4.1. Knowledge of the history of local government in Auckland is important in order to understand how and why Auckland has its present governance arrangements. Insight into how problems have been tackled, or failed to be tackled, in the past will help greatly in deciding how present challenges should best be approached. This chapter draws heavily on the work of political scientist Graham Bush, who was commissioned to write a research paper on this topic for the Commission,1 as well as published work by other historians such as Michael King, R.C.J. Stone, and James Belich.
4.2. Over the past century, many minds have attempted to devise governmental systems for Auckland that would meet its changing needs, and facilitate its growth in a managed way. Most of these attempts failed, at least in part, and there are clear patterns to be seen in the attempts and the reasons for their lack of success.
4.3. The history of Auckland’s local governance reveals the presence of many key governance issues from the city’s very inception: the question of Māori sovereignty and the relationship between Māori and European; the political tension between Auckland and Wellington; the importance of infrastructure issues, particularly sewage, transport, and roading; the value of considered legislation and resourcing; and the repeated efforts to amalgamate and centralise on the one hand, and powerful opposition protecting vested interests and maintaining local bodies on the other. It tracks central government interest and involvement, and also the ongoing nature of regional/territorial tension. It shows how throughout the past 100 years, reformists of Auckland’s local government have been consistently opposed and, on the rare occasions when reform has been successfully promoted and legislation passed to ensure its implementation, it has invariably been modified by the next Government.
4.4. The latest chapter in this history has been the establishment of the Royal Commission on Auckland Governance, which was asked to recommend changes in Auckland’s governance that will position the city to flourish in the coming decades. It seems that Auckland and New Zealand are ready and willing as never before to grapple with this issue as the city faces the challenges of continued growth, patchy infrastructure, and international competition. The Commission has undertaken a programme of intensive consultation and comprehensive research to ensure its recommendations are based on a deep understanding of Auckland, and what the region needs and desires.
4.5. The isthmus of Auckland, between the Manukau Harbour on the Tasman Sea, and the Waitemata Harbour on the Pacific Ocean, was first settled by Māori around 1350. The land was fertile, there was plenty of water, and the geography was varied with volcanic peaks, forested valleys, and broad areas of land reaching down to the sea. When Europeans arrived in the early 19th century, they brought with them firearms, which triggered fierce intertribal warfare and sent many Māori to seek refuge in more isolated places. The “terraced volcanic cones and numerous abandoned plantations”2 they left were evidence of previously dense habitation. There were few Māori in the area when European settlement began.
4.6. Two critical things happened in the 1830s: pressure was brought to bear on the Colonial Office in London, with requests from New Zealand traders for the British Government to intervene more strongly in New Zealand affairs; and Edward Gibbon Wakefield established a private firm called the New Zealand Company, with a plan to colonise the country and set up its own government. In response, the British Government sent Captain William Hobson to formally establish a British colony with a legal constitution. Historians Claudia Orange and Michael King have written how the pressure from the New Zealand Company’s private enterprise plan to colonise part of New Zealand changed the previous focus of the Colonial Office from its original plan, “a Māori New Zealand in which [European] settlers would somehow be accommodated”3 to instead “a settler New Zealand in which the Māori people would have a special ‘protected’ position”.4 This difference was crucial, and is one that Māori continue to refer to, including in their submissions to the Commission.5
4.7. Hobson called for a treaty document to formalise the transfer of sovereignty from Māori to British rule; a treaty was written in four days and translated into Māori overnight. The first article of the treaty stated that the Chiefs of the Confederation of the United Tribes of New Zealand would “cede to Her Majesty the Queen of England absolutely and without reservation all the rights and powers of Sovereignty … over their respective Territories …”. In the second article of the treaty, Queen Victoria guaranteed the chiefs and tribes and their families “the full exclusive and undisturbed possession of their Lands and Estates Forests Fisheries and other properties ...”. However, the Māori version spoke of governorship rather than sovereignty, and assured them they retained “the unqualified exercise of their chieftainship over their lands, villages and all their treasures”.6 It is easy to see how these differences in phrasing led to enduring deep-seated resentments and a sense of betrayal about what this treaty truly meant. The rights of Māori to governance in the Auckland region, or to kaitiakitanga – guardianship of its natural resources – remains a relevant issue for them.
