Twenty years have not yet passed since the restructuring of local government that turned more than 700 local bodies in New Zealand into 93. Aucklanders who can remember when they lived in boroughs like Mt Albert and New Lynn and Devonport and Papatoetoe may wonder whether things have improved.
Typically they lament that rates have marched remorselessly upward, but it is highly likely that they would have anyway, as the regional population virtually doubled in a generation, putting pressure on old infrastructures.
Even if local-body amalgamation did confer efficiencies of scale, it has become increasingly clear in the interim that it did not go far enough. Differences of opinion among territorial local authorities and between them and the regional body have stifled growth and stymied decision-making. The overarching idea of the Royal Commission on Auckland - that we need to move to a single "Supercity" - is persuasive, but the devil will plainly be in the detail.
And a detail - though many would call it a fundamental - that has roused considerable anxiety is the question of how grassroots-level community representation will be preserved.
The plan announced on Monday sensibly ditched the commission's recommendation for six local councils - a recipe for more of the same paralysis - and provided for between 20 and 30 local boards, with between 125 and 150 members, to ensure that community voices are heard.
It is hard to see that the boards will achieve that objective: their roles and functions have yet to be specified, but they are likely to be of the order of dog control and graffiti removal. Powerless and without the ability to raise revenue, they seem likely to become council branch offices dealing with menial tasks. In terms of giving communities a voice at supercouncil level, it is highly likely that smaller, less economically advantaged communities will get the
same raw deal that they got from the "Tomorrow's Schools" education reforms. That impression is deepened by the Government's scrapping of the idea of Maori seats on the council, though it is unlikely that we have heard the last of that.
What is more worrying is the composition of the council itself. It is a blizzard of confusing numbers but the proposal is for 20 councillors elected from 12 wards (which, for no good reason, will coincide with neither the community boards' bailiwicks, nor Parliamentary electorates) and eight councillors elected at large. The mayor, too, would be elected by the voters of the region.
Those eight "at-large" councillorships and the mayoralty will doubtless be won by those with the profile or money or both to command a popular support base, which does not necessarily argue for their administrative competence or political acumen. But even the ward councillors will represent so large an area - one twelfth of the region - that keeping in touch with the concerns of ratepayers and residents will be impossible.
Proponents of the plan will say that the community boards will feed public concerns into the system but that is much more likely to happen if it is electorally mandated. If each of 20 boards selected one of 20 councillors, the local vote would be heard at regional level.
Tellingly, Prime Minister John Key and Local Government Minister Rodney Hide have refused to say that this re-organisation will save ratepayers money; mayors say transition costs will be high. The least Aucklanders must demand in the new Supercity is that they will not be trampled in the rush towards regional efficiency.
* 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.
