Does anybody remember the "Stronger Auckland" project?

There's a residual mention of it on the Auckland City Council website, but the primary website itself has quietly disappeared.

This was back in 2006-07, when the Labour government gave the city councils of the Auckland region an opportunity to sort things out among themselves and develop their own proposal for reform.

The proposals put forward were so limp-wristed and incompetent that the Royal Commission was established to do unto them what they couldn't do unto themselves.

The failure of the Stronger Auckland project raises some interesting questions:
> Did the Mayors and Councils not think the government was serious?
> Did the government honestly think the mayors could resolve the problem amongst themselves?
> How well advised were the Mayors and Councils by their officials?

I wonder if any of the people involved in the "Stronger Auckland" project are now regretting that lost opportunity, or reflecting on their own contribution to its failure.

Graeme, you probably need to read the submission to understand properly what it means.

So instead of voting for who might be the best person for my community board, I vote for the person who will choose the mayor

The Greens opposed having a mayor - one of the current problems is that we elect somebody who thinks they have a special and different mandate from their fellow elected representatives. A chairperson elected from within the council "first among equals" would be preferable.

If I want resource consent to build an extension, I go to one local authority. If my Māori-enrolled neighbour wants one for the same type of extension to her house, she has to go to a separate body, who might apply the rules in different ways

Not at all: the "community councils" were proposed to be the ultimate source of legitimacy, representation and accountability - and should be connected as closely as possible to local communities. They wouldn't have regulatory powers, employ staff, or govern local authority organisations.

I think a problem in this whole debate is the tendency to "frame" it in terms of what we currently understand councils to be (and to do), rather than thinking more deeply about what they really ought to be.

We use the term "council" to refer to both a group of elected representatives and the organisation that they govern. But is it necessary (or even useful) for the former to govern the latter, when they might not have the skills needed for corporate governance?

Kiaora to Mikaere's proposal.

The Green Party, in its submission to the RC, made a similar suggestion. If the commission decided on a smaller Auckland (metropolitian) council with executive powers, then:

"All the Community Council members form an electoral college, immediately after the local body elections, to vote for the members of the Auckland Metropolitan Council." (on pg 27)

The Greens also proposed two Maori Community Councils, based on electorates decided by Mana Whenua.

The trick to getting the representation and governance right in Auckland is to create a relatively powerful super-city council, but also to ensure it is tightly bound to local or neighbourhood level representation as the source of it's legitimacy and accountability.

That's where the Royal Commission and the National government both failed.