Transition agency may be named today - Hide

The transitional agency, set up to oversee Auckland's governance for the next year and a half, may be announced this afternoon, Local Government Minister Rodney Hide says.

Over the weekend Labour dragged out the debate - known as filibustering - on two bills to set up a single council in Auckland, but the Government introduced its own amendments to gazump Labour's efforts.

The first bill was passed into law and sets up the concept of a single council and a transition agency to manage the change, while the second which outlines broad detail about the council was sent to a special select committee for submissions.

Mr Hide said the transition agency was the first step towards "crunching" the seven councils and regional authority into one organisation.

"The councils will continue as business as usual, but what they need is somewhere to go to say `look we're thinking of making this decision, would this compromise the new council and ratepayers into the future'?" he told Radio New Zealand.

There was already a list of names of those who would be on the transition agency.

Mr Hide would not say who was on the list.

He said he hoped to release it this afternoon but required cabinet approval first.

"Well we'll see," Mr Hide said, when questioned about who was likely to be on the agency.

- NZPA