4.8. In 1840 the Treaty of Waitangi was signed, and a year later William Hobson, as the new Governor of New Zealand, chose the isthmus area of what is now Auckland as his new capital. It was centrally situated between the European settlements at Kororareka in the Bay of Islands and Port Nicholson (where Wellington would be built), and “between the two areas with the densest Māori population, the Waikato and surrounding districts, and the country to the north of Auckland”.7 Hobson negotiated with the local people who had authority over the land, the Ngāti Whātua-o-Tāmaki, who had previously let him know they would welcome the governor settling there, in the belief he would bring both trade and security.8
4.9. Previously known as Tāmaki-makau-rau, Hobson renamed the settlement after one of his patrons in the Royal Navy, George Eden, Earl of Auckland. Wellington settlers jeered at it, calling it “a ‘proclamation town’, created by the Lieutenant-Governor’s decree on a site inhabited by a few Māoris, one Scotsman, and his partner”.9 Auckland’s first settlers were denounced by other colonists for their wild speculation on property, and were “stigmatised as adventurers and landsharks, men on the make”,10 a reputation that has existed ever since. But immigrants quickly settled there, initially from Scotland, Ireland, and Australia.
4.10. Auckland rapidly became a major commercial centre and, with two ports on its two harbours, a gateway for the export and import of goods.
4.11. Its population grew in spurts, from nearly 2,000 in 1841, to 58,000 by 1881. Since 1886, it has remained New Zealand’s fastest growing and most populous city.11
4.12. The Colonial Office granted Hobson the power to divide the colony into districts, counties, “hundreds”,12 townships, and parishes, as he saw fit. He ran the capital with help from officials and the military, and they began to develop governance and services in a rather haphazard manner.
4.13. As Auckland’s settlement grew, one of its initial key issues was the building and maintenance of roads. In the 1840s there were a few abortive legislative attempts to organise Auckland’s governance, which were mainly focused around public works such as roading. Auckland’s transport governance began with the ineffectual Public Roads and Works Ordinance in 1845. Then in 1848, the rapidly growing “County of Eden was divided into six hundreds in which elected wardens were to supervise the construction of roads and other very local works and to manage the Crown wastelands.”13
4.14. In 1846, Governor Grey oversaw the 1846 Constitution, which divided the European-occupied areas of the country into corporate boroughs, with provincial councils in Auckland, Wellington, Canterbury, Otago, Taranaki, and Nelson. In 1851, the ambitious Auckland Borough Council was established, with a vast area and numerous responsibilities including the police, schools, and hospitals. But it had no legislative framework, no rating structure, and almost no candidates for office. Unsurprisingly, it failed within a year. In 1853, a city council was set up by the Auckland Provincial Council, but that foundered a few years later because of personal politics and resistance to the levying of rates.
4.15. In the early 1860s, war broke out. It began in Taranaki and then, in the view of one historian, it was the Auckland business set who “instigated the invasion of the Māori King’s lands in the Waikato”, a move fuelled by speculative ambitions.14 With the subsequent Māori uprisings throughout the North Island, many Auckland settlers were fearful of a Māori invasion of their town. The battles hardened attitudes between the two races, and resulted in the seizure of much land. The subsequent passing of legislation (such as the Native Land Acts in 1865) “led to the confiscation of over two million acres of Maori land in the Auckland province”.15
4.16. By 1866, Auckland’s “warmongering influence”16 and the massive growth of the population in the South Island led to the capital being shifted to Wellington after 25 years in Auckland. Although it was against Auckland’s wishes, for political and economic reasons the move was seen as a prudent choice given Wellington’s proximity to the South Island (which some feared might otherwise break away and establish itself as a separate colony). The resentment in Auckland lasted for decades, with a city chronicler writing 40 years later of the “disappointment and bitterness’’ that was still being “handed down from father to son and mother to daughter”.17 Auckland-Wellington tension has remained ever since, with both cities claiming primacy. One historian noted that a consequence of the capital’s shift was the withdrawal of many of Auckland’s key businessmen from the national political arena, a tendency he saw as continuing up to the present.18
4.17. From its inception, Auckland had seen itself as New Zealand’s primary city; it was initially both the nation’s capital and the provincial capital. When Anthony Trollope visited the colony in 1873, he wrote that “New Zealand consider[s] herself to be the cream of the British Empire …” and “… Auckland considers herself to be the cream of New Zealand”.19 However, Auckland’s challenges were also foremost in terms of rapid growth, inadequate infrastructure, and fractured governance.
