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03 January 2010

2010: A big year for the locals

[A weekly column to be published in the ‘Sunday Star Times’ on Sunday, 3 January 2010]

About this time every year, Paul Holmes thinks about being Mayor of Auckland. He discusses the topic openly with his friends and colleagues, is reassured that he’s not delusional, but then retreats back into what he knows best. Broadcasting. It has become a triennial ritual.

This is not to suggest that the veteran radio man might not have the right stuff. After all he’s also a veteran booster, is affable and has sufficient awareness of the political mood to play populist. And now that Holmes has made as much money as he will ever need, he has the luxury of time.

But the reason that Paul Holmes doesn’t put his name forward, is the reason why most of the good and great sniff at local body politics. Ultimately, they consider such service beneath them – not worthy enough with not enough power and never enough prestige.

That will change this year. Because the third most powerful politician – after the prime minister and his finance minister – is going to be elected from local government. The new Lord Mayor of the new Super Auckland.

That it is a contest currently between Auckland’s John Banks and Manukau’s Len Brown rather suggests that this New Year period will be a time when a lot of thinking will be done. Waters tested, loyalties probed, and friendships assume a financial status.

Ultimately most of those who consider the career will careen away. They will say that it is the lack of salary, and claim intolerable intrusion upon their private life. But the real truth is that they are scared. Middle-agers don’t do risk well and the risk to one’s reputation and self-esteem is deemed too great should they fail.

Because local body politics is like that. No matter how good, how smart, how clean or how practised, local government is a mud scramble. It is beset by crazies, populated by halfwits and loons, and a plaything of neighbourhood nutters. Each excursion taints so that one ends up as circular and doomed and as addled as your critics.

Wellington’s best ever mayor, Mark Blumsky, understood that. Which is why he bailed, after just two terms, under the illusion that Parliament must be different. Which it was. It was worse. Mostly because he was a backbencher and that’s an even lower life form than a mayor.

Similarly Tim Shadbolt has discovered that no matter how popular nor personable, palace revolutions can undermine any attempt at dignity or control. Especially when you’re in Mongolia.

Thus the teethed tyro has ended up with a deputy mayor, a chief executive, a senior management team, a council and a newspaper editor that he doesn’t want and that, really, don’t want him. Of course, he’ll fly in again as Invercargill’s premier citizen but he is facing the curse of all local government. Eventually the machine gets its revenge.

Sometimes sooner, sometimes later. Two of the more eccentric of civic leaders are about to be consigned to the dustbin by the Super Auckland reconfiguration. Westie Bob Harvey is fortunate: his ‘use-by’ date was fast approaching. North Shore’s ever-so-odd Andrew Williams will be spared the ignominy of a first term defeat. Fate has been kind.

And there is not a council in the land that is harmonious and united. Councils don’t attract such people to its centre. And even if the occasional Quaker or quirky do-gooder does get elected, they are soon mud-wrestling with the worst of them.

Because, at its heart, local government is gloriously petty and parochial. Councils are the ultimate Enzed committee – an outlet for personalities who never made milk monitor. Intra-council conflagration is common and almost an employment condition.

That said, it is not difficult work. And it is surprisingly well remunerated for the hours required. Sure, the salary of a provincial mayor may be risible but those who turn it into a fulltime job are probably bored. My predecessor sold an Amway-equivalent from the mayoral office in his spare time.

Of course, you can stray into the field under the illusion that you must eventually make a difference. There are many ‘personality’ mayors who aspired for just such a reason. The Far North’s Wayne Brown, Christchurch’s Bob Parker, Auckland’s John Banks.

But being mayor is not – unfortunately – some sort of benign dictatorship. Oh, that it were. Mayors have one vote and, like Tim Shadbolt, often end up battling their own bureaucracy. They devolve into firefighters and apologists and their pre-election vision is incinerated by the increasing stricture of central government legislation.

This is not to say that local government, ordered properly, is not a lot of fun.
And that it can’t have influence. Because it is, and it does.

Which is why all manner of worthies should be thinking ahead to October of this New Year. Because there is only one thing worse than you being given responsibility for your local community. It is some other plonker making all the decisions.

So Paul Holmes might like to pause and reflect upon that. And whether you live in Super Auckland or South Canterbury, in Nelson or Napier, Hamilton or Hurunui, the fact is that others less equipped than you are, less able and less worthy – are going to be deciding your rates, who picks up your rubbish, how to spell your name, and whether your children have decent recreational amenities. Determining the character of your community.

That should be incentive enough to rethink standing for local office. After all: who has a better opinion than you?

ENDS