Opinion
Is John Banks the new, new-born, born-again or just second-hand, Mayor of Auckland? One thing is certain: he's not the ruler.
But there was more than a whiff of the autocrat about his day-one, grand-presidential announcement that he will, as he promised, withhold the ratepayer funding pledged by
the outgoing council for the upgrade of Eden Park for the 2011 Rugby World Cup. The mayor bears a single vote in council and needs to persuade a majority of councillors to go along with his plan.
In the case of the Eden Park issue, he may have the backing of the conservative C&R majority elected with him, although the last group of C&R councillors voted only last month to provide the funding and at least one of the new breed supports it.
The last council's $50-million pledge was more illusory than real, anyway, subject as it was to the when-hell-freezes-over agreement of the Auckland Regional Council to match it.
Still, Aucklanders have a right to feel that a Government happy to pay $1 billion for a waterfront stadium should come up with the cash for Eden Park. The upgrade is a national obligation that comes with hosting rights awarded to the country, not the city, and the economic benefits of the cup will flow through the country as a whole.
The shock win of Andrew Williams in North Shore plainly owes something to his opposition to the Whenuapai airport, whose approach flight paths will be above his city.
But the triumph of such nimbyism simply serves to underline the need for a regional supercity. The region needs another airport - not least to break the Mangere monopoly - and parochial politics must not derail important infrastructural developments.
Williams sensibly, if self-interestedly, takes a wider view of the problems with the harbour bridge clip-ons, revealed in this newspaper last weekend. That vital link is a national infrastructural asset.
While the Government has its cheque book out to pay for the park, it should sign off - and quickly - on solving the bridge problems, before catastrophic failure turns from risk to reality.