4.18. Throughout the 1860s and 1870s, tension between the provincial governments and central government had been growing. Auckland’s provincial council even thought of seceding from the rest of the colony.20 Further legislative attempts during the 1860s to bring some order into local government were unsuccessful until Auckland was again declared a borough, and then a city, in 1871 under specific legislation by the Provincial Government. The Auckland City Council and the Auckland Harbour Board were both formed that year.
4.19. The council had three major problems to work on: roading, water, and drainage. For some years in the early 1860s public works had practically ceased. Infrastructure lagged dangerously behind the needs of Auckland’s burgeoning population. An example was the notorious open drain-cum-sewer of the central city which ran along lower Queen Street and discharged its foul contents into the harbour. For the next 30 years, the council continued to discharge raw sewage at various points into the harbour, with a consequent cost in epidemics and dysenteric illnesses such as typhoid. In 1904, the Herald newspaper presciently wrote, “We have long and uphill work still before us if we are to make our city wholesome and happy”.21 Sewage was to be the major infrastructure issue for the first half of the 20th century.
4.20. City planning continued to happen in an ad hoc manner. In 1871, Auckland City Council had not a single public park, although it owned some undeveloped Crown reserves. It was the foresight of two individuals in particular, businessman Logan Campbell and Councillor C.J. Parr (who both went on to hold the office of Mayor), that ensured the promotion, acquisition, and development of Auckland’s parks. C.J. Parr was concerned about the crowding and pollution of the city and advocated parks as the “lungs” of Auckland.22 This is one example of the critical difference that visionary leadership can make.
4.21. The first park acquired by the Auckland City Council was Western Park in 1879, then Albert Park, followed by the 196-acre Auckland Domain.
4.22. In 1876, in a major restructuring of local government, Premier Julius Vogel abolished the provincial system. By then, the Government had already taken over the management of public works, railways, and immigration. The provincial governments were replaced by 63 counties and some 314 subordinate boards,23 which historian Keith Sinclair called “that confused multitude of road boards, rabbit boards, drainage, harbour, hospital and education boards, borough, county and city councils, which have ever since managed local affairs”.24
4.23. Four counties were established in the Auckland area: Rodney, Waitemata, Eden, and Manukau, but the latter two failed. Graham Bush links the collapse of an operative county council in the crucial central Eden County (which equated to the Tāmaki isthmus), to the ongoing failure to establish an “orderly development of a coherent local government system for Auckland.”25
4.24. Responsibilities of local bodies changed with the passage of years. A requirement for municipalities in 1876 was the mandatory provision of abattoirs, or slaughterhouses, which were forbidden to make a profit. The Auckland City Council also ran a building that was used as a produce market and council stables. Later it opened a fish market, bought a trawler, and sold fish.
4.25. By the 1880s, Auckland had already begun its sprawl. Homes were built further and further afield, and the extension of public transport routes became more necessary. As railways were built, noisy and messy industries were moved to remoter suburbs. In 1881 a private firm, the Devonport Steam Ferry Company, began a regular ferry service to and from Auckland City for people living on “the Shore”.
4.26. In the last decades of the 19th century the council developed much-needed infrastructure by installing a network of pipes to ensure a clean water supply, improving roading, and developing cultural and recreational facilities.26 One historian believes that the opportunity to be connected to the new water network, as well as to fire and telephone services, was a major inducement for some road districts to be amalgamated with Auckland City in 1882. Unifying the organisations was a solution to a demanding problem. “Since economies of scale came from this amalgamation, the enlarged city was the ultimate beneficiary”.27
4.27. Several themes can already be seen in the first 50 years of history of Auckland’s governance: lack of considered legislative arrangements that were well resourced and supported; the importance of infrastructural development, particularly drainage and roading, to cope with the pressure of intense population growth; the fragmentation of governance; the Auckland-Wellington feud; and sectarian politics.
