. All 20 seats of the council are now to be elected from wards.

Has sufficient thought been given to the tensions this could cause? The mayor will have a mandate from the whole city. The council could be a disparate collection of parish delegates with quite different priorities and allegiances.

The original plan would have let mayoral candidates run with candidates for enough city-wide seats to produce a cohesive council. While city-wide campaigns favour candidates with wealth or the support of a political party, a full-ward system increases the likelihood that the council will be of a different political character to the mayor.

The select committee has extended the mayor's proposed power to organise the council beyond the appointment of chairs that the commission suggested. The mayor would decide what committees the council would have "notwithstanding the council establishing, or disestablishing, additional committees by majority vote", says a rider to the bill.

Does this mean the mayor could set up one system of committees for the council and the council itself could set up another? It looks like a recipe for confusion.

Nor is it clear how the mayor's personal staff is supposed to relate to the council's administration. The bill says the mayor must establish an appropriately staffed office "in consultation with, and acting through, the council's chief executive". The bill's rider stressed the need to balance the powers of mayor and chief executive and seems to believe it has done so. Its balance looks bound to breed conflict.

Tension and conflict is not necessarily bad. The mayor will be assured by law of at least 0.02 per cent of the council's annual expenditure. The staff and consultants hired will be able to cast an independent eye on the city's administration as well as developing ideas that challenge the habits and convenience of council staff. But the purpose of the single city was to overcome the conflicts inherent in the present shape of Auckland's government, not to replace them with new contests.

The committee hopes its design will remove any implication that the role of the executive mayor should be undertaken in isolation from the council and its resources.

All mayoral initiatives will need to win the approval of the council, which is called the "governing body" in the bill to distinguish it from the 20 to 30 local boards that are also to be constituted as part of the Auckland Council.

Cohesion, not conflict, is the aim of the exercise. Let us hope the changes to the constitution of the Super City have not made it a charter for chaos.