It will take a long while for the full implications of Auckland’s Supercity and the results of its first election in October 2010 to become apparent. The election outcome was not what National and Rodney Hide wanted. John Banks was their choice for Supercity Mayor and a year out from the contest they thought they had it in the bag. Prime Minister John Key even introduced Banks as a super Mayor for a Supercity at a National Party function a year earlier and as a former National Cabinet Minister Banks had all the Rightwing credentials. He had successfully run twice as Auckland City Mayor before so a year out the Nats and Rodney Hide were openly confident their man would be at the helm of the new Supercity.

This would be important because while the Supercity emerged from a local body review initiated by Labour’s Trevor Mallard, the concept had been at the forefront of corporate lobbying for several years. It was when the region failed to endorse Mallard’s plans for a waterfront stadium for the 2011 Rugby World Cup, that the famously nasty MP turned on the region and established a Royal Commission to enforce local cooperation. Business was thrilled and from the process we saw established the most undemocratic of structures whereby three quarters of the local body rates income would be spent by unelected CCOs (Council Controlled Organisations) to be appointed by Minister of Local Government and Act leader Rodney Hide and his cronies. Whoever was elected as Mayor and Council would be faced with much reduced powers. The city would be run as a corporate city for corporate interests and John Banks was the ideal Rightwing candidate to lead. In previous stints as Mayor of Auckland Banks was involved in selling off Council community housing completely and half the city’s shares in Auckland International Airport – he would have sold the lot but for public opposition (it’s worth remembering here that a majority of New Zealanders have opposed every major asset sale at either local or national level since 1984).

In 2009 we saw Banks at his most cynically expedient. He fronted the TV cameras before a Council meeting saying the Council would be keeping rate increases below 5% because Aucklanders were suffering with the recession and the Council had a responsibility to tighten its belt to help. But after the cameras left the Council voted to keep to the overall target but with increases of up to 10% in low income areas and less than 2% in some high income areas. Looking out for the rich and business has always been Banks’ agenda. The history of the old Auckland City also gave Hide and Key confidence. Auckland City itself has been run under virtually continuous National Party domination, under the banner of Citizens and Ratepayers, for endless decades. It was Auckland run by Remuera with the reliable help of the Remuera community newspaper, aka the New Zealand Herald.

However the wider Auckland region has shown more independence. Back in the 1990s, for example, successful campaigns were waged to prevent the sale of Auckland assets such as the Ports of Auckland. An Alliance-dominated campaign effectively mobilised opinion against the sale of these strategic assets and the National government backed off and took a different tack. It created what it called the Auckland Regional Services Trust (ARST) in which it vested the region’s assets as well as the region’s enormous debts. It was a cunning move by which National expected the region to be forced to sell its assets itself. A bit like giving someone a bag of apples worth $20 and then giving them a $20 debt and waiting smugly for the apples to be sold to pay the debt.

However against all expectations the Alliance-oriented Left won the 1992 election for positions on ARST and Leftwing writer, the late Bruce Jesson*, found himself at the helm. ARST confounded the pundits by not only paying off the debt but retaining the assets in public hands at the same time. The Left achieved what the Right said was impossible. Tina (There Is No Alternative) was replaced by Tiaba (There Is A Better Alternative). *Murray Horton’s obituary of Bruce Jesson is in Watchdog 91, August 1999. Ed.

Too Much Shouldn’t Be Read Into The Result

And so to the election. Banks was polling well till Manukau Mayor Len Brown entered the race. Without any serious campaigning having begun the largely unknown Brown was astonishingly well ahead of Banks. This was a novelty to those of us used to Rightwing domination of Auckland local body politics. From the outset Brown’s biggest asset was that he wasn’t Banks. Banks has a polarising personality and while he could be assured of the 30% business/leafy suburb vote, he was struggling to get above that across the region. His best hope was for several credible alternatives to emerge and split the anti-Banks vote for him to come through. It didn’t happen. In fact the credible candidates emerged more on the Right but this didn’t affect the outcome. Even adding the vote of the other Rightwingers together Brown was unassailable. The overall Council result was a win for the Centre over the Right with 13 to 7 votes behind Brown.

Most commentators are rightly being cautious about reading too much into the result. Labour has seen it as providing hope Phil Goff will be able to make up ground on National before the 2011 general election. But it seems it’s as much Brown’s personality as his politics which got him the top job. Brown is for the Centre what Key is for the Right. It’s also wrong to see Brown as a strong Left candidate because among other things he is a strong supporter of public-private partnerships for transport infrastructure. Where there is a consensus, however, is in the vote reflecting a rejection of Rodney Hide and Act. Hide has been on the back foot since taking his girlfriend on overseas jaunts at taxpayer expense. Shortly after he’s been seen as the driver of a fundamentally undemocratic Supercity structure. This has not fired Aucklanders onto the streets but the vote for Brown is a significant rejection of Hide. It seems clear Hide will have real difficulty retaining his Epsom electorate at the 2011 election and Act will likely lose its Parliamentary seats without a sweetheart arrangement with National. If National backs a strong candidate against Hide the bullet-headed battler will be finished.

On a wider view there are two big unknowns at this stage. Will the Mayor be able to gain effective control and direct the CCOs to do the Council’s bidding? The structure is untested although and as pointed out earlier it has already failed any democratic test. Brown has appointed veteran Left-leaner Mike Lee to head the Auckland Council’s Transport Committee and this will be the most critical committee for Auckland’s future and for Brown’s leadership to be seen as effective and worthy of future support. Auckland is a traffic jam and every new motorway or road just gets people to the traffic jam more quickly. Having been run for many decades by local businessmen with an allergy to anything public Auckland is so far behind in transport infrastructure that the problems can at best only be relieved rather than solved. Brown is committed to several big ticket items for public transport but will need significant Government funding to make them happen.

This links to the second unknown – how central Government will play its hand. Had Banks won the Key government would have fallen over itself to cooperate with the Supercity in a tag team which would help ensure National Party hegemony over local and national politics. But with Brown, the unanointed Labour candidate, at the helm John Key will be tempted to starve Auckland of Government funds for the big public transport schemes on which Brown has hinged his Mayoral success. Expect to see a game of brinkmanship played out between John Key and Len Brown in the coming months and especially leading up to the 2011 national election.