4.28. As the colony grew, so did the challenges and needs of its local governance sector – and the desire to restructure and reform it. In 1895, Prime Minister “King Dick” Seddon criticised the large number of local bodies and advocated restructuring, saying that they cost ratepayers too much. He envisaged establishing small, local government commissions that would contain the number and size of local bodies. The plan never came to fruition.
4.29. By the turn of the century, calls for amalgamation of the dozens of boards, districts, and boroughs grew increasingly clamorous. There was a “Greater Auckland” conference in 1904 which advocated the idea of a single regional authority, but the proposal crumbled in the face of antagonism from protective local interests.
4.30. Seven years after King Dick’s proposed scheme another Prime Minister, Joseph Ward, attempted reform. His plan to restructure local government into 24 elected provincial councils, supervised by a Local Government Board, was resisted by local bodies and also failed to eventuate.
4.31. However, the call for amalgamation was growing and some restructuring was achieved in the 1910s as Parnell, Grey Lynn, Remuera, and Epsom all joined the Auckland City Council. With the election of Mayor Arthur Myers, and the strategic manoeuvring of the Auckland City Council, some further restructuring was achieved in the 1920s. Two boroughs and five road districts joined Auckland City Council, followed by Avondale Borough and two other road districts. But these were the last such moves for over half a century.
4.32. In the first decades of the 20th century, awareness grew of the need for planning and the protection of Auckland’s environment. Logan Campbell donated Cornwall Park for use by the people of Auckland in 1903. In 1915, legislation was passed to protect Auckland’s landmark volcanic cones, particularly from erosion through constant quarrying. The city council began buying land in the Waitakere Ranges, both to gain access to water supply and to protect the area’s scenic qualities. In 1928, control of Motuihe Island was vested in Auckland City Council for the development of a marine park.
4.33. The growth of the city forced Auckland City Council to focus on two critical needs: water and power. Suburban bodies urged the Government to retail electricity from hydro stations through a system of elected power boards. By 1922, all power utility assets were transferred to the Auckland Electric Power Board for the princely sum of half a million pounds. The council had also turned its attention to water supply and significantly expanded its Waitakere sources, enough to last for nearly 25 years of growth.
4.34. By the 1920s, the Auckland City Council was the most progressive of all the councils in the region. It had purchased parks and constructed civic buildings and swimming pools; it had planned out an entire suburb, and built housing for low-income workers. The 1920s have been described by Graham Bush as “the heyday of the Council as owner of utilities and commercial entrepreneur: at one stage it sold water, electricity and fish, operated the tramways and an abattoir, and even commenced the process of acquiring the Auckland Gas Company.”28
4.35. The planning of the city’s civic centre, however, was disastrous. The Auckland City Council sponsored a design competition for a municipal administration block in 1921 to be sited by the Viaduct, but the ratepayers overwhelmingly rejected it. A subsequent Civic Centre Commission produced another proposal, which fared no better. By 1927, the council had abandoned the project. The lack of a planned, aesthetic, spacious city centre for Auckland has been bemoaned ever since.
4.36. In 1926, a national Town Planning Act was passed, which allowed for joint planning schemes. In spite of the logic of this, local politics meant it was never used well in Auckland. By the end of 1945, many local bodies in Auckland joined the Metropolitan Planning Committee, and produced an outline development plan which covered 300 square miles of the Auckland area. However the Planning Committee lacked the ability to implement this strategy, and it was left up to the local bodies to follow it if they wished.
4.37. Throughout this time, and for many decades afterwards, Auckland’s local governance was characterised by what was known as “ad hoc boards”, that is, single- or special-purpose boards, which each managed a specific service or infrastructure need, such as the Auckland Harbour Board, the Auckland Education Board, the Auckland Fire Board, the Hobson Bay Watershed Sewage Board, and so on. By 1926 there were over 350 such boards throughout the country, and a number of them were tailored for Auckland through special legislation. Although there were some advantages in the focused activity of these boards, it also increased the number of bodies, which were fiercely independent and resisted amalgamation.
4.38. The Great Depression saw a major contraction in works and initiatives run by the council and local bodies. Bush notes that the “average annual rate increases of nearly 9% in the 1920s plummeted to 1.6% in the early 1930s”, and when 20% of rates were unpaid, “defaulters were allowed to expunge arrears by serving as unskilled labourers for the Council”.29
4.39. As the 20th century progressed, reform attempts on Auckland’s governance continued. The Labour Government made some initial plans in the 1930s, which were overtaken by the urgent priority of the war and the loss of many council staff to the war effort. The war caused a major contraction of council services and works owing to lack of staff and funding.
