Councillor: Axe Robyn Malcolm from Super City campaign

Robyn Malcolm. Photo / Doug Sherring

Outrageous Fortune star Robyn Malcolm, who made an outspoken attack on John Key's record, is to front an Auckland Council campaign to encourage recycling.

Council spokesman Glyn Walters said Malcolm, who MC'ed the Greens Party's election campaign opening, would be the face of the draft Waste Management and Minimisation Plan.

Malcolm on Sunday criticised the Prime Minister and his party for having an "unshakeable and abiding love of fossil fuels".

She said Mr Key "seems to be more interested in talking about his cats on the radio, being seen at the rugby and getting on the cover of the Woman's Weekly" than leading the country into the 21st century. She said the party and the PM had "an inability to follow through any promises of any kind".

The council plan will promote household user-pays rubbish and recycling across Auckland, among other things, with a public consultation to be launched around the time of the election. Auckland councillor Cameron Brewer wants Malcolm axed, saying she is "too partisan" to front the plan, and will "further paint the council into a left-wing political corner".

"Given Robyn Malcolm is clearly so anti the Government and the Prime Minister, she is far too partisan to front this all-important public consultation and plan," Mr Brewer said.

"Her personal politics will really colour this council and the plan itself. It is just not appropriate in local government to employ someone whose politics are so pointed to be fronting a public consultation campaign."

There will be an inference that "this is a zero-waste plan that the Green Party has signed up to" if Malcolm were to front it, he said.

He said because the waste management plan was a statutory requirement of the Government, the campaign should be fronted by someone who was seen as politically impartial.

"The mayor now needs to urgently reconsider whether she is the best ambassador to launch the plan."

But Mr Walters said Malcolm was selected "as a celebrity and well-known supporter of environmental issues".

"Auckland needs to deliver its waste services more efficiently, find better ways to reuse resources and send less waste to landfill, and manage costs," he said.

He said the campaign, including costs, was still being finalised.