In the past six years, Aucklanders’ trust in council and satisfaction with its performance has never been higher than 27 percent. Aucklanders may want to change the organisation so they can have greater confidence in it.
Opinion: Auckland starts electing a new mayor in September and they will start with a big to-do list, compounded, delayed and made more costly by Covid-19.
The Auckland Plan outlines the 30-year agenda for the region. With more than 60 priority actions across six broad themes, it is not only an important planning tool but also a legislated one. Whatever else the new mayor wants to do, they will be obliged to include its key priorities in their plans, at least until 2024 when they get to lead a re-write. The 21 local boards, the Independent Māori Statutory Authority, the four CCOs, and other council-related entities will also clamour for attention.
What do Aucklanders want?
As the candidates embark on New Zealand’s longest election campaign, they will not be short of Aucklanders telling them what they think about what council does. This will be useful because most people do not tell council. In its recent 10-year budget consultation, fewer than 20,000 pieces of feedback were received from a potential voting population of just over a million. This is not because everyone is happy with the Auckland Council direction.
In the past six years, Aucklanders’ trust in council and satisfaction with its performance has never been higher than 27 percent. It’s currently 23 percent. One of the biggest thing Aucklanders may want from their new mayor is to change the organisation so they can have greater confidence in it.
In the last New Zealand Quality of Life Survey, taken from September to November 2020, only 47 percent of Aucklanders rated their quality of life as very good or excellent – the second lowest of the eight New Zealand cities surveyed. About a third said it had got worse. Recovery from the Covid hangover, which will have affected this, may well be underway when the mayor takes office on November 1, but the costs and other negative impacts of Covid will not.
Underpinning these challenges are the perennial transport, housing, environmental, equity and economy issues. Four fifths of Aucklanders say transport is a problem. Only 22 percent of Aucklanders use public transport regularly, only 40 percent think it’s affordable and only 50 percent say it's reliable. Only 45 percent think housing is affordable and 30 percent experience damp or cold housing. More than 80 percent of Aucklanders are worried about climate change and almost 60 percent think water pollution is a problem. About a half say they only just have enough money to meet everyday needs or they do not have enough.
Survey participants said the main reasons their local area got worse were increased traffic, “new developments” and crime. But part of the new mayor’s challenge will be balancing this with those on the other side of the street who said one of the reasons the local area got better was “new developments”. Welcome to local government.
The Future of Local Government
Hanging over the mayor-elect’s victory celebration will be the Review into the Future for Local Government. One week before the mayoral result is known, the draft recommendations will be released for what is expected to be the most significant reform of local government in New Zealand since 1989.
It is possible that Auckland, having been amalgamated in 2010, may not feature significantly. In the review’s interim report, presented in September 2021, which outlined its broad direction and key questions, Auckland scarcely featured. If this approach is confirmed in the final review, it would be a profound missed opportunity.
The most successful and effective cities in the world operate with much more mature and informed decision making and funding arrangements than New Zealand’s do. In his address to Auckland’s Future, Now in 2021 Sir Peter Gluckman, the Director of Koi Tū Auckland University’s Centre for Informed Futures, said Auckland seemed to be held together more by complaints about what is not working than by ambition about what could. He called for considerable action on how Auckland plans and develops so it can be more successful for itself and the country. The review panel has subsequently met with Koi Tū and will hopefully be reflecting on opportunities to complete what many argue is the unfinished job of the 2010 changes. This could have a significant impact on the role of the new mayor.
A Mayoral 101
Auckland’s next mayor will not have had that experience before and so the next seven months will be an important time for them to learn what the job entails.
The Australasian and Singapore-based cities consultancy Urbis developed a Mission Fit Cities Index to evaluate six key factors that underpin a city's competitiveness, resilience and liveability:
* People: which looks at diversity and talent.
* Performance: which measures infrastructure investment and innovation.
* Planet: which assesses environmental resilience.
* Positivity: which evaluates the city’s vitality and brand.
* Place: which takes account of public open space and cultural depth.
* Power: which concerns itself with governance and leadership.
Auckland ranked second lowest at 72 against the Australian capital cities surveyed, behind Melbourne (82), Brisbane (76), Sydney (75), and just ahead of Perth (71). Toronto ranked 77 and Singapore 85. Auckland’s strongest attribute was Place, its weakest were Planet, Performance and Positivity. Auckland’s next mayor should then plan to secure greater and more timely infrastructure investment and boost Auckland’s knowledge and innovation economy. They should improve the region’s ecological resilience and sustainability behaviour and they should also develop Auckland’s visitor economy and city identity.
The US research group Brookings says mayors must be innovative with existing powers and have the capacity to overcome a city bureaucracy and often entrenched existing political interests that can work to frustrate their aims. It cites Copenhagen where a publicly owned but privately managed company was created to redevelop its port including a mechanism to capture and distribute the value that came from the redevelopment. This helped finance significant additional public transport infrastructure investment. The company’s joint shareholders were the city and the government, and the project was the product of Copenhagen’s then socialist mayor using existing powers and the conservative prime minister.
Brookings says a mayor must also have the capacity to work productively and effectively outside their formal powers. This is especially important for Auckland’s mayor, whose formal powers are limited.
Just over 10 percent of public spending is deployed by New Zealand’s local and regional councils, putting us in a small group of countries at the bottom of the OECD whose local government scope and funding base are very narrow. The OECD average is 40 percent.
Auckland’s first Auckland Council mayor, Len Brown, adopted this approach by persuading the then National government, initially strongly opposed to supporting Auckland’s City Rail Link, to fund half of the now $4.4 billion cost.
The UK-based Centre for Cities says mayors must have a compelling vision and of course the capacity to sell it. The role of a mayor is typically constrained. But as the challenges of cities have increased with growth, climate change and changing equity issues putting more pressure on them, the most successful mayors have deployed a compelling vision and the wherewithal to implement it as a way of getting more done. Vienna’s mayor established a smart city vision and plan that has stimulated many others. Vancouver’s mayor established a green city vision that has become a benchmark. Cape Town’s mayor used just one term to transform housing delivery and won the World Mayor Award.
The Centre for Cities also says a mayor must focus on the critical strategic priorities a mayor can achieve, or at least start. The breadth of local government can be a distraction as can the repeated additional demands government and its agencies place. This cannot be avoided, but mustn’t be allowed to overwhelm a mayoral agenda.
A mayor must also build strong relationships within the council and externally. The council will not function effectively if the mayor can’t relate to the quite different constituencies represented around the council table and build strong relationships with staff. Similarly, the most capable mayors are those who are able to make the most of the external relationships and relationship-building skills they can bring.
Getting noticed
However, the biggest challenge the next mayor will face before getting elected is getting noticed. Only 35 percent of Aucklanders voted in the last election. This would be a great time to test out a compelling, credible new vision for Auckland at least to encourage more Aucklanders to get involved.
The political theorist Benjamin Barber said that if mayors ruled the world more would get done. That is tougher going for New Zealand mayors, but the third Auckland Super City Mayor has the best chance to make this theory a reality.
Mark Thomas is a director of the Committee for Auckland and was an elected member of part of Auckland Council for six years.
