I #*! Super City: Why Metro has got it wrong. Really

Metro's Simon Wilson: Cheerleading Rodney Hide's Auckland "super city" power grab.

FOR sheer Pollyanna puffery, Simon Wilson’s "Why We Love Super City", in the latest issue of Metro, takes some beating. The image of a perky cheerleader dominates Wilson’s text, and that is wholly appropriate. When your sub-heading is "Why Rodney Hide has got it right. Really." – cheerleading is pretty obviously the name of the game.

It’s a pity really, because Wilson is usually a thoughtful writer, and not given to lending his support to the sort of PR glad-games currently being rolled out to justify one of the most audacious power-grabs in New Zealand’s political history.

The article begins with the picture of a region suffering from "economic underperformance, blighted urban planning and social dysfunction" – all of it, Wilson implies, the dystopic residue of incompetent "local fiefdoms". He has to do this, of course, because if it could be proved that Auckland’s multiple afflictions (if they exist at all) are in no way the fault of its local authorities, then the whole rationale for Hide’s "Super-City" disappears.

But, this is precisely what Auckland’s history does; it completely explodes both Hide’s and the Royal Commission on Auckland Governance’s arguments for collapsing local democracy into regional "governance". The city’s woes, going back to, and beyond, 1865, have almost always arisen out of Auckland businessmen’s determination to turn politics into profit.

Whether it be Thomas Russell, fomenting war with the Maori king to expedite his company’s land-grabbing; or the powerful "development" business nexus, which spawned the sprawling, car-dependent culture of post-war Auckland; or the mirror-glass speculators, who tore down what remained of the city’s graceful Victorian architecture in the deregulated 80s; it has always been that fateful combination of greed and ambition (both local and national) which made Greater Auckland so much less than it could have – should have – been.

Were the cities and boroughs of Auckland responsible for the motorway system which demolished so many thriving communities in the 1950s and 60s – or was that the work a handful of Auckland roading contractors and property developers, operating hand-in-glove with their National Party cronies in the Capital?

Was it Auckland’s local politicians who shut down the great manufacturing plants of south and west Auckland in the 1980s – or was the resulting "economic underperformance" and "social dysfunction" the legacy of the MPs for Mangere, Manurewa, Te Atatu and Auckland Central?

Was it the avarice of mayors and city councillors which saw the wealth of middle-class Aucklanders wiped out in the crash of ’87 – or was it the greed of the wide boys who drank at the Rogues Bar and worked for Equiticorp?

Was it the Auckland Regional Council which stalled the electrification of Auckland’s rail services for the past four years – or was that Michael Cullen and his Treasury advisers?

The key premise behind the Super City proposal is that Auckland’s local problems are the fault of Auckland’s local politicians – and it just ain’t true.

Wilson, as an editor of New Zealand history, and one of Metro’s senior writers, should know all this. So why is his article a history-free zone? Perhaps because it’s so much easier to declare, bluntly, and without the slightest supporting evidence, that: "The status-quo is not an option."

But even if we accept that some sort of change is desirable, the more important question: "Why Rodney Hide’s version of change?", is one that Wilson does not even begin to answer.

It’s all very well to play-up the Royal Commission’s emphasis on social, economic, environmental and cultural "well-being", but the brute fact of the matter is that all of its "namby-pamby, feel-good sloganising" has been rejected by both the National and Act Parties. They have a very different set of priorities.

And before citing Singapore, Seattle, Glasgow and Barcelona as examples of "vibrant" urban economies, why didn’t Wilson do a little research into the nature of their governmental structures.

Rightly celebrated throughout the European Union as one of its most progressively governed cities, Glasgow, with a population of 580,690 citizens, is roughly comparable in size to the present City of Auckland. The similarities end there, however, because instead of Auckland’s 19, Glaswegians get to elect 79 city councillors – one councillor for every 7,350 citizens. Compare that "vibrant" and very democratic ratio with Rodney Hide’s one Super City councillor for every 65,000 citizens. Even Barcelona’s 1.6 million citizens, living under a municipal constitution drafted in 1960 by General Franco’s fascist regime, are entitled to 41 councillors (1:39,000).

