The boundaries are out

The boundaries are out for the new Auckland Council, and by and large, I like the look of them.

I like them not because I perceive them to be favourable to the centre-right (some wards are and some aren't), but because the boundaries will snap Auckland Councillors out of their local silos, and think regionally. In the end, that was one of the main reasons why we have gone down the supercity road, and if the boundaries didn't reflect this regional thinking, it would have ultimately been a pointless exercise.

Taking a quick look at the area that broadly corresponds with the outgoing Auckland City, there are four wards, called Whau, Maungawhau, Mt Albert-Mt Roskill and Orakei-Maungakiekie.

The Hobson Ward that I currently represent is being split into three different wards.

Parnell, Newmarket and the CBD join with Western Bays and the Gulf Islands to create "Maungawhau", with one councillor.
95% of Remuera joins with the Eastern Bays and Tamaki-Maungakiekie to form Orakei-Maungakiekie, with two councillors.
Epsom joins with the old Eden-Albert ward and Mt Roskill to form "Mt Albert-Mt Roskill".
A new ward of "Whau" is created from Avondale and New Lynn suburbs.

So what do the new wards look like politically?

Maungawhau will be an interesting contest. It comprises Parnell, Newmarket and a small part of Remuera, along with the CBD, the northern parts of Epsom and Mt Eden, the Western bays areas from Westmere through to Ponsonby, as well as the Hauraki Gulf Islands. I would say this is trending centre-right, though it is socially liberal. Incumbent councillors for this area include Cr Greg Moyle from C&R, Graham Easte from City Vision, and Mike Lee from City Vision (on the ARC). Dick Hubbard, who has made noises about standing the other day also resides in this area. Former representatives from Action Hobson also come from here. I would expect a reasonably linear contest between centre-left and centre-right here, both Greg Moyle and Mike Lee would be formidable candidates here.

Orakei-Maungakiekie is where I reside. and where C&R would have five incumbent councillors (both Eastern Bays and all three Hobson Councillors). It also would include two Labour councillors, Leila Boyle and Richard Northey. My guess is that this new ward would trend centre-right by a considerable amount. I don't forsee Action Hobson doing well here, and that C&R's strength in Remuera through to St Heliers, plus the marginal nature of Maungakiekie, will deliver two C&R regional councillors.

Mt Albert-Mt Roskill is a closer contest. C&R gets strong support from Mt Roskill-Hillsborough area, but would be up against the Helen Clark heartland. Helping C&R is the fact that Epsom, Greenlane and Royal Oak are also in this ward as well. Incumbent councillors include C&Rs David Hay, John Lister, Graeme Mulholland, Mark Donnelly (Focus Eden-Albert independent), plus City Vision's Cathy Casey and Glenda Fryer. Complicating the result is that the Eden-Albert ward has had a lot of independent candidates and third tickets, which has cost C&R and City Vision councillors in the past.

The new ward of Whau takes in Avondale and New Lynn, and breaks the old Auckland City boundaries. Noelene Raffills has been the Avondale councillor for a decade, and the Raffills name has been associated with Avondale for far longer. In New Lynn, the councillors who represents this area (currently in Waitakere City), include Ross Clow, Janet Clews, Derek Battersby and Peter Chan. I'm not sure whether they all fall into the new area though.

It's a fascinating result. There will no doubt be a number of howls of anger from disaffected politicians,and C&R will no doubt submit on the dratf proposal. But on the whole, I think the commissioners have succeeded in shaking up the system to find boundaries and wards that complement the new structure. They deserve our thanks for this work.

Fisking Hubbard

I've had a re-read of the article covering the Hubbard announcement, and it's so full of Hubbard talking rubbish I just had to fisk him.

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This time though, it would be as a prospective councillor, not mayor - at least for this election. The Auckland super city, which will merge the existing eight territorial and regional councils, comes into being in October 2010, and will elect a mayor with sweeping powers.

So he sees himself standing for Mayor of Auckland again, just not yet? Thats interesting.

Hubbard told the Star-Times he would run as a councillor in October if it looked as if Banks' supporters Citizens and Ratepayers (C&R) were going to take control of the new council, or if their opponents weren't very good.

So he's an agent of the left. At least we've got that now confirmed. Of course, by opponents who aren't very good, Dick is also referring to the people he relied on last time for power - Action Hobson.

For the top job, Hubbard has publicly backed Manukau City mayor Len Brown, donating "about $5000" to his campaign.

And funding the left too.

