Dom Post on Auckland

The Dom Post Editorial today:

The mayoral war of words that greeted the report of the Royal Commission on Auckland Governance and the Government’s swift response to it, has merely proved the commissioners’ implied message that their cities comprise a sprawling metropolis, the councils of which prefer to work in silos, believe one community is superior to the others and that, given the opportunity, mayors would rather engage in verbal battle than unite to secure a structure that would benefit most of those they purport to represent.

Indeed the Mayors have proven the case for change.

To their credit, Auckland City’s John Banks and Waitakere’s Bob Harvey seem to have glimpsed what the commission was trying to achieve when its three members delivered their report late last month. North Shore Mayor Andrew Williams and his Manukau counterpart, Len Brown, seem unable, however, to see beyond the prospect that their mayoral chains will have to be stowed for good after the next local body election, possibly now two years away.

I would agree that Harvey has been constructive.

The kerfuffle with which the four mayors responded to the Government’s post-commission plans simply underlines why much of the rest of New Zealand regards their politics as toxic and why reorganisation of local government north of the Bombay Hills is urgent.

You won’t get integrated public transport and a proper roading strategy until you have one Council.

Mr Banks is itching to be mayor of an Auckland “supercity” and has tried, unsuccessfully, to remain above the fray. But he is at odds with the leftist minority on his council and certainly with his North Shore counterpart, who has an idiosyncratic approach to local governance.

Heh that is a euphemism.