What Wilson has either failed to understand, or refuses to acknowledge, is that the Auckland Super City has been designed by neo-liberals, for neo-liberals. From its very beginnings, as the brainchild of senior Auckland business leaders, it’s purpose has never been to generate the "social well-being" which the members of the Royal Commission so naively attempted to interpose in their report, but its opposite. What Rodney Hide and his backers want to see in their shining Super City on a hill, is that universal hallmark of neo-liberal success: growing income inequalities.

That’s why Hide is promoting the democratic obscenity of 20 councillors for 1.3 million citizens. (With eight of the 20 elected "at large", an electoral option rejected by New Zealanders more than 20 years ago.) It’s why he’s promoting 20-30 powerless "community councils", rather than the four, more influential, "city councils" recommended by the Royal Commission. It also explains his vehement opposition to special Maori representation, and why the straightforward, democratic, expedient of taking the 75 councillors currently representing the four major cities of the Auckland region, and putting them under the roof of a single chamber, simply wouldn’t occur to him. Why not? Because, fundamentally, neo-liberalism and democracy are incompatible.

In his final paragraph, Wilson quotes the Royal Commission’s vision statement, noting approvingly its preference for "an integrated sustainable approach" and its wish that the city’s business be "actively and effectively managed … in a responsible way". But this is the bloodless language of corporate bureaucracy – not popular democracy. Nowhere in his article, and in spite of all his condescending concern for the "common folk", does Wilson acknowledge that it is their right to self-government – not good governance – that is at stake for Auckland’s 1.3 million citizens.

A Super City Council of Aucklanders, by Aucklanders, for Aucklanders.

All Aucklanders.

"Who doesn’t want that? Who doesn’t think we need it? And who seriously thinks we’ve got it already?"

This commentary was originally published in The Independent of Thursday, 4 June 2009.

Outrageous Good Fortune

One City, One Mayor, One Council, One Plan: "One ring to rule them all."

NATIONAL’S revised plans for the governance of Auckland have handed Labour and its allies the next general election. As it has so often done in the past, the political ineptitude and unbounded arrogance of the Auckland business community is bringing ruin to its friends – and rescue to its enemies.

There was only one sensible course of action for John Key’s government to follow and that was to implement the recommendations of the Royal Commission’s Report on Auckland Governance to the letter.

The Royal Commission was a Labour initiative. That was the one, crucial fact Key had to bear in mind. Having set the inquiry in motion, the Labour caucus – even in the absence of its former leaders Helen Clark and Michael Cullen – would find it extremely difficult to criticise, let alone reject, the Commission’s findings. The report was the work of Labour’s appointees, undertaken according to Labour’s terms of reference. Whatever emerged from the Royal Commission’s deliberations, Labour was stuck with it.

Goff’s initial silence on the political efficacy of the Commission’s work spoke volumes. That he declined to shower the report with praise should have indicated to Key that Labour’s leadership foresaw huge political problems arising from its implementation.

By stripping North, West and South Auckland of their political power, and designing a representational regime practically certain to deliver control over Auckland’s future to the electors of Remuera and Epsom, the commissioners had set up a massive political struggle that could only further alienate key elements of Labour’s electoral base in the Auckland region.

That is why Goff curled himself up into a tight little ball and said nothing. His best – indeed, his only – hope was that Key, egged on by Rodney Hide, would make a mistake.

Having got 80 percent of what they wanted, National and ACT should have been content. But Goff was betting that the triumphalist mindset currently clouding the judgement of the entire New Zealand Right would lead it to try for 100 percent – and disaster.

It was a good bet.

