KEY POINTS:
John Banks tore into Dick Hubbard last night by accusing him of flip-flops and voting to pump raw sewage onto the city's beaches longer than necessary.
After promising a softer style, the former mayor reverted to his old self before a receptive audience at the second mayoral debate organised by the Mission Bay-Kohimarama Residents' Association.
Mr Banks said the city needed a mayor who consults, decides and gets things down, not someone who leaps under the Eden Park goal posts one month, then pushes for a waterfront stadium the next.
This dig at Mr Hubbard's "flip-flop" on the stadium debate was followed by an attack on his role in ordering Metrowater to slow down work on reducing wastewater overflows at beaches and recreational areas of the Waitemata and Manukau Harbours.
Papers obtained by the Herald under the Official Information Act show Metrowater opposed delaying the environmental project but was ordered by the council to put it back by six years.
A senior figure close to the issue told the Herald Mr Hubbard played a key role in the decision to get Metrowater to put back the beach clean-up.
Mr Banks told the audience of about 150 Eastern Bays residents the council decision meant local beaches would have human body waste pumped onto them for six years longer. Meanwhile, Mr Hubbard was at a conference in Melbourne preaching environmental sustainability.
Mr Banks predicted that a parliamentary select committee inquiry into Auckland City's water policy would have a lot to say about "this mayor and this council stealing water profits to prop up very bad funding proposals" when its report was tabled in Parliament today.
Mr Hubbard, who seven weeks ago trailed Mr Banks in a Herald-DigiPoll survey by six points, lacked the fighting spirit of the first mayoral debate when he came out punching.
Last night, he had a dig at Mr Banks' previous support for "roads, roads, roads", only to muff his lines in the next breath by saying the cost of congestion in Auckland was $1 billion a day. The figure is $1 billion a year.
On the sensitive issue of big rate rises, Mr Hubbard said the council had to spend money if the city was to go forward after years of neglect.
The debate was not all one-way traffic for Mr Banks, although he got the biggest applause of the night by reiterating a promise not to spend ratepayers' money on upgrading Eden Park.
Mayoral candidate Lisa Prager provided a reminder of Mr Banks' time in office. "I was there when you flogged off (pensioner) housing and got the Government to buy back Westhaven."
