The battle for Auckland

Auckland's mayors are infuriated by govermnet plans to give unelected boards big super city tasks. Photo / Herald on Sunday

Len Brown believes a platform of public transport initiatives to beat traffic congestion could sweep him to power as mayor of the single Auckland council.

But how can he make any bold promises, he wonders, if transport is at arm's length from the new super council, in an agency run by an unelected board?

Mike Lee says a huge tranche of traditional local government responsibilities - including transport, water and other core council functions - could be controlled by unelected boards under plans being considered by the Government.

"I don't think the Government has looked at the landscape they are actually creating by these one-off decisions."

John Banks is disturbed by the "lack of understanding" among Wellington bureaucrats of realities in Auckland and warns that micromanaging the business of the new council "would be a recipe for disaster".

If you thought debates over Maori seats, local boards and the northern and southern boundaries represented an acrimonious start, putting in place the final pieces in the super city jigsaw - the council's organisational structure - promises to be just as fraught. Perhaps more so, as the structural nitty-gritty is crucial to the dreams of political aspirants including Banks, Lee and Brown.

"The big challenge here is to unite communities and deliver on a platform that the community supports through the ballot box," says Brown. "The challenges of delivering that platform with most of the services being at arm's length are much more difficult than if they were under the direct control of the council and councillors."

The key battleground is for control of about $1.6 billion in ratepayer and taxpayer expenditure on roads, rail and public transport. But transport is not the only core council activity which the Government thinks could be best managed by an appointed board, or Council Controlled Organisation (CCO). Water and wastewater and transport have been confirmed as stand-alone agencies while others are mooted for activities ranging from economic development to arts and entertainment.

A proposed social policy forum to co-ordinate billions of dollars in central and local government welfare spending is another source of friction.

"I'm more than a little bit concerned that backroom boys in Wellington are having far too much say in the structure, philosophy, concepts and principles of the new super council," says Banks.

The new council needs flexibility to achieve economies of scale, efficiency gains and savings, he says. "We won't deliver on those unless we are given a fair amount of autonomy."

The council's structure is yet another area where the Government is tearing up the blueprint recommended by the Royal Commission on Auckland's governance, another complication to shatter illusions that the single council could be given a smooth birth.

Cabinet papers show the Transport Ministry's preference for putting regional transport under one agency rather than the Commission's plan to put local roads in the hands of local councils.

Arm's length agencies were thought appropriate for commercial functions such as water and economic development. There's dissent over the exclusion of stormwater management from the new water agency but that argument is nothing compared to the emerging battle over the transport CCO.

In a rare display of unity, civic leaders say transport - one of the major drivers of the reform - is not appropriate for governance by remote control.

Mike Lee cites the relationship between the ARC and its public transport offshoot, the Auckland Regional Transport Authority. He says the agency has experienced a blowout in administration costs and sharp increase in employees.

"There's a lack of accountability, yet when a train breaks down I'm the guy that people ring up or [ARC transport chairwoman] Christine Rose. You have to go through this laborious arm's length mechanism to get some accountability to get the problem fixed."

Banks says it's critical that the new agency has high quality appointments "as opposed to the jobs for the boys and girls we've experienced in the past".

"The new agency must be a servant of the council not of lobby groups and central Government."

The council's structure will be dealt with in a third piece of legislation to go before Parliament in November. Local Government Minister Rodney Hide says the reform aims to encourage integrated decision-making and will allow the council to set its own priorities. "Council controlled agencies will not be stand alone in the full sense - they'll be appointed by, and accountable to, the Auckland Council."

Transport Minister Stephen Joyce says the transport agency will help to beat traffic congestion, with the council guiding its work through strategic plans and an annual statement of intent.

"Councillors won't have time to micromanage every aspect of transport," says Joyce. " With the greatest respect to the current crop of councillors, this is a whole new league in terms of the size of the operations involved."

The Council for Infrastructure Development strongly supports an arm's length agency whose board will be less vulnerable to ideology and three-year political cycles. Chief executive Stephen Selwood says:

"We would all love to have a rail link to the airport and the best motorway system across the city but you can't have both given the amount of money we've got."

Len Brown says the debate is about "ultimately, who has the final say about where Auckland goes". He aims to boost public transport usage from 6 per cent to 15 per cent and "open up the roads for commercial traffic. For me that logic is compelling - it's good for business, good for schoolchildren and workers and it's good for the future of the city."

But it will be harder for the single council to unite communities around its vision if an arm's length agency "sitting in cahoots with the Government" is spending ratepayers' money.

"If people are looking for one thing it is the delivery of a vision in transportation. It's sure as hell what my primary focus is going to be.

