Brian Rudman: Hats off to our saviours, the cone rangers of 2003

COMMENT

Aucklanders of the year? No contest there - the award goes to the indefatigable cone people who saved priceless Puketapapa (Mt Roskill) from the road-builders.

For 25,000 years, Mt Roskill has dominated the local landscape. Thanks to John Street, Greg Smith, Linda Vink and the other activists of the Auckland Volcanic Cones Society, its immediate future now seems secure.

They did not give up when those supposed to be protecting this unique landmark did. The roll of shame is long. Auckland City and Regional Councils, the Department of Conservation and the Conservation Board can all hang their heads, along with a million or so apathetic Aucklanders. But John Street and his team soldiered on, always hoping for a miracle.

It came in May, in the shape of a long-forgotten act of Parliament, introduced into the House in 1915 by Prime Minister William Massey with the very modern words: "The volcanic hills in and around the city of Auckland are being destroyed ... and the legislation has been framed with a view to preventing their destruction."

After a drawn-out period of denial, the cocky road-builders, Transit New Zealand, had to eat humble pie and concede defeat. They are now trying to negotiate a way around the volcano, not through it.

Let me add a final name to the honours list: Austen Bell, treasurer of the action group fighting its own battles over the quarrying at the Three Kings cones.

Mr Bell was the miracle-worker who alerted the cone society to the existence of the 1915 act. Without him, Mt Roskill might be damaged beyond repair.

The year began with a group of the other ilk, the organisers of the hateful Blackheart campaign aimed at Team New Zealand defectors Russell Coutts and Brad Butterworth. It was heart-warming that public opinion - apart from a few nutters - soon had the Blackhearters scurrying back under their stone.

Doesn't the America's Cup debacle seem such a long time ago? So, too, Te Papa's apparently doomed bid to erect a $10 million glass mausoleum alongside the Maritime Museum in memory of Sir Peter Blake.

In June, Te Papa, under pressure from Auckland City, promised to come up with revised plans for the folly. We're still waiting. One hopes the $5.5 million in private sponsorship has not materialised and the project dies a quiet death.

I'm more optimistic about the alternative memorial I suggested: buying the Hauraki Gulf treasure of Kaikoura Island, off Great Barrier, to prevent it falling into foreign hands.

Whether as a Blake memorial or not, future generations will find it incomprehensible if the chance to bring this gem into public ownership is lost - just as I find it incomprehensible that it wasn't snapped up in 1995 when it sold privately for about $2 million.

So far, Conservation Minister Chris Carter is the only one to show the colour of his money, pledging $1 million towards the purchase price. Auckland mayors have shown support but are still competing with one another about how small their respective city's contributions will be. Please guys, just get on with it.

This was a vintage year for those zany moments. Early on, Ngati Whatua consultant Jane West declared the shells selected for hugely expensive Esmonde Rd nesting beds for eight rare dotterels, culturally unacceptable.

The dotterel, in turn, decided the replacement shells were not to their liking, and returned from whence they'd come.

And where would we have been without eccentric Auckland District Health Board chairman Wayne Brown, wanting to abolish the Starship brand from the children's hospital because it had been so well-marketed that there were kids "thinking they're missing out on something by not being there".

Meanwhile, there were rich pickings on the council front, with Manukau City agonising over whether neckties should be compulsory, North Shore battling whether or not to invoke divine assistance, and the Ma Grundys at Auckland City hatching ways to drive prostitutes out of town.

And let's not forget the $300,000 anti-noise barrier folly outside the regional botanic gardens at Manurewa, which had to be pulled down for reflecting noise across the motorway into neighbouring homes.

On a more positive front, the long-moribund Auckland Festival struggled back into life. The fact that it happened was success enough for me. Here's hoping the 2003 event was a harbinger of better things.

Of course, no wrap-up of Auckland affairs would be complete without mentioning the ongoing transport crisis.

All that remains is to wish everyone a fun holiday season, and not too much congestion in the coming year.

Thanks for all the letters, emails and phone calls. I've answered most, but some do disappear under the middens on my desk. They're all appreciated.

My column resumes on January 21.