Kapai's Corner: Brown v Banks more than about Super City

THE race for the Super City mayoralty is now on and the irony in the two surnames of the standing candidates is what this race will be all about. Not even David Letterman could have asked for two better polarising surnames.

This election will be a doozy and it will be absolutely all about Brown versus Banks, the surnames not the candidates. Maori against money and colour versus cash is the underlying kaupapa of this election. Throw in the cross party cultural crusade that is going to test the mettle  of The Maori Party then its going to get hotter than a hangi stone, especially now that the dancing dwarf has duped Captain Keyora with his my way or the highway ultimatum.
 
And for my two bobs' worth of BroBrown beating MoneyBanks this race for the big boss of our biggest city will be as big as Obama and a defining moment in the history of Aotearoa.
The battle lines are drawn (without a Cameron in sight) and this Super City election will mobilise Maori to vote much as the hikoi did for the formation of the Maori Party. And when BroBrown wins, as I believe he will, his election promise of guaranteeing Maori a seat at the top table will happen.
And what will it mean for the makeup of our own BroBOP super city, when not if that happens?
The dilemma here as it will be in Auckland is will the seat be allocated or elected?
To have a Maori seat on our council by allocation as advocated by Labour and Len Brown opens up a huge henake of challenges. Will the Maori seat represent all three local iwi, and will they have the intellectual capacity to absorb the complexities of local body governance? If we are to drill down into who sits on what Maori boards in Tauranga Moana as a trustee, board member or in a position of power then perhaps the answer  is easily found.
One of the  most competent Maori CEO's once gave me a litmus test to a candidate's competence. He said if a potential candidate to a Trusteeship or board position used repetitive lazy lingo, then their performance will be also lazy, repetitive and incompetent. He gave me three telltale phrases to keep an ear out for:
 At the end of the day, Going Forward, and In terms of were all dead giveaways of intellectual incapacity, and if they were intermittently garnished with To be perfectly honest or honestly speaking then they couldn't cut it as a councillor.
There is no question that the voice of Maori has been silenced by non-representation on local body boards and the introduction by Mita Ririnui of a Labour-sponsored bill that allowed Maori seats on Environment Bay Of Plenty has been a success. Even if one of them has been temporarily stood down.

 I often get asked the question especially in light of recent criticism of my column why are there so many bigots in the Bay and the answer is in part the level of understanding and the lack of representation by Maori for Maori at the top table in town.
If we want change and I believe most of us do when we see bigotry and violence spiralling out of control on both sides of the cultural coin (78 per cent increase in our schools over the last 10 years) then we have to change the thinking at the top.
And there has to be a deeper level of competent governance from Maori who stand as trustees and board members for these key decision making boards.
A case in hand is the current challenge of allowing Ports of Tauranga to dredge a deeper channel in our harbour to allow larger ships to carry our cargo overseas. On one hand there is the environmental impact to our kai moana and on the other there is the economic benefits. It almost mirrors the challenge faced by the recent raruraru on poisonous sprays to our environment and our economy.
Important kaupapa (issues) like this will take wise informed heads to weigh up the short-term benefits against the long-term losses - and then to take all of the information back out to the people, kanohi ki te kanohi (face to face) - who stand to lose or gain from their decisions.
One thing is for sure. Lazy lingo won't get what we are looking for. To be quite honest, in terms of going forward, at the end of the day  it's night-time and not my time - to vote money or Maori, Banks or Brown.

Pai marire
broblack@xtra.co.nz