Auckland mayoralty: Shane Te Pou - The difference between Efeso Collins and Wayne Brown

Auckland Mayoral Candidates Wayne Brown and Efeso Collins. Photo / Greg Bowker

Opinion

OPINION:

Whatever you say about this year's mayoral contest in Auckland, at least we're blessed with a crystal clear choice. Frontrunners Wayne Brown and Efeso Collins offer two vastly divergent, both legitimate, visions for Auckland and views about the role of Mayor itself. On both measures, they are poles apart in a way that should be clarifying for voters.

Wayne Brown embodies the Mr Fixit model of the mayoralty. Casting himself as a deeply experienced problem solver and businessman whose focus is on the council as an institution in dire need of a firm hand like his.

Efeso Collins is a two-term councillor with good command of policy details, but he sees the mayoralty in far more expansive terms. His essential offer is to lead the city, not just chair the council.

As I've written previously, the mayoralty doesn't carry much in the way of formal authority, even though, in Auckland's case, the Super City-enabling legislation does include some additional powers. For the most part, even if the Mayor enjoys stature and platform, ultimately they bring just one vote to the council table. Whether you're in the weeds or the treetops, whoever gets the job will need to build majorities with council colleagues to get anything done in policy or budget terms. Personal style, therefore, matters a lot, as does the ability to wield what diplomats call "soft power".

On that front, Brown troubles me.

Take, as an example, the time he was asked (by Collins, as it happens) why he lost the Far North Mayoralty.

"Wouldn't it be nice," Brown replied, "to have someone who came and kissed every baby and opened every cupboard with a sandwich inside? But I'm not that sort of guy."

Efeso Collins is a two-term councillor with good command of policy details. Photo / Greg Bowker

About engaging with young people, Brown said he prefers "vote-rich age groups", adding: "You can walk down the street and ask young people about what's coming up for an election and they really don't know."

Contrast that to Collins' answer in the same debate when asked his plan for younger Aucklanders.

"What I'm also seeing very clearly is that young people, in particular from the Rainbow community, Māori and Pacific communities, are challenged with housing, so ensuring they've got free public transport so they can get to university or to polytech and then looking at what we're doing a council already through the Southern Initiative and the Western Initiative, which is ensuring they've got transition points. So for those who don't go on to university, making sure we've got apprenticeship and internship opportunities," he said.

Brown is unapologetically nuts and bolts and even goes as far as to disparage anything resembling a long-term vision.

When asked to respond to Sir Peter Gluckman's report about future priorities for Auckland, Brown shot back: "It's great being able to solve problems which will take place 20 years after you've died. I'd love to have been paid a lot of money to do something for 50 years in the future and never be proved wrong."

In some ways, this feels like a contest between competing eras, as with the very 20th-century way Brown thinks about multiculturalism.

"In South Auckland, there's the Chinese Auckland community and our Indian Auckland community and our Pacific Auckland community [that] have their own spokespersons and speaking to them is a useful thing. I speak to the sports representatives of our major sports and know them as well."

Wayne Brown embodies the Mr Fixit model of the mayoralty, says Shane Te Pou. Photo / Dean Purcell

In the same debate, Brown said this of migrant communities: "They work hard, raise their children to be educated, a bit like our parents did for our generation. They're quite transactional. You know, they're really only interested in whether you ... they really want a businessman in charge. They're not too fussed about policies. They're quite simple, I like them."

This reflects some fairly outdated thinking, and that's the most generous way I can term it.

Brown sees an Auckland my kids couldn't recognise and, to be honest, it's fading in my memory too.

And that's the biggest issue I have with his candidacy.

Wayne Brown is a decent person with an admirable commitment to public service. He's also provided many people with a lot of jobs over many years.

All credit to him.

But, beyond failing to offer a vision for Auckland as it might be in the future, he keeps demonstrating in this campaign that he has no grasp of Auckland as it already is.

My support of Efeso Collins is neither surprising nor a secret. He gets where we've come from and where we're going. He is a politician who offers hope over grievance, and who brings the temperament, intelligence and personal attributes to be an effective Mayor around the council table and a leader for every corner of this city.

• Shane Te Pou (Ngāi Tūhoe) is a commentator, blogger and former Labour party activist.