4.40. In 1944, the Parliamentary Committee on Local Government was established with a recommendation for a permanent, quasi-judicial commission that would oversee the creation, merger and amalgamation of local bodies. Although it planned to give Auckland priority, the Local Government Commission did not turn its attention to Auckland until 1949 and its attempt to consider consolidation was met with hostility.30
4.41. A precedent was established when an amendment to the legislation was passed in 1953, weakening the powers of the commission and making its decisions subject to appeal. This made it less likely that any decision the commission made would be implemented.
4.42. In the 1950s, there were some small mergers and indications of change, mainly initiated by councils themselves as they realised the need to develop city-wide infrastructure because of the rapid increase of the population. The number of residents had doubled in 30 years, and managing traffic was an ongoing challenge.
4.43. In 1951, a policy for containing urban expansion was formalised in the “Outline Development Plan for Auckland”, just as road building and increasing car ownership was encouraging the development of outlying low-density suburbs along transport routes and the rural-urban interface. There was growing pressure for these suburbs to be proclaimed wards or boroughs, thereby increasing the number of local bodies. As the population and suburbs grew, the urban boundaries were regularly extended.
4.44. The concept of regional planning came to the forefront again in 1953, when the Auckland Regional Planning Authority was one of six regional authorities established throughout New Zealand by the Town and Country Planning Act. In an echo of 1926 and 1945, the achievement of establishing a regional planning authority was diminished by its lack of power. The founding Chairman, the highly regarded Professor Kenneth Cumberland, deplored the fact that the Auckland Regional Planning Authority lacked the means to implement its plans.
4.45. Some regional planners such as F.W.O. Jones had the foresight to see the need for recreational areas in Auckland, and to protect the special “coastal landscapes from the subdivisions which began to appear after the war”.31 The region was gradually enriched by the acquisition of other parks: in 1945, the 100-acre area of Churchill Park, and Browns Island in 1954 (a gift from former mayor Sir Ernest Davis).
4.46. The Auckland City Council also ventured into social areas such as housing. After the war, transit camps were used to house up to 3,000 people. In the 1950s, housing initiatives were begun in the inner city and Freemans Bay as the council attempted to clear slums and shift residents into distant state housing areas. In 1958, the council put up four blocks of pensioner housing, which catered for about 500 needy elderly people.32
4.47. The 1950s saw a few half-hearted attempts to establish regional government in Auckland, including a study on local body arrangements in 1957. However, it lacked resources and commitment. The election of Sir Dove-Myer Robinson as Mayor of Auckland City in 1959 brought a proactive approach to the issue.
4.48. Dove-Myer Robinson was a businessman who came to politics through environmental activism. He was the leader of the Auckland and Suburban Drainage League, which vehemently opposed the Browns Island scheme, a proposal to pipe sewage to Browns Island “where after minimal treatment it would be discharged out of sight and out of mind into the Rangitoto channel”. He decided to join the council to fight the proposal and, with the election of himself and other environmental supporters in 1952–53, managed to halt the project. International experts were called in, and the Auckland Metropolitan Drainage Board followed their farsighted recommendation, which was to use the “revolutionary technology of oxidation ponds and for these to be located at Mangere”.34
4.49. This natural politician became known as “Robbie” and was elected mayor a record six times. In his first term, he managed to persuade and cajole 400 local body delegates to support the concept of a metropolitan-wide authority. The Auckland Regional Authority Establishment Committee was set up in 1960 to work on legislation to establish such a body. It was always going to be a difficult task, as there were then 31 territorial authorities and 16 ad hoc bodies,35 and much parochial infighting. The initial agreement of the local body delegates quickly foundered on the reality of political disagreements about the regional authority’s functions and representation arrangements. Arguments became so vociferous and entrenched that the different factions each wrote their own legislation. Two bills with different structures and powers were sent to Parliament and the exhausting drama dragged on for another year before a drastically amended bill was passed, days before a general election. It was a difficult birth, but after three years of labouring, the Auckland Regional Authority (“ARA”) was established in 1963. This has been regarded as “Robbie’s capstone achievement”.36
4.50. The ARA took over a wide variety of infrastructure functions, such as bulk water supply and sewage reticulation and treatment, which had previously been administered by different ad hoc boards, local body committees, and the Auckland City Council. Its functions also covered the international airport, public passenger transport, civil defence, and milk distribution. Its 43 members were elected at municipal and county elections, and many of them were local mayors. Its area of jurisdiction encompassed the 31 territorial local bodies in the region. The 1963 Auckland Regional Authority Act was Auckland’s first step to multifunctional regional government.
