Editorial: Goff favourite but needs to exert control

Editorial

Phil Goff is the instant front-runner, if not a near certainty, to be the next mayor of Auckland. He starts the race with more name recognition than any other candidate who has entered this far out from the election in 11 months. He is well known to have been a hard-working, competent Cabinet minister in two Labour governments since going to Parliament 34 years ago. He was not captivating as a party leader, and nor is he likely to be if he becomes the frontman for Auckland's local government, but the Super City had a showman for its first three years and few would want another.

Pointedly, Mr Goff offered to bring "a different personality" to the role in his announcement on Sunday. The pity was that he did not offer much else that was different, or indeed much at all. He promises to eliminate wasteful spending and needless bureaucracy. So do they all. He aims for rate rises no higher than at present. He supports higher density residential development and the central rail link. He will not allow the port to expand but he will not sell it, or even shares in it. He will not sell any "strategic assets".

These are all off-the-shelf positions for a candidate from Mr Goff's side of politics. Nothing he said on Sunday gave any sign he has been thinking deeply or originally about Auckland and the problems of the council, and what he might do with the sole executive powers of the mayor. Mr Goff has had a long time to consider these things. He has been toying with the idea of standing for mayor since it became apparent Len Brown would not be re-elected, and he has been Labour's spokesman on Auckland affairs.

Local government had not previously featured high in his political interests. His ministerial career took him into foreign affairs and overseas trades. He has had no career outside elected politics and his campaign for mayor will need to overcome the impression it is just an opportune job for one who has gone as far as he will in Parliament.

But at least as a minister Mr Goff appeared to be on top of his officials and advisers, and that, more than anything, is what Auckland needs in its mayor. If Mr Brown was exerting authority over the council bureaucracy in his first term, he has been incapable since. Council officers and subsidiary organisations are making decisions that catch elected representatives unawares.

The elected members seem to spend much of every day in meetings where they are given voluminous material to absorb but little to decide. One of them, Christine Fletcher, described their frustrations in an open letter to Mr Goff published in the Herald last month. It brought no response.

Mr Goff would probably have less patience than Mr Brown with the palaver that inflates meeting agendas these days. Auckland urgently needs someone to take control and give the council members something useful to do. Mr Goff may be the right man, but he needs to show he knows what needs to be done.