Editorial: Independents' Day within reach of city

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Opinion

As Aucklanders ponder their votes in the first Super City election, they might ask themselves whether the city needs political parties in local government at all.

The mayoral race is between a slew of "independents"; those from both right and left are keen to distance themselves from party organisations.

The battle for seats from the wards of the new Auckland Council pits City Vision, an offshoot of Labour and the Greens, against National's Citizens & Ratepayers in a haphazard sort of way. Ditto some of the races to be inaugural members of local boards.

What is noticeable on the voting paper, however, is how many people standing for local body roles do not feel the need to be a card-carrying member of some party or other.

The C&R group has argued that Auckland needs a strong ticket (theirs) to bring policy certainty to the new council and to stop a fragmented body squabbling and dissipating the advantages of being one big organisation.

City Vision seems to think its Cold War warriors of national politics ought to continue the fight into a Super age.

But who needs them? Who are they? Essentially they are private clubs that people with vested interests join to advance their personal ideologies, or in some cases to find a political outlook.

They meet in private, select their tickets in private and promise allegiance or otherwise in secret. They present limited policy platforms and, once elected, they tend to determine the course of votes out of the public eye.

In other words, they are the same as national political parties. In the local context, though, and particularly at this time in the Super City's formation, it seems a strong argument can be made for a change from the bloc-voting of the past.

First, because no one party is likely to win the voting power on the council that might have been the case in Auckland City or the other seven local bodies being merged into the Auckland Council. None have enough appeal across the region to deliver them effective power.

Second, the election of a ticket or tickets of warmovers or retreads from past administrations is unlikely to allow the Super City council to break decisively from the ways of the past.

Third, there is real appeal in people of high calibre joining the new body with open minds and a commitment to region-wide progress rather than the parochial expertise of the old party blocs.

And, last, in the age of MMP-collaboration at a national level, it is clear that like-minded independents will find ways of working on rates or water or city life that will be the better for being forged in real debate rather than predestined by party logos.

Some who have advanced their names under the colours of a party will be sufficiently independent and effective to warrant election and, shorn of the stultifying caucus pressure, to help guide such a new approach to governing.

No one doubts that John Banks' blood runs National blue and Len Brown would have a portrait of Michael Joseph Savage somewhere in his heritage. Yet the very absence of the party labels improves their electability.

The political market has the sense to seek out the best qualities of an individual for the mayoralty - to reject overt party-think.

It ought to apply the same judgment for the seats on the councils and local boards and expect a process of policy formation on the Auckland Council that is fresh, open and accountable to the voters, not second-guessed in advance by others.

The political party operatives will scoff, thinking a bigger city will make bigger party politics more necessary, not less. But Aucklanders have the chance to start this city with an independent spirit.