Margaret Evans: Super 'Queen City' could be New Zealand's top model

Other cities, such as Hamilton, should follow Auckland's Super City lead. Photo / Kenny Rodger

Opinion

Auckland's proposed Super City status is setting the tone across New Zealand.

There's a mounting view that the reform medicine should be rapidly rolled out throughout the nation to cure the pox infecting the twin houses of local and regional government elsewhere.

The preparatory work has already been done by the royal commission, and its comprehensive Big Picture report on weak and fragmented governance and poor community engagement is in general applicable to the entire local government sector.

The call now is for the nation's other metropolitan centres to be reforged as Super Cities too: Hamilton, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin.

And the provincial centres, following on from the Gisborne model. Federated Farmers Phil York's opinion piece on May 26 accurately portrayed the urban-rural synergies of New Zealand contemporary culture. Nationwide local government reform is inevitable, so why not the Full Monty now?

The Auckland timetable allows ample opportunity for the Government and the public to focus on the details, with the Auckland establishment group in place and the select committee consultation and submission processes programmed.

Some slippage could be allowed for the enabling legislation, from April to June next year, ready for the 2010 local government elections and a new era for the nation.

There's already popular support on key elements. The best bet seems to be executive mayors, plus community boards to enhance village-level democracy and citizen input.

The demise of regional councils would attract few mourners. The most passionate concern is the need to cobble bureaucracy and eradicate non-productive sinecures, a reflection of central government's own in-house public sector challenge.

For all those keen on local democracy, a core factor is the proposed "executive" role for the mayor to replace the "weak mayor" model with its often toxic "primus inter pares" foundation and usurping officials.

The best model is London's, and the best response to concerns about accountability is the voters' replacement of that city's Ken Livingstone with Boris Johnson last year.

Although there is strong formal authority with the London position, that mayor needs to consult, and forge cross-community relationships to unscramble parochial disputes and advance the city agenda.

This is as it should be. The Clark Labour government refused to tackle this topic during the 2002 Local Government Act reform, despite a strong lobby following the sacking of the dysfunctional Rodney District Council and widespread concerns at ineffective councils - and the behind-the-scenes power of chief executives officers.

The change is now overdue. British local government specialist Professor Robin Hambleton says (Herald, May 26) that the royal commission did not quite get it right on this key point and we could be even worse off with a "featherweight mayor".

London's model clearly puts the mayor "in charge", as the principal executive accountable to both council and public, and legally required to act on specified matters. This displaces the CEO's position and powers in our current structure, although professional managers are retained.

London's structure also recognises the mayor's leadership role and complex responsibilities way beyond those who think it is simply a chairman of the board job. Such merged executive authority is the essential element for the future, and one supported by public opinion.

After all, mayors have led "city states" worldwide for 2500 years. It is a commonly understood role, even if not portrayed clearly in current law.

I suggest the new era should also bring term limitations for mayors and councillors. The international standard suggests a maximum of two terms.

It's a succession policy that ensures new talent is drawn into local government. Campaign spending limits keep the election door open.

Twenty years ago in 1989, the drive and courage of Cabinet minister Michael Bassett and the Local Government Commission's Sir Brian Elwood, a former mayor of Palmerston North, collapsed more than 700 local councils and boards into 86 city, district and regional councils.

There was rabid opposition - particularly from within the local government sector - as vested interests fought to stop or at least delay the reforms. Many others were delighted.

The 1989 rationalisation aimed to bring "efficiency, effectiveness, transparency and accountability" to local government and the new framework required long-term planning with an emphasis on community input.

A sticking point was the application of the 1988 State Sector Act model to the relationship between the elected wing and the staff. Mayors and councillors were confined to a solitary role monitoring the CEOs, who were prescribed significant powers and charged with developing the council organisation.

The elected wing would sign off plans, but CEOs would prepare them, along with budgets and policies. Today there's an annual avalanche of plans and strategies, council staff and costs have exponentially increased, and the public in frustration and en masse has deserted involvement with participatory democracy.

We are ready for another new era, and the economic crisis provides a further incentive. As an Auckland neighbour and recent short-term resident, and with experience as both a mayor and councillor, I enthuse about a world-ranked Queen City.

It can lead the entire nation into positive change for the future. If the recipe is right.

* Margaret Evans is a former mayor of Hamilton.