Single-city action group invites big names on board

Prominent Aucklanders are being recruited to the "OneAuckland Trust" to lobby for a single-city structure, says the man fronting the campaign, Grant Kirby.

Right now, the former Auckland City Council director and public body consultant is the trust's single voice.

But he said yesterday that prominent people, including business-woman Rosanne Meo, were being invited to join to beef up the message to the Government that Auckland needed one city, one plan and one voice.

The trust is expected to be registered in the next fortnight. Working behind the scenes on it are veteran public relations operators Cedric Allen and Malcolm Boyle, and lobbyist Tony Garnier.

The trust has unofficial links to the the four big-city mayors, who have been secretly working on a new governance structure for the region expected to be presented to Prime Minister Helen Clark, Rugby World Cup Minister Trevor Mallard and Local Government Minister Mark Burton today.

It also has links to the Metro Auckland Project, largely driven by business interests, which is in the final stage of preparing an action plan to lift the region's economic performance and strongly backed a single-city structure.

While the mayors have kept their plan secret, Mr Kirby has busily been publicly pushing the one-city concept.

He said yesterday that he started thinking about one city for Auckland four years ago when he was chairman of the Local Government Commission and charged with promoting good local government.

"One of the biggest problems with local government in New Zealand was fragmentation in Auckland. Eight plans. Eight voices. Eight sets of bylaws, eight different funding systems and eight sets of politicians who declared allegiance to their own district rather than Auckland as a whole."

This year, the region's seven councils and the Auckland Regional Council will have a combined income of $2.5 billion, of which $1 billion comes from rates and the rest from fees, charges and other income such as water.

Mr Kirby said this would give the region the economic clout to borrow money and get on with solving some of the roading, public transport and other big infrastructure problems. It would also solve the difficulty of paying for key regional services such as the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra and surf lifesaving.

Fears that one city would have serious implications for local democracy were unfounded, he said.

Outlying regions like his own council in Rodney could never afford to seal all their roads and would benefit from the resources of a big city for the same reason that Banks Peninsula had joined Christchurch City Council.

Under Mr Kirby's plan, Auckland would be divided into about 20 communities of interest, each with a community board and four elected representatives. The boards would have beefed-up powers and have about 10 per cent of the council's rates, or about $100 million, to spend locally.

"I don't think you need a lot of numbers to engage with the community. I think if you had four community board members and they all went around meeting with a group every second weekend, then you would get a really good engagement."

Mr Kirby said that when he was appointed commissioner of Rodney in 2000 to sort out the dysfunctional council, he and a small team of officers had four-weekly meetings with ratepayer groups which were a great success.

Responding to concerns by Manukau Mayor Sir Barry Curtis and former ARC and Brisbane City Council officer Garry Law that one city would lead to a dangerous accumulation of power and attract the big political parties, Mr Kirby said there was always the potential for powerful bodies to misbehave, whether it was one city or three.

He did concede, however, that it would take a team of 50 people six months to work on the details for one city, including the cost benefits and creating a single rating system.

"I think in the short term you'd probably save some money, but I don't think any organisation process guarantees long-term savings. But what I think it does do is it guarantees you better value for money."

For one thing, the number of politicians would be reduced from 264 to a little over 100 and the region would go from eight chief executives to one.

* Anyone interested in joining the trust can contact Mr Kirby at PO Box 145, Postal Centre, Kaukapakapa.

OneAuckland Trust plan

* Combine the seven Auckland councils and Auckland Regional Council into one city as soon as possible.
* Put transport, water, sewerage and stormwater into an infrastructure organisation run by directors.
* One mayor and 25 councillors.
* About 20 community boards, each with four elected board members.
* One rating system.
* One city plan.