The left and the Ardern government need to start appreciating the new Auckland mayor.
His mandate is comprehensive. Any honest election review would be unwise because the results would blow back on the Ardern government that has smashed and shrunk the assets and decision making authority of local government. Reviews into the diminished purpose of local government and of the democratic system are already underway.
This Brown guy is already showing the Ardern government what they should have done as soon as they got into office: clear out the boards, reassert command of the remaining direct governance levers, and instruct the executive order that it will answer to elected politics again. It’s reaggregated power through recentralisation by leadership from day 1 and not taking two terms to get on with it. Imagine if Ardern had liquidated the corporate boards on entry rather than being screwed around at will by NZTA, Kiwirail, Transpower or the Electricity Authority. Instead …
This Brown guy on day 1 gained a clear impression of the whole with the helicopter tour over the whole region. Goff came from deep in Clevedon way to the south, and mostly just stuck to Council meetings. Central government ministers try to understand Auckland as the aggregate beast of 30% of New Zealanders and 40% of the national economy when there’s some civil emergency to emote about. It’s importantly symbolic and real in its purpose.
This Brown guy is the blank sheet that Auckland needs. Over 6 years we have had billions of ratepayer and taxpayer dollars pumped into projects in Auckland’s CBD, and honestly the result through disruption and COVID is a desert of beautiful concrete landscaping without a plan to revive. A poor return on investment. Any plan he forms couldn’t be worse than what’s happened now: massive regional private malls and their free parking are sucking Auckland’s centre dry.
This Brown guy is also about to reveal the City Rail Link debt bomb flying down hard at Auckland Council. Goff had already taken Auckland’s debt capacity up to its limit. Spending plans without a rating agency impact or big rates increase won’t be possible. I can see Brown appointing himself onto the CRL governance board given the risk it represents to Council. Brown is about to do what we are all doing anyway: tighten our belts in a static economy with high personal and regional public debt.
Brown will have a finely balanced council mix and will need to build a finely balanced committee structure to get much done. Anyone who thinks Mike Lee is the answer to Auckland transport’s woes should try and use Parnell train station. I suspect he will delay his committee structure and use the interregnum moment to its fullest.
We need a really noisy mayor who can push back against Wellington continuing to erase local democracy. Auckland (indeed other centres) needed a mayor not beholden to Labour politics so that he can push harder to get what we need: it’s the inverse of Mayor Len Brown cutting deals with National. For six years Auckland has had a mayor too quiet when he needed to speak out loud. So far this term Labour has started and delivered only the tiniest of Auckland’s projects, stopped many others, and taken too long to turn around public housing. We’ve needed more.
It’s high time Auckland had a mayor who gained Ardern’s attention, and we’ve got it.
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