4.51. A major programme of infrastructure development ensued. The ARA built five major dams in 12 years, increasing Auckland’s bulk water storage capacity by over 385%. The sewage treatment plant at Mangere was upgraded, four large landfills were established, and much coastal land was bought as part of the regional parks network. In 1967 the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park was established, in recognition of the need for integrated management of this precious resource.
4.52. The 1960s saw further plans for local body amalgamation, which were proposed by the larger cities and counties in the region, and which were all defeated by the public or local politicians. As its rulings were regularly overturned by voters, the third Local Government Commission effectively abandoned its attempts to bring about territorial reform in Auckland.
4.53. However, at the end of the decade the Local Government Commission was reconstituted under the leadership of Hugh Fullarton and it conducted exhaustive consultation and investigation into local body boundaries and functions throughout the country, with particular focus on Auckland and Wellington. As it travelled from one district and town to another, resistance grew as members of each local body feared for their existence. When the commission finally released its recommendations, it included a new area scheme for Auckland, with eight territorial authorities and 11 new ad hoc boards,37 to replace the 31 territorial authorities and 23 boards that existed. There was an immediate reaction with nearly 4,000 objections being lodged and legal counsel involved. Despite this, the Local Government Commission was unmoved, and in 1972 the final area scheme had four major cities.
4.54. However, that same year the Labour Party under Norman Kirk came to power, and the new Minister of Local Government, Henry May, announced that the Local Government Commission Act would be repealed. May then ushered in a new piece of legislation, the landmark Local Government Act, which finally became law in 1974. It would be the basis for local government for nearly 20 years.
4.55. The Local Government Act 1974 strengthened the powers of the Local Government Commission with its poll provisions, ensuring that at least half the electors – not just the voters – were needed to defeat a proposal from the commission. The Act also had provisions governing community councils, enabling them to be formed out of county boroughs and towns. Some councils were concerned at the prospect of numerous, potentially bothersome community councils in their area, and the Auckland City Council pre-emptively created an alternative, leading to the formation of numerous community committees in its area.
4.56. The Town and Country Planning Act 1953 (and the Town and Country Planning Act 1977), together with the district plans made under them, encouraged the separation of districts into retail/commercial/industrial and residential areas. It resulted in a large number of town centres across the region, each with its own clusters of residential and commercial development.
4.57. Meanwhile, the ARA was gradually garnering further responsibilities such as regional water management, refuse disposal, community development, the Mt Smart Stadium, employment creation, and urban transport planning – without abolishing a single ad hoc board. In terms of transport, the ARA was in charge of Auckland International Airport, bus operations, public transport funding, strategic transport planning, and regional roads. Following the Local Government Act 1974, the ARA established the Regional Growth Forum, which could approve a regional growth strategy. Regional management was coming into its own.
4.58. The victory of the National Party in 1975 led to the amendment of existing legislation: the polling provisions were softened, the ad hoc sector was removed from the Local Government Commission’s ambit, and urban local bodies were prohibited from establishing community boards. The commission was charged with finding solutions that were supported by public opinion, and even then the minister could direct them to reconsider their plans.
