Brian Rudman: Dear Helen, here's the wishlist

COMMENT

A sudden collapse in the polls and what does Labour do to buy back support? Extend breast cancer screening, increase the minimum wage, sack a minister and abandon a school rationalisation programme that was supposed to save taxpayers $90 million.

I don't know about voters south of the Bombay Hills, but there's precious little there to get us Jafas back on side.

Have Helen Clark and her team forgotten that elections are won or lost according to the whims of the third of the population who live in Greater Auckland? Get us in her pocket and she can relax. But how?

First I suggest the big gesture, the flashy instant fireworks that we Aucklanders can never resist. Stop the dithering and buy Kaikoura Island , declaring it the missing link in the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park.

Sports Minister Trevor Mallard, who, as Education Minister, is back-tracking at the moment, could abandon his plans to invest $2.5 million in the Blake glass box memorial and invest it in Kaikoura instead. If Helen Clark is looking for a quick winner, this is it. It attracted 72 per cent public support back in June last year and there's nothing to suggest enthusiasm has waned.

While we're talking the marine park, the Government could earn a few more Brownie points by officially opening the thing. The legislation creating it was signed into law on February 27, 2000, at a ceremony attended by then Conservation Minister Sandra Lee and Sir Peter Blake. But four years on, what Ms Lee declared was our first "National Park of the Sea" is still awaiting a formal opening.

Then, of course, there's the traffic. If she solved that, Aucklanders would vote Helen Clark Prime Minister for life, and mayor as well.

In Metro magazine's TNS New Zealand poll of 1000 Aucklanders last November, 90 per cent were worried about congested roads, making it our top concern. Despite the clamourings of the road lobby, 66 per cent said they would use public transport to get to work if it was good enough. The Government's $1.6 billion Auckland transport package, which was unveiled last December, reflected this concern.

But since then, nothing - not out on the streets where it matters, anyway.

If Helen Clark was to appoint a transport overlord, charged with banging local body heads together, ordering new trains and buses and getting the system up and running without delay, there would be mass ululating in the streets. Particularly if the new administrator's arrival was linked to a procession of tumbrels up Queen St carrying the local bureaucrats and politicians responsible for the present mess.

The Wellington politicians and bureaucrats worry about interfering in Auckland affairs. Most Aucklanders would say, interfere away. Nothing Wellington could impose on us could be worse than the abuse we've inflicted on ourselves for the past 50 years.

Many Aucklanders would no doubt welcome any promise of more roads. But as the next such proposal on Transit New Zealand's books involves driving a highway through or under the Prime Minister's electorate, she might be reluctant to promote that potential vote winner.

If not more roads, Helen Clark could always win our hearts and minds with a bit of law and order. Eighty per cent of Aucklanders agree the city is more dangerous than it was five years ago, 39 per cent rating crime and violence the issue they are most concerned about.

A pledge that police would turn up to a burglary the day it was reported would be a good start. I've already reported of the business next to my home which had to wait five days for Constable Plod to turn up to a then long-cold trail.

Two weeks and an expensive new alarm later, he was burgled again. Thanks to the magic of monitoring, he was on site within minutes of the alarm going off. The police emergency operator insisted he stay in his car, that police would attend to check out the premises. They did, four days later.

Somehow I don't think an increase in the minimum wage, or better breast screening or a review of Maori funding will attract his vote back. A police officer who answers phone calls just might.

* Something totally different. Pat Sunde, respected West Auckland art teacher for many years, is not the Mrs Sunde who had me strapped many years ago. My suffering occurred in a city to the south, which I won't name in case there's another innocent teacher of the same name.