Auckland Council's desperate hunt for new revenue to supplement an ever-growing rates burden may be boosted by a Local Government NZ funding review.

Prime Minister John Key has sprayed cold water on calls for a comprehensive rethink of how local government spending is funded.

Auckland Mayor Len Brown opposes a plan to stop councillors serving as board members on Auckland Transport.

Country should ponder new funding solutions such as paying coal and gas royalties to cash-strapped councils, local government bosses say.

EXCLUSIVE: Auckland bureaucrats have come up with a plan to dump councillors from sitting on the board of Auckland Transport.

Len Brown and his wife Shan Inglis have sold their big South Auckland home and are now getting first-hand knowledge of the city's pressure-cooker house market.

In part four of the Herald series on how to make Auckland better, we look at the pros and cons of health-care in New Zealand's biggest city.

This week the Herald looks at what Auckland needs to make it an even better place to live. Today we focus on its transport woes, and how to solve them.

A blue-green battle is looming over housing affordability and the reform of the Resource Management Act.

Auckland mayor Len Brown says the council will not put any ratepayer cash into building or running an international convention centre.

If this lack of regard for the financial resources of individual members of our community is to be curbed, it is critical that a strong message of opposition comes through from the community, writes George Wood, Dick Quax and Cameron Brewer.

'That's ratepayer money, it's just unbelievable'. Last week Tauranga City Council put in a $64k traffic island. This week it ripped it up.

Aucklanders have spent many, many years admiring what other cities have, but we're catching up now, writes Auckland Mayor Len Brown. There's a real sense of pride growing around our region.

Just because pohutukawa trees prosper in Auckland's coastal setting is not a reason to treat them as a weed and hack them down when they get in the way of a road builder.

Aucklanders have seven weeks to provide feedback on a draft 10-year budget that, according to Mayor Len Brown, includes some of the biggest decisions on the city's future. Send us Your Views.

Auckland Council paid out $405,000 settling and defending personal grievances in the past year.

Claims that the high-profile pest control campaign "Battle For Our Birds" wiped out a group of nationally endangered birds are unfounded, the Department of Conservation says.

Film and television incentives have lifted the screen production industry out of the doldrums, prompting the Auckland Council to back new studios in West Auckland.

A ban on cars from the summit of Mt Eden, one of Auckland's best-known sightseeing spots, has overwhelming support in a new Herald-DigiPoll survey.

Motorists have forked out more than $100 million in parking and vehicle fines from Auckland Transport over four years - and owe plenty more.

A resource consent bid for a chicken egg layer farm of 310,000 birds in rural south Auckland has been rejected, because of fears it would be too stinky.

After slugging motorists with almost $10 million in bus lane fines since its formation in 2010, Auckland Transport says its enforcement efforts appear to be succeeding.

Housing crisis - what housing crisis? Drive around Auckland's outskirts and you'd be forgiven for thinking the home building sector was ahead of the game as thousands of new-builds come on....

Responses that promise an immediate and apparently ready-made solution to a problem have a seductive appeal.

Losers dominated the year in New Zealand politics, while winners were few and far between, writes Bryce Edwards.

It was the year of the trier, a year when optimists who thought the worst of the bad times had passed and only sunshine lay ahead fell flat on their faces.