KEY POINTS:
For all our sakes, let's hope the business leaders behind this week's campaign for "transformational reform of local government" are more successful at making money than they are at making political mischief.
If they're not, the economy is doomed.
Less than a week into their great battle to
"Fix Auckland", they are facing a humiliating defeat.
The word from Wellington is that the Department of Internal Affairs' report to the Cabinet next Monday rejects the revolutionary "one council" the business lobbyists crave, recommending instead, a minimalist approach to change.
The official report is said to concede that an independent commission to investigate radical reform is an option.
But then it rules out the idea, recommending instead that the Government adopt the wishy-washy fine-tuning of the status quo proposed in the recent report drawn up by a joint committee of Auckland local government bureaucrats and - no surprise - their brother pen-pushers in Internal Affairs.
Behind in the polls and lacking a parliamentary majority, the Government is expected to choose the easy life and support tinkering over upheaval.
Which goes to show that the 11 Auckland community organisations promoting an act of Parliament to do their own little bit of regional reform were correct to soldier on regardless. If they'd stood back and waited, as some recommended, for a new One Auckland Council to look after their funding needs on a regional basis, they'd have died waiting.
By pushing on, they now have a private bill (details: www.together.org.nz), due to be introduced into Parliament on August 15 by the Minister for Auckland Issues, Judith Tizard.
The bill, modelled on similar legislation supporting the Auckland War Memorial Museum and the Museum of Transport and Technology, will, if passed, ensure equitable funding from the whole region for groups ranging from surf lifesaving and coastguard services to the rescue helicopter trust, the Zoo, the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra and the Auckland Festival.
The Internal Affairs report which the Cabinet is expected to endorse on Monday does propose that a Greater Auckland Council - its name for a slightly enhanced Auckland Regional Council - assume ownership and/or funding responsibilities for the museums and the 11 organisations promoted in the new funding bill.
But there are so many ifs and buts and local jealousies to be negotiated before that minefield can be crossed, that to delay introduction of the Auckland Regional Amenities Funding Bill in the expectation that political consensus will break out would be madness.
The organisations need guaranteed financial assistance now, not in some mystical future parallel universe.
The next hurdle is getting the bill into the parliamentary system. The promoters need the votes of a majority - 61 - of parliamentarians, to get it to a select committee for detailed consideration. Labour has agreed to support it. Also on side are Act and the Greens. But without National's support, it still needs further small party support.
Unfortunately National is being tricky. Its arts spokesman, former Creative New Zealand board member Chris Finlayson, is well briefed but refuses to comment.
And he refuses to give a personal view on the grounds he's "a humble servant of the National Party".
Leader John Key's spokesman says "Mr Key has taken some soundings but has yet to form a final view.
Caucus is yet to make a decision on whether it will support this bill, but I am told a discussion is due to be held next week."
The fear among the bill's promoters is that, for the sake of playing politics and embarrassing the Government, National will refuse to back a first reading in the hope it falls over and Labour will look weak.
As parliamentary horseplay goes, that would be a merry prank. But I rather doubt that the parents of the 20,000 school children taught surf safety by Auckland's life saving organisations each year, or the 400,000 voters who attend concerts and opera and ballet performances served by the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra annually, will see such scuttling of a dream as amusing.