Neither Labour nor National has covered itself in glory with this year's Auckland mayoral election.
Auckland's mayor is elected using the old first-past-the-post (FPP) voting system. Thatencourages a plethora of largely unknown candidates, hoping to win with a small share of a split vote and a low turnout.
A rational response by Labour and National would be a primary-election system. Voters could then finally choose between two clearly branded candidates, one broadly wanting more projects and services funded by higher rates or borrowing, and the other wanting to keep rates lower at the cost of some council activities and executive jobs.
Instead, the practice has been 20 or more candidates putting their names forward, mostly pretending to be "independent". Ludicrously, these have included Labour stalwarts Len Brown and Phil Goff, and long-serving National MP John Banks.
The farce has continued into 2022.
Former Ōtara-Papatoetoe Local Board chair and Manukau ward councillor Efeso Collins calls himself an independent, despite his campaign, run by left-wing academic and writer Max Harris, being endorsed by both Labour and the Greens.
Those endorsements were somewhat half-hearted, given Collins' social conservatism, including opposing marriage equality and abortion. During the campaign he has done urgent u-turns on both.
It may have worked. In the last published poll, Collins was clearly the front-runner, on 22 per cent.
Collins' pitch is visionary and long-term, but heavy on working groups and consultation processes. His most tangible promise is free public transport for everyone, with an unknown impact on rates. Were his self-imposed rates cap reached, they would leap by 50 per cent. "Delivery" is a weasel word argues Harris, his campaign manager.
Yet if anything, it's been more bizarre on the right. National's broken local-government arm, Communities and Residents (C&R), never really agreed on a mayoral candidate and became absorbed in internal politics. Not until July did it issue a brief two-sentence endorsement of Viv Beck, a friend of National's former Auckland Central MP Nikki Kaye.
Previously boss of Heart of the City, a lobby group funded by a special $4.3 million annual Auckland Council rate, Beck had been heavily involved in the development of the CBD and the various council events and festivals it hosts.
Nevertheless, like Collins, Beck had not been using her endorsement, still claiming to be "independent".
Beck's campaign had faced financial problems, not least the non-payment of $353,000 for social media work she ran up in February, March and April.
Former Saatchi & Saatchi boss Mike Hutcheson, the mastermind behind Len Brown and Goff's campaigns in 2010, 2013, 2016 and 2019, quit after one day with Beck.
Even as ballot papers arrived this weekend, there was no real sign of any Beck campaign, either in social media or mainstream advertising. She was relying on her central city record.
To the left's relief, her name remains on ballot papers, despite her being fourth in the last poll, with just 9 per cent support and no chance of winning.
Beck's shambolic campaign rendered C&R's statement in July that "she has the leadership skills and experience to deliver the best results for Aucklanders" as false as its assertion she was "the only centre-right candidate".
In truth, there were then too many centre-right candidates.
Among them was the ill-fated Leo Molloy, who deserves credit for at least shaking up and drawing attention to the race. He dropped out after the last poll put him third, on just 10 per cent. He will vote for Wayne Brown, second in the most recent poll and the only candidate capable of keeping Collins out.
Brown presents himself as a businessman, engineer, true fiscal conservative, genuine social liberal and "Mr Fixit" in the Steven Joyce mould. His campaign has been run by former National strategist Tim Hurdle and is chaired by Labour stalwart Chris Matthews.
While Brown is the most independent of the two remaining credible candidates, "Fix Auckland" appears beside his name on the ballot paper. The extent of Fix Auckland's mass membership is unknown.
Brown has received unpaid counsel from a wide range of people, including former prime ministers Helen Clark and John Key, Labour advertising guru and former Waitākere mayor Bob Harvey and me. He points to his business career and his roles under successive governments chairing organisations like Transpower, Vector, Kordia, the Land Transport Safety Authority and Auckland, Northland and Tairāwhiti district health boards as evidence of his management and leadership record.
Then-Health Minister Annette King supported Brown's leadership in the health sector. Her replacement, David Cunliffe, was less of a fan, declining to re-appoint him to his Auckland role. That's despite Brown claiming the new Auckland Hospital wing was completed on time and under budget under his chairmanship.
More controversial were Brown's two terms as Mayor of Far North, where he cut spending and caused enough disruption to earn himself investigations by the Auditor-General and Serious Fraud Office.
Neither found evidence of wrongdoing but his opponents, including in the media, have scoured both affairs, hoping to find mud that might stick. So far, none has. No doubt they will keep looking.
I met Brown in 2019 through our mutual interest in the future of Ports of Auckland. When he bought me a coffee in February this year to ask whether he should run, I was sceptical.
Brown and his wife may live off K Rd but he is neither a young man, nor contemporary in his language, nor prone to bold visions about 2070. Brown sold me on his one priority being to bring the council-owned organisations under control and force them to finish existing projects before fantasising about new ones.
Before Brown made up his mind, I told him to invest in a major market research programme to check his candidacy was viable.
It showed that, in a two-horse race between "a businessman and former mayor" on one hand and "a social worker and sitting councillor" on the other, the former would win. Even when Beck was still in the race and risking draining a few centre-right votes away from the more frugal Brown and making the bigger-spending Collins mayor, a traditional two-horse race is basically where the election ended up.
In Collins, there's one candidate who broadly wants more council projects and services funded by higher rates or borrowing. In Brown, there's one wanting to keep rates lower at the cost of some council activities and executive jobs.
All the jockeying and manoeuvring have worked at least as well as any primary elections. Now the voters get to choose.
- Matthew Hooton is an Auckland-based public relations consultant.