But he says that is not to get revenge on Banks. Rather, "I genuinely believe [Brown] has a sense of community and the ability to unify Auckland, which is going to be needed for the first three years."

With policies like divisive Maori seats and Sue Bradford as deputy, that unity is going to be absent. If the left capture Auckland, it will be one of the most divisive looking councils ever elected.

He says C&R is like the Act Party, with its enthusiasm for user-pays, privatisation and prioritising physical infrastructure. Hubbard believes libraries and swimming pools should be free, at least in poorer areas, and the council should advise the government on social housing.

What absolute rubbish. Firstly, Dick Hubbard was the poster boy for user pays through his massive water price hikes. Secondly, C&R hasn't privatised anything in the current term. Thirdly, as for prioritising physical infrastructure, I'll take that as confirmation Hubbard wants to use rates to fund social welfare. Interesting that Hubbard also says he wants free pools in Manukau, but not in Auckland, North Shore or anywhere else. That would be terribly inequitable for ratepayers. Talking about "advising" government on social housing is a mealy mouthed metaphor for Hubbard leaping into funding a small number of homes with peoples rates.

And he says the super city should try to create a sense of community - which he feels at civic and social functions at Manukau and Waitakere, but not in Auckland City.

Social functions? I'm not interested in what Hubbard's vibe is at wine and cheese events, but more with the evidence on the street. And in Manukau, theres evidence that a lot of social deprivation is occuring regardless of the pork barrel politics with free pools and the like.

"Manukau would have been a basket case if it had taken the same approach as C&R."

Yeah, because decisive, united and pragmatic leadership is so damaging. Of course, had Manukau taken the Hubbard approach, one wonders indeed what Manukau would look like.

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From the sidelines, he reckons the current Banks-led council is "back to the old days of name-calling and insults", with the left fighting the right. The worst thing for the super city would be another left-right stalemate, he says. If he runs, it would be as an independent. But he aligns himself with those on the left - Brown, Waitakere mayor Bob Harvey, and former North Shore mayor George Wood.

I've seen a lot of argy bargy and political clashes between the left and the right on council, but I've never heard any name-calling over the last three years. If anything, John Banks has led by example with dignity and gravitas. That being said, Dick Hubbard isn't shy of name-calling himself, hypocritically describing John Banks as a "split tongue, silver tongued snake oil salesman" in the 2007 campaign.

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Dick Hubbard's reasons for standing is simple - sour grapes. He got towelled in 2007 because he was a disastrously bad Mayor. He would make an equally disastrous councillor under a hard left militant council. The Len, Sue and Dick show would make the Hubbard-Hucker reign look like a high-tea party.

Len, Sue and Dick too!

I was very pleased to read in this morning's Sunday Star Times online that failed former Mayor Dick Hubbard is apparently going to stand for the new supercity council, in order to keep C&R out. I picked this a few weeks back, although to be fair, at the time I was tongue in cheek.

Dick Hubbard is a resident of Hobson Ward, which is the area I represent along with Paul Goldsmith and Ken Baguley. Hubbard lives in Parnell, so unless Hobson gets split when the new ward boundaries are announced, he might be up against one of us.

But more to the point, what does it do to the Auckland political left to have the dreadfully incompetent former Mayor indicate that he is a mechanism by which people can use to keep the centre-right out?

With Len Brown already considering the divisive social-engineer Sue Bradford as a deputy, and with Dick Hubbard as a potential fellow candidate, a left council would expect massive rates rises and water prices under the rapacious Hubbard. Remember that Hubbard massively hiked rates when he was Mayor, and presided over a number of project failures (like Greenlane roundabout).

That's to say nothing of his incompetent political behaviour over his "$500 million vibe" during his jetsetting around the globe in search of sister cities, and his telling people to get a bank loan if they couldn't afford their rates. Auckland, under the rule of Len, Sue and Dick too would get bogged down in infighting, suffer massive rates rises and go nowhere (except for the politicians, who would go overseas regularly).

All this talk of keeping C&R out is odd too. The irony is, it was City Vision-Labour's infighting that ruined Hubbard's Mayoralty. C&R could be counted on to vote solidly and to keep their promise to vote a certain way.

Talk of his standing against privatisation is also arrant nonsense and hypocrisy. Dick Hubbard said he was keen to sell Auckland Airport shares to pay for Tank Farm improvements. What a short memory he has!

I wonder why Dick Hubbard thinks he might get elected in Hobson? He got his backside kicked hard during 2007, with John Banks winning over 8900 votes in Hobson Ward and Hubbard only getting 4666.

