KEY POINTS:
The challenge Auckland faces to get ready for Rugby World Cup 2011 brought a collective rush of blood to the heads of some of its leading lights.
If Auckland was to put on a show, it was obvious the local mayors needed to get their act together and
deliver on the Metro project's multiple proposals to sort out the region's barely coping infrastructure. A secret meeting of the mayors of Auckland, Manukau, Waitakere and North Shore cities on September 7 to agree on a "super city" presided over by a lord mayor was not only roundly rejected by their fellow councillors but drew opprobrium from a wide range of Aucklanders.
The mayors, Dick Hubbard, Sir Barry Curtis, Bob Harvey and George Wood, had not invited the mayors of Pakapkura, Rodney and Franklin to the gathering or the chair of Auckland Regional Council, Mike Lee.
But senior Auckland business people were in on the plan adding fuel to the resultant furore which effectively took local government leadership and reform off the Metro Project's immediate agenda.
It took prodding by Government and leadership by Papakura Mayor John Robertson to get governance reform back again - albeit in a less radical fashion.
"It's important to pull the egos together," says Robertson, who has regional mayoral oversight over the subsequent drive to form new reform options.
Inevitably some of those options involve existing cities ceding control of key infrastructural companies to new bodies, or, a beefed up supra-regional authority. But Robertson suggests proposals to levy the seven authorities are likely to be resisted by some councillors - "No taxation, without representation."
High-ranking officials associated with the reform drive have mixed views on its potential success. "It's not bold enough"... "too incremental"... "the government's got to drive it a lot harder than it's currently doing" - is a common refrain.
If Auckland really requires big bang reforms - such as a super-city - it will probably be up to the Government to deliver them lifting when legislation is put into Parliament next year to ensure new structures are in place before the October local body elections. The furore over the waterfront stadium may have tempered the Government's appetite for change. "Leadership and governance" was early identified as an issue in Metro Project's work-in-progress plan, only to be replaced by a call to demonstrate "strong and united leadership" when the action plan was finally made public.
Deloitte chairman Nick Main - who was associated with the drive to create a Greater Auckland Council - remains adamant that unless Auckland establishes an oganisation that is capable of implementing effectively, it is unlikely that it could become a successful world-class city.
Main is concerned lack of progress on this score could jeopardize challenges currently facing Auckland _ like ensuring economic growth, the readiness to host Rugby World Cup 2011, the development of the waterfront and the backlog of infrastructure development,
Most of the Metro project's promoters agree that some form of reform is needed, but the mayors' handling of the issue so enflamed public opinion that within days of their announcement, the "super city" and lord mayor proposals were dead in the water.
Aucklanders are yet to be convinced that further reform of local government will result in benefits that will create a better regional business climate. Ratepayers point to the apparent failure of the 1989 reforms, which replaced 30 councils in the Auckland region (including the regional authority) with eight (including the regional council).
Observed The Aucklander: "Research shows costs per ratepayer are higher for large councils than for smaller ones, Economies of scale were promised but have never eventuated. Rates increased well above the inflation rate."
But perhaps the greatest failure in the public mind since 1989 has been in infrastructure development, notably for transport and energy. Only now, nearly 40 years after construction began, is work under way to complete Auckland's motorway network. The region has yet to have a secure energy supply after the lights went out for six weeks in 1998 and there has been no agreement on Transpower's proposal to upgrade transmission between Whakamaru in South Waikato and Otahuhu.
Better local governance, critics argue, would have kept roading and electricity transmission development in tandem with the region's growth. Governance was a key ingredient identified by business for Auckland's transformation to a world-class region. Prime Minister Helen Clark and Finance Minister Michael Cullen, long-time supporters of some sort of Auckland "super city", are reserving their positions. Clark had initially said that more competence at a regional level would produce financial efficiencies and offer more scope to invest in a lot of big-picture projects. She added that the issue was about recognising that Auckland was "on the cusp of either going all the way to being a metro region of scale, or lapsing back and muddling along".
The National Party's spokesman for Auckland issues, Richard Worth, said National was far more committed to the aims of the Metro Project than any particular local governance structure for Auckland. "We believe the Rugby World Cup 2011 should be seen at the timeline for the implementation of a whole lot of improved infrastructure. We are more interested in the provision of infrastructure than the governance issue."