" Actions to make it happen are best under direct control of the council, not through a constant relaying of discussion and points with a stand-alone corporate entity."

LOCAL vs NATIONAL INTEREST

At its core, the row over the Regional Transport Authority is about how directly politicians can control spending on transport - the balance struck between roading and rail, buses and ferries.

Transport Minister Stephen Joyce says the new Auckland Council will set the agenda. "The agency is purely the delivery and operational side."

But with transport significantly funded by the Government, Wellington will always have a say.

"We want to try to get the councils to focus on the strategic stuff because these are big sums of money and they are going to want central Government to put some money into this."

But the stoush is about more than money. Decisions on transport are linked to the city's growth, direction and land use. A philosophical divide surrounds how best to allow Auckland to grow: extend roads into the countryside where land is supposedly cheaper for housing, or intensify around existing transport corridors. Environmental and social costs vs loss of the house and garden lifestyle. Traffic congestion vs mass transit.

The Government's interest is that Auckland is vital to the country's GDP; congestion and planning hurdles are shackling its economic performance. With further reforms to ease the supply of rural land under consideration, there are fears that the region's 50-year growth strategy, which favours intensification, is a goner.

The tension is crystallised in the starkly different priorities for transport spending set on one hand by the Government and on the other by the Auckland Regional Transport Committee (comprising the ARC and seven district councils).

The regional body has placed public transport on top - rail electrification, an airport rail link and a CBD rail tunnel linking Britomart to the western line to create a mass transit loop in the central city.

These plans fly in the face of the Government's seven roads of national significance which includes extending the northern motorway north from Puhoi to Wellsford. The estimated $2.3 billion motorway came 15th on the regional list.

Regional council chairman Mike Lee says a consensus has developed in Auckland in recent years over transport spending, "best summarised as maximum efficiency of throughput of all transport corridors. That means work that needs to be done on roads and rail is seen as equally important."

"That consensus has been compromised by the minister's new strategic direction which is $2.3 billion to build what I call a holiday highway which will open up coastal property.

"We have some of the biggest motorway junctions in the southern hemisphere around our CBD but in terms of mass transit as an alternative we are lagging well behind other cities.

"Joyce is one of the smartest guys in Parliament but I don't think he understands that if Auckland is to go ahead as an international city it needs that retrofitting of urban mass transit."

Joyce says improving the highway between Auckland and Whangarei is "a very important project for New Zealand generally and in particular the Auckland and Northland regions. It's a heavily congested route with one of the worst safety records in the country and it is probably the biggest enabling link for economic growth in Northland."

"Rail projects are [important] as well but with the urban ones we need to know the impact on the land use planning in Auckland.

"For instance, with the CBD rail tunnel, it's not enough to say 'we want one'. It's a big investment so what's the impact on where people live in Auckland, what's the population density changes along the rail corridors?

"There's no business case or plans which say 'here's where we're going to put the two million people we're told are going to live in Auckland in 22 years' time'.

"Similarly with the rail link to the airport. You can't just put it there and not have the land use planning changes to match it. It's very sensitive stuff when you start changing population or housing densities. They need to have that discussion with the community.

"The Government has a national perspective and the regional transport committee seems to have a view which is all about central Auckland.

"I think they will have to be thinking more about the Rodneys and Franklins and have a wider view of Auckland's place [in relation to] Northland and Waikato and the Bay of Plenty as well.

"I'm hoping that under the new arrangements, when you have one team of councillors, that they are able to take that wider view."

But Lee says the new agency won't help Aucklanders stuck in traffic. "Rearranging chairs in the board room is just more displacement activity by the minister.

"What will help traffic congestion is new fast, clean electric units - but the minister has deliberately held this up by diverting the agreed funding from Auckland rail rapid transit to his pet $2.3 billion holiday highway project."

ON THE MOVE

$1.6B Spent on transport in Auckland region in 2007/08

Funding:

$678M rates revenue
$914M Government

Spending:

$1b local roads
$489M state highways
$77M metro rail

Sources: Dept of Internal Affairs, Office of the Minister of Transport

THE REGIONAL TRANSPORT AUTHORITY (RTA)

* Board of six to eight council-appointed directors, with up to two elected councillors. Non-voting Government appointee will advise the board.
* Plans and delivers local authority transport network, including roads and public transport.
* Auckland Council sets strategic direction
* RTA prepares a 3-year regional land transport programme funded by the Council, local boards and the NZ Transport Agency.
* Programme to be consistent with Government policy statement on land transport funding.
* RTA to "work closely" with council and NZ Transport Agency and engage with local boards.