Anyway, I look forward to seeing Dick talk about his record on rates, water and political management at the next election.

City Vision hysteria on trees

I note with amusement a Chicken Little press release by City Vision claiming that "Auckland's trees are doomed" due to a combination of the new RMA laws and the City Development committee's decision to only review a list of 300 trees to be scheduled, instead of spending $900,000 of unbudgeted ratepayer money on assessing, notifying and scheduling around 1000 trees on private properties.

In fact, we learned at the City Development Committee that tree protection is in fact much greater than just the general tree protection rules. For example, coastal clifflines remain protected, trees that are specified in resource consents are protected, and council itself is a guardian of trees around the ithsmus and Gulf Islands in its reserves and parks. Scheduling of trees is in fact a minor part of the equation on Auckland's tree story.

It's also important to remember that over 100,000 trees have been planted by council or with council assistance since 2002, so there is hardly a deficit of trees in Auckland. If anything, Aucklanders like planting trees. They're not going to go on some massive chopping mission.

What a grim and desperate view of their fellow citizen City Vision must have that they think Auckland is going to be completely deforested because of the removal of a general tree protection law. And what hopeful dramatics on their part that the scheduling of a comparative handful of trees is somehow going to save Auckland's tree cover when the council does a stirling job of planting and protecting trees in its parks, reserves, Gulf Islands and coastlines.

The Robertson gift to Auckland

On Friday, I got a chance to view five of the works comprising the Robertson gift to Auckland.

Simply magnificent. A (large!) Picasso, Bracques, Derain, Dali and a Matisse - all sitting in the council chambers for a few hours! The works are now on display at the Auckland Art Gallery for a week. Julian Robertson has in fact gifted 15 works to Auckland's art gallery, which comprise a total value of $115 million (but how do you really price such works?). The gift was reported to be the largest of its kind in Australasia.

In his speech to thank the Robertson family, John Banks said there were three gifts that stand out in the history of Auckland City:

1. The Sir George Grey gift of the massive amount of books and manuscripts given to the city in the late 19th century. This includes Shakespeare manuscripts, letters from Charles Darwin, in fact over 14,000 books and 3000 letters.

2. The gifting of Cornwall Park to the people of Auckland by Sir John Logan Campbell. Mayor for only three months (reportedly because he didn't want some oik to greet the future King and Queen (then the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall) on their visit to Auckland.

3. The Robertson Gift to the Auckland Art Gallery.

In giving thanks to the Robertsons, Mayor Banks also hailed the culture of benefaction from generous Aucklanders. In particular, I would like to recognise James Wallace and his gift of NZ art and assistance to create the TSB Wallace Gallery at Oah Homestead. We should encourage such benefaction at every opportunity.

Time for a cup of tea

John Banks and MIke Lee had a press conference outside Queens Wharf by the red gates to announce "a cup of tea" on the Queens Wharf competition. I arrived 5 mins into the press conference and took a quick snap on the phone.



The public have not responded with any great enthusiasm for the final designs. While all the designs in my opinion are technically competent, they lack the wow factor that Aucklanders are making clear they want.

This is not a reflection of the architectural abilities of those who proposed the plans, but obviously a reflection of the budget constraints. There were some fine architectural firms in the contest, in round 1 and round 2.

The competition had only $56 million in the council for the contest. This money was coming solely from Auckland City ratepayers (though it should be noted that the ARC and Government put in $20 million each for the wharf itself). However, it appears that $56 million is simply not enough for the ambitions Aucklanders have for the wharf.

So the Mayor and the Regional Council Chairman have shown leadership, shown that they are good listeners, and are calling for "a cup of tea".

When you're in a hole, stop digging

There's an old saying in political crisis management - "When you're in a hole, stop digging!".



One of the minor perks of the job (as opposed to free travel for my wife) is that I get to explore some pretty cool parts of Auckland. One council works I visited yesterday was the completion of the Motions Creek stormwater works, which will have a profound effect on solving stormwater capacity issues and sewage overflows from Mt Eden through to the Zoo and the Waitemata harbour. In addition to solving growth related issues, the science of stormwater management permits our engineers to make decisions on how to deal with major storm effects in the most environmentally friendly way, instead of seeing random overflows onto people's properties or in public spaces.

The works have been going for several years now, but the final piece was put into place the other day. As a part of the photo op, I was lowered down in a cage to the bottom of a 20m hole. Various photos were taken, but I couldn't pass up one final photo in the big digger at the bottom of the excavation!

You can read more about the Motions Creek stormwater works by clicking here.