4.59. The pendulum had swung again; far from moves to amalgamate, the 1970s saw some moves for secession, with various boroughs attempting to break away from the larger councils, or even to annex some of their territory. Aside from that, there was little change in Auckland’s local government during the Muldoon era.38
4.60. A similar scenario occurred in the transport sector. In the first half of the 20th century, trams and railway lines served Auckland’s rapid growth. Solutions to transport problems had long been hotly debated, with calls as far back as the 1920s for an underground rail system featuring a central city tunnel to ease traffic congestion in the inner city. Although Auckland had “an excellent electric tram system supported by trains and harbour ferries”,39 a growing population required further development of the transport system. In 1947, there were plans from the Ministry of Works to electrify and expand the Auckland suburban rail network. These awaited action until 1954, when the National Government’s Minister of Transport persuaded the Auckland City Council to drop the rail plans. The next day the Government signed the contract to build the road-only Auckland Harbour Bridge. The Auckland City Council then adopted a Master Transportation Plan, which concentrated on a motorway network, and essentially ignored rail. At this point, the focus of Auckland’s transport system began to swing to the automobile and over the following decades would inevitably follow the American design of motorways and far-flung suburbs with shopping malls. Two years later, in 1956, 72 kilometres of tram tracks that ran all over central Auckland were ripped out.40 Public transport would not recover for more than half a century, and counting.41 Michael Lee comments that “Auckland almost overnight went from having one of the best public transport systems to one of the worst.”42
4.61. Nearly 10 years later, the 1965 De Leuw Cather report renewed the proposal for modernised rail transit, and although the council endorsed it, the possibility of enacting it dissolved in an ongoing tussle over who would pay the $42 million in capital costs.
4.62. In the 1970s, back in his mayoral role, Sir Dove-Myer Robinson proposed a rapid rail plan that looked promising.43 After some years, he persuaded Kirk’s Labour Government to support the scheme and help fund it. However, when the National Government came to power it cancelled the scheme, with Prime Minister Robert Muldoon announcing that as long as he was in Government, the State would never put money into the Auckland rapid transit scheme.44 Instead, more money was put into replacing the ageing bus fleet. In response, Mayor Robbie swore that “so long as I am alive, rapid transit is alive and I will keep it alive until I’m no longer able to sustain life myself”.45 In the decades that followed, increasing regret was expressed that his scheme never eventuated. Sir Dove-Myer Robinson is often lauded as one of the few Auckland mayors with visionary leadership and genuine foresight for the region.
4.63. In 1980, the ARA proposed a Green City plan with greenways and a revival of the circular railway concept, first proposed in 1946. It never became anything more than a paper plan. The anti-planning backlash intensified during the free-market economic policy revolution in 1984, when “centralised planning had become ideological anathema”.46
4.64. Meanwhile, some territorial authorities were nervous about the ARA’s power as a regional strategist. They feared it would lessen their influence, and usurp some revenue streams. So in 1983, various mayors and councils attempted an electoral takeover of the ARA, calling themselves the “New Deal”. It worked – they won 20 of the 29 seats. They immediately set about trying to change the direction of the ARA, back to what they considered its proper, more contained role. The consequent chaos caused by the New Deal incumbents trying to take control of management of the organisation led to such hostility and dysfunction that in 1985, 21 Auckland mayors went to the new Labour Minister of Local Government, Dr Michael Bassett, to request him to urgently review ARA affairs. He immediately agreed.
4.65. The outcomes were surprising. The ARA’s role and functions were reaffirmed, and the management group was reinstated with their previous responsibilities. In 1986, membership criteria for the ARA changed from borough representation to parliamentary boundaries. Another change, possibly due to the combination of the New Deal saga and the change in philosophical fashion during the 1980s, was that the ARA stopped doing major capital works, despite the city growing at breakneck pace.
4.66. When the 1984 Labour Government took office, it immediately began implementing a programme of radical change. It had been part of the Labour Party’s agenda since the 1930s that local government amalgamation was essential. Local Government Minister Dr Michael Bassett planned to enact a national programme of genuine reform of local government, and he was convinced that the way to do it was not in piecemeal fashion, as Fullarton had done in the 1970s, but comprehensively throughout the country.
4.67. Bassett increased the number of positions on the Local Government Commission and brought in new blood. The then Mayor of Palmerston North, Brian Elwood, was recruited to head the commission, and Bassett offered him unconditional support in the process of reform. This alliance, of a minister and the Local Government Commissioner, strengthened the chances of success for their reform programme.
4.68. As a historian, Bassett knew that reform would never work without legislative teeth to ensure its success. Although the local bodies remained governed by the 1974 legislation, the Labour Government passed new legislation that abolished the poll provisions, where local populations could vote on reform measures.
