A united Greater Auckland is indeed an oxymoron and, odds-on,
the latest scheme to engineer it - the Royal Commission on
Auckland Governance - will most likely follow in the path of
its predecessors, or be so reduced from the concept of one
aspirational "super city" and six local councils as to be
unrecognisable.
Already, the offstage local government chorus is raising its
protesting voice, notably in the Wellington region, and
nervous Government ministers and Auckland members of
Parliament are showing signs of preparing possible defensive
lines of retreat.
The report raises many matters of immediate political
interest, and about the longer term development of New
Zealand.
It is in this regard that the South should take notice.
The conglomeration of about 1.3 million residents is now so
totally out of proportion to the rest of the country as to
constitute a city-state (the report uses the soothing
"city-region").
Confirming that reality by legislative status will impinge on
the lives and livelihoods of every New Zealander.
The scale of the governance problems facing Greater Auckland
are a result of 60 years of profligate, indiscriminate
growth, fostered by encouraging the greed of property
developers and the effects of decades of subsidy-cushioned
and tariff-protected industries built on uncontrolled, cheap
labour migration.
It has all been at an enormous cost to the nation, symbolised
for many here in the South by the means of electricity
generation, but it has also been of enormous national
economic benefit.
It is remarkable that, given Greater Auckland's
near-unmanageable structure, the commission has decided that
big is best, and that even bigger is better.
It is charitable to praise the report for its concept of a
two-level arrangement, with an "Auckland Council" looking
after regional issues and six local councils looking after
local matters.
But the local councils would not have the power to set rates
and would be funded by the superior authority, to which they
could plead for local rates for special projects in their
communities.
In an ideal world this might work, but it would put the local
councils entirely at the mercy of the "super-council".
Quite rightly, early concerns are being raised about the gap
that would develop between household ratepayers and the
"super-council" based on the commission's city-state model.
The abolition of most community boards and the creation of
local councils representing as many as 400,000 people would
simply reinforce the difficulty.
We are a small country, and our people are insistent on and
entitled to a direct relationship with their rulers.
What are now essentially local decisions would become, under
the proposed arrangement, mere ticks for distant councillors
to make in regional boxes.
The commission concluded that tinkering around the edges of
Auckland's problems was not the answer.
"Bold change is required, and that is what the commission is
recommending."
But its report enters fanciful realms when it speculates
Auckland is "a unique world city in the Pacific, one that is
able to compete successfully with Melbourne, Sydney, and
Brisbane for people".
Really? For people - yet more people? In almost the same
breath it talks of the need to recognise and do something
about "the disconnect between Auckland and the rest of the
country".
By this it really means the need for all of us outside
Auckland to accept that Auckland and Auckland's size and
growth means "Auckland's success and New Zealand's success go
hand in hand".
But by what measure? Its unfettered growth? Its money
prosperity? Its social disparities?
The state of its environment? Its cost of living? The state
of its transport facilities?
The incidence of its crime? Its continuous demand on our
national resources?
The supposed cost savings and efficiency improvements of
between $76 million to $113 million a year without a doubt
would still leave an organisational monolith, out of reach of
the people it supposedly served.
After all, the "Auckland Council" would hold all council
assets and employ all existing staff; there would be one
long-term council community plan, one spatial plan, one
district plan, one rating system, one rates bill, and much
claimed "significant streamlining" to eliminate unnecessary
duplication.
By the same token, direct connection with the government of
the day would be strengthened and become greater than any
other part of the country, for the commission wants a
Minister for Auckland and a special Cabinet Committee for
Auckland, whose role would be to set priorities for state
spending in the city "and to decide and co-ordinate the
allocation of discretionary funding".
Where, in all of this "aspirational" vision, is Mrs and Mrs
Joe Bloggs ratepayer? Under such a charter "communities of
interest" would become a notion as remote to them as living
on Mars.
If the purpose of a decade of local government reform has
been to decentralise control and increase community
connection at its most intrinsic level, then the unaltered
implementation of this plan will plainly deny the opportunity
for people to make their voice heard where it should count.
