Editorial: Warm fuzzies won't get city moving

To the victors go the spoils. And the victors of the elections to the Auckland City Council have lost little time in recasting the council's organisation and programme in a distinctly left-wing direction. The triumphant "City Vision" team made its dominance clear yesterday, bypassing even the popularly elected new mayor. Aucklanders might have imagined they were electing Dick Hubbard to the post but it seems he was not even in town for the council's first substantial announcement. It was delivered by Deputy Mayor Bruce Hucker, who withdrew from the mayoral race as soon as Mr Hubbard entered it and who now seems to be pulling the strings.

The programme he has announced will warm the hearts of various sectional interests but not the hearts of most ratepayers. It proposes to put the council back into housing subsidies for the old and poor, which the previous council had properly regarded as a central government responsibility. There is good reason to finance all forms of social welfare though a national taxation pool; the larger the pool the more fairly the cost is spread. Auckland City residents and business ratepayers will be carrying a double burden to appease the new council's social conscience.

The programme contains many other warm and generous objectives that might not be individually expensive but in sum they could be a recipe for the kind of follies seen from the Government's community grants scheme. The new Auckland council plans, among other things, to "ensure affordable access to public internet email facilities". It intends to develop social policies for "communities of interest" such as "third age" groups and "gay, lesbian and transgender people". The new council looks forward to relationships with organisations such as the Peace Foundation, Oxfam and TradeAid. Sister cities will be nurtured.

It has not entirely forgotten the city's economic development and it is not at all afraid to select a few sectors of it particular blessing. Creative industries head the list. They and others can expect support, especially if they meet "sustainable business practices". One or two personal wish-lists are indulged. A local councillor's dream of a footbridge from Parnell to the museum has the team's endorsement and Dr Hucker's pet hate, the speedway at Western Springs, will be reviewed.

Predictably, the city's roading has been give a low priority, listed below railway development, bus improvements, ferries, cycleways and footpaths, in that order. Road tolls and London-style congestion charges, which would address Auckland's most urgent problem, are not in this council's sights. Instead it hopes to reduce traffic by encouraging "business work plans" and other "people-based solutions". The proposed eastern corridor will lose its roading element and be developed for public transport alone.

It will, of course, sell no assets and adopt something called "an integrated investment" approach to infrastructure, which might mean that the cost of wastewater drainage and the like will be a little muddier in the council's accounts. In traditional leftist style, the council plans to get rid of user charges for rubbish collection and a uniform general charge. Under rating changes to be announced on November 18, owners of low-value properties will pay less and higher valued properties more.

All of this the council presumes its voters want. It is mistaken. Voters wanted a change of leadership and a solution to their main frustration - road congestion. Public transport alone is never going to reduce more than a fraction of it. If this council hopes to survive the next election it will need do to come down from its clouds of vague intentions and make more practical plans that benefit the entire community before it is very much older.