KEY POINTS:
The big event for those few hardy democrats - or dowdy sadomasochists, depending on your point of view - who follow local government, is the forthcoming elections.
Nominations are now open and the fate of councils, trusts and health boards throughout New Zealand will be decided over
the next couple of months.
Never mind the oil shocks and food shocks, there have already been plenty of election shocks in local government.
The sudden announcement by Michael Laws, Mayor of Wanganui and radio host, that he will be running again was certainly a surprise after three years of emphatic denial that he would run for a second term.
He is one of the most abrasive, insulting, aggressive, put-down merchants in New Zealand politics and was a role model for Rodney Hide and John Banks, until Rodney Hide had a religious experience during Dancing with the Stars and John Banks decided to become 'Mr Nice Guy'.
I spoke at length with Deborah Coddington during a celebrity spelling bee TV show about Michael Laws and Deborah had decided that Michael was an un-reformable, recidivist insulter who was in denial.
She once challenged him for writing a very nasty column about her desertion from politics since she married a rich lawyer. He simply denied that his column was insulting. "He just can't help himself" she concluded.
The other big surprise is that John Banks is leading the mayoral race in Auckland, according to polls.
I'm a great believer in polls, not because they reflect the results, but because they create the results.
Everyone likes to back a winner and if you establish a lead in the polls, then you will probably win the elections. Polls are a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The outcome of the next local government elections in Auckland may not be all that relevant.
Both John Key and Helen Clark have announced that there will be major electoral changes in Auckland.
Personally I doubt that a major restructuring will solve Auckland's problems, but everyone I talk to is convinced that it will.
I went through the big cull of 1989 when Auckland's 21 mayors were reduced to 7. Everyone, including myself, agreed that this was a good thing.
But far more important than a reduction in mayors was the shift of power to the CEO's that resulted from this reformation this great leap forward.
Mayors soon discovered that CEO's hired and fired the staff rather than the mayor and councillors and that the tenders process (the letting of all contracts) was also run by senior management.
Once the CEO's controlled the staff and the purse strings, the mayors became little more than show ponies; ribbon cutters; figureheads and promoters for their regions.
The Higher Salaries Commission recognises the variation in power and pays mayors less than half of what the CEOs earn.
Auckland thinks it will solve all its problems by having one big super city and a Lord Mayor.
The real challenge I believe is who on earth would be the CEO? Auckland already has a Cabinet Minister; most of the benefits from a national petrol tax and some excellent local body leaders.
No amount of restructuring will change the fundamental dynamics of growth and geography.
Another personal interest I have in Auckland is that if Sir Barry Curtis doesn't win in Manukau and I do, then I will be the longest serving mayor in New Zealand and the longest serving mayor in the 150 year history of Invercargill.
Not bad, considering I've been arrested 33 times, imprisoned twice and spent 5 years in periodic detention centres. Oh how life is full of surprises.