By effectively junking Labour’s Royal Commission Report and replacing it with its own scheme, National has freed Labour to oppose the proposed changes with all the energy it can muster.

Alongside its allies in the South and West – Len Brown and Bob Harvey – both of whom have come out in open rebellion against National’s revised plan, Labour is now free to lead the fight for the democratic rights of the Pasifika and immigrant communities of Manukau and Waitakere. The ties that have traditionally bound these communities to Labour were stretched to breaking point in the 2008 General Election, when a large number of Pasifika and immigrant voters stayed at home rather than vote for a party many believed had betrayed them. Now those links can be reforged. It is difficult to imagine a better rallying cry for the brown faces of South and West Auckland than the one which casts the white, rich faces of Remuera and Epsom in the role of racist appropriators of the brown working-class’s hard-won resources.

The kids of the wealthy don’t need free swimming pools and neighbourhood recreation centres, but the children of the poor most certainly do. And, while the smug burghers of Remuera, with a swag of "super-councillors" living in the neighbourhood, may have nothing to fear from the developers’ chainsaws and bulldozers, the feisty residents of Avondale and Titirangi have plenty to be frightened about.

Westies, or Boyz from da ‘Hood? Labour’s political cadres will be spoiled for choice as they muster their legions for the assault.

But, when it comes to giving Labour a mighty taiaha to wield against their Tory opponents, nothing comes close to National’s decision to scrap the Royal Commission’s recommendation to provide for two elected and one appointed Maori super-councillors.

Here, if any more was needed, was the final proof that, for all its fine talk, National remains the deeply racist party it has always been.

"Not if I found it on the highway would I take it", said Faramir, Captain of Gondor, to Frodo and Sam, hobbits of the Shire, in Tolkien’s great tale.

Would National’s Captain Key prove so steadfast?

For truly, if chance has not placed Tolkien’s "One Ring to rule them all" within his grasp, it has certainly delivered into Key’s hands the One Mayor, One Council, and One Plan to rule all Auckland.

And all he had to do to secure these "precious" things was betray his noble Maori Party allies for the orcs of ACT.

Did he pass the test? Did Captain Key, like Captain Faramir, "show his quality" by refusing to abandon the tangata whenua of the Queen City to the Black Riders of Queen Street?

Like hell he did.

With a suitable candidate, Labour now has a better-than-even chance of toppling the Maori Party co-leader, Pita Sharples, from his Tamaki-Makaurau seat. Though hopelessly compromised by National’s decision, Sharples and his caucus have, unaccountably, opted to remain loyal to the man who has just stabbed them, and their party’s political future, in the back.

Labour, quite naturally, can hardly believe its outrageous good fortune. Since the mid-1930s the political ground it has fought on most successfully has been the ground of race and class. Nine years in office had eroded huge chunks of that fruitful territory – most of it towards National.

Occupation of the Treasury Benches for a second term – the most crucial element of National’s long-term strategy – depended absolutely on preventing Labour from re-engaging with the politics of class and race.

In the pivotal political market of Greater Auckland that meant keeping the voracious appetites of the roading contractors, property developers, builders’ suppliers, retailers, real estate agents, and their ACT mouthpieces, under control. Consolidating National’s 2008 gains among Maori, Pasifika and immigrant voters would take time – and constant demonstrations of the Right’s good faith.

All National had to do, vis-à-vis Auckland, was shelter behind the recommendations of Labour’s Royal Commission. Key would then have been able to cast the disempowering of the North, South and West of Auckland as an exercise in bi-partisan political riguer – harsh perhaps, but necessary to secure the region’s long-term future.

By trashing the Royal Commission’s plan, National has released its discredited Labour foes from a cage of their own making, and allowed Goff to re-cast Labour as Greater Auckland’s democratic champion.

If it is true that: "As Auckland goes – so goes the country", then National has just set the New Zealand Left on the road to victory in 2011.

This essay was originally published in The Independent of Thursday, 16 April 2009.