Rodney residents working on one last escape attempt

Residents of northern Rodney are planning a last-ditch attempt to escape the clutches of the Auckland Super City.

The Northern Action Group is lobbying the Kaipara District Council to promote a local bill to set the northern boundary of the Super City more or less east and west of Puhoi.

This would exclude about 15,000 people, including the towns of Warkworth and Wellsford, from the Super City. The mostly rural area, which includes much of Auckland's coastal playground north of Waiwera, would join the Kaipara District Council.

A spokeswoman for Kaipara district said the council supported the group's initiative to break away from the Super City, but any decision on sponsoring a local bill was a matter for the council.

Two weeks ago, members of the group flew to Wellington and presented Rodney MP Lockwood Smith and Northland MP John Carter with a petition signed by 6000 people to exclude northern Rodney from the Super City.

A local bill would be sponsored by Mr Carter, the associate Local Government Minister, who voted to include all of Rodney in the Super City. Mr Carter yesterday said he would have no choice but to sponsor the bill, but that did not mean he had to support it.

John Turner, a farmer from Port Albert, yesterday appeared before the Auckland governance select committee - chaired by Mr Carter - hearing submissions on the third and final piece of Super City legislation.

Mr Turner and Gordon Levet, who farms near Wellsford, were concerned at a clause in the third bill that would prevent any boundary changes to the Super City until the 2016 local body elections.

Last year, the Cabinet decided to exclude northern Rodney from the Super City, but after furious lobbying by the Auckland Regional Council and some locals, it put all the district back in.

Cabinet papers, obtained by the Herald under the Official Information Act, show Mr Hide believed as far back as last August that all of Rodney should be in the Super City and that splitting it could "be damaging to the credibility of the Auckland governance reform process".