Brian Rudman: Where is Hide's messiah hiding?

The last person we need presiding over the new and powerful mini-state of Auckland is some political neophyte.

The myth of a messiah, just awaiting the call to lead us out of the wretched ordinariness of our daily lives into the promised land, dies hard. History is littered with the wreckage of these failed dreams.

But apostles of hope over experience keep popping up - the latest in the form of Act leader, and Minister of Local Government, Rodney Hide.

Mr Hide says the saviour of Auckland is not to be found among the current crop of local politicians. We must seek the super leader of our new Super City further afield.

He told Radio New Zealand last week that none of the current Auckland mayors is right to lead the new Auckland Council.

Although there was nothing actually wrong with any of them, he said the Super City would be better led by "a fresh face to help invigorate the new Auckland".

At the risk of shocking the incumbents by speaking out in their support, I think Mr Hide's thesis is at best risky and at worst dangerous. The last person we need presiding over the new and powerful mini-state of Auckland is some political neophyte. Especially when, given Mr Hide's political instincts, it's a good bet that the messiah he yearns for - or has already secretly anointed - is lurking in one of the city's boardrooms.

Auckland City's last one-term mayor was proof enough that the hierarchical nature of business management - particularly when you own the company - is not the best pre-school for the rough and tumble of the democratic playground.

More than 18 months after his resounding defeat at the ballot box, cereal boss Dick Hubbard is still licking his wounds in public, and blaming his bete noir, one-time City Vision team leader Bruce Hucker. He told the parliamentary select committee into Auckland governance that he supported giving stronger powers to the new super mayor because of his experience of being hamstrung by his "power-hungry" deputy mayor, Dr Hucker.

He said he had been elected on a vision but then obstructed in its implementation by Dr Hucker's "voting bloc"of councillors. For this reason, the mayor should have the power to hire and fire his deputy.

What Mr Hubbard refused to accept at the time, and still doesn't, is the limits of power any one politician, even a mayor, has in a democracy. Mr Hubbard was a good man with some good ideas, but he failed to appreciate that unlike running a private company, power resides, in the final count, not in the hands of the top dog, but in the will of the majority. And long may that remain so.

Local politics in New Zealand is further complicated by the mayor, who is elected at large, having only one vote. He or she can claim all they like about being there at the will of the people, but so too are the councillors, and in the end, the successful mayor is the one who has learned the art of deal-making and political compromise.

Under the legislation as presently proposed, the new super mayor will have the power to draw up budgets and select the deputy mayor and the committee chairs, which is a notch or two more in the mayoral power belt than the present mayor has, but it's still far from creating the executive dictator that some right-wing business groups favour.

The mayor will still have to get the majority of councillors on side to get his budget and policy passed. He or she will still have to be a master of the political game. And that's as it should be. Our leaders should always be aware they're only as good as their last majority vote.

The big danger of electing a political outsider to high office, be he an itinerant from Hawkes Bay or a knight of the business roundtable, is the voter has no idea who he is there to serve. The outstanding example in New Zealand history of a businessman entering politics to serve himself and his cronies was Thomas Russell, lawyer, businessman, good Christian and property speculator, who got himself elected to Parliament in 1861 and by 1863 was minister of war, presiding over the land wars, busy confiscating Maori lands in the Waikato for the benefit of himself and his legal clients.

While land confiscation is considered beyond the pale these days, those of a suspicious mind might worry about the fate of publicly owned assets such as water, under the rule of "fresh out of the boardroom" leaders. At least with career politicians you know what you're getting.

In his two-volume history of Auckland City Council politics, Graham Bush highlights how, from the beginning, the mayors came not just overwhelmingly from a business, merchant or professional background, but also from the kindergarten of the council chamber. They knew which way was up, as far as Auckland politics and business were concerned, and just as importantly, councillors and voters alike could judge from past performance how they were likely to perform as mayor.

Eighteen months before we select our first super-mayor, three current mayors are already jostling for pole position, one declared - Auckland Mayor John Banks - and two undeclared, Auckland Regional Council chairman Mike Lee and Manukau Mayor Len Brown. All have lengthy backgrounds of public service to their fellow Aucklanders, and track records that are wide open to public scrutiny. To exclude them, in favour of Mr Hide's unnamed and unproven messiah, goes against history and common sense.