4.69. There were then over 700 local bodies throughout New Zealand, 44 of which were in Auckland. During 1985–86, the Local Government Commissioners visited every single local authority in New Zealand, from the largest council to the smallest water board, asking for their ideas, encouraging them to talk to their neighbouring authorities, and confirming that change was inevitable. Elwood recalls that his approach to councils was strategic and respectful:
Disturbing the status quo is not going to be easy if it’s badly handled. … We were able to depoliticise the process by involving those affected by the reform, in the reform process. ... I was able to persuade the town and county clerks that their futures would be better in larger stronger authorities. … We said: This is the problem: 100 years of change in the counties of NZ, with virtually no change in the system of local government. We want to give you the opportunity to come up with your solution to reform. If you convince us of the soundness of your proposal, we’re more likely to adopt that, than impose another solution.47
This approach, he believes, brought people to a creative level rather than entrenching them at a defensive level.
4.70. While the commission was working at the local level, central government was working on the national, legislative level. In three successive years, from 1986 to 1988, the remuneration levels for councillors were raised with the rationale that higher pay would attract better candidates. A special Cabinet committee was established to deal with local government legislation and issues around the upcoming Resource Management Act, which was to become a major piece of legislation.
4.71. In 1988, the Local Government Commission was given a focused brief – to recommend a structure that embodied efficiency, effectiveness, transparency, and accountability48 – and a tight, non-negotiable timeline of one year to consult with local bodies and make recommendations.
4.72. Also in 1988, two key transport portals, the ports of Auckland and the airport, were shifted from the ambit of the Auckland Harbour Board and the ARA respectively, and established as separate companies. Auckland International Airport Ltd was formed as a publicly listed company, with nearly half the shares owned by Auckland local authorities. Ports of Auckland Ltd had 80% of its shares held by Auckland and 20% by Waikato regional councils.
4.73. In 1989, the Government gave the Local Government Commission an assurance that its considered recommendations would be implemented by Orders in Council, quasi-legislative powers that even the Government could not interfere with other than by fresh legislation.
4.74. The delivery of the final recommendations from the Local Government Commission in 1989 provides a cautionary tale for the successful conclusion of such a commission. The recommendations were quietly delivered to the minister, and then passed through the Executive Council without publicity. Two days later, a lawyer informed the minister that the High Court had granted the people of Devonport an injunction to stop the commission’s documents going to the Executive Council. But the attempt to question or alter the recommendations was too late – the Orders in Council had already been signed by the Governor-General.
4.75. The outcome of four years’ work was significant. Nationally, the 700 local bodies were reduced to 87. In Auckland, 44 local bodies were amalgamated into eight: seven territorial authorities and the present regional council.49 The ARA became the Auckland Regional Council (“ARC”) and was assigned additional functions,50 while the territorial authorities were consolidated into four cities and three districts.51 The legislation also outlined the purpose and scope of local government, a process of clarification that signalled a shift in philosophy.
4.76. A transitional committee was established for each new territorial authority, with members from all previous borough councils. However, a handful of local boroughs continued to fight to the bitter end, with Devonport going all the way to the Court of Appeal, where the ruling was that the final prerogative lay with the Government using Orders in Council. The Hauraki Gulf islands protested their inclusion in Auckland City, to no avail. The legal safeguards put in place by the Local Government Commission held firm. The focus for local government became transition negotiations and processes. Commission head Brian Elwood knew that it would take time for things to settle, and he appealed for the changeover to be given at least two terms or six years to prove itself.
4.77. Elwood believed that the 1989 reforms were never intended to be the final word. He and Bassett expected that further reforms would be generated locally as the smaller local authorities struggled with increasing responsibilities and the inability to provide satisfactory working conditions for senior staff. They thought that this would lead to a natural reduction in local bureaucrats as the logic of rationalisation took hold. “We expected that one day, people would see that logically the five authorities [the four urban territorial authorities, or city councils, and the ARC] could be amalgamated”.52
4.78. The new national system envisaged having separate regional councils which would exercise more regulatory functions, while the territorial authorities would have the operational functions, providing their usual array of services. For Auckland in particular, the role for the ARC was seen as one of regional oversight, whereby key planning and infrastructure decisions could be made by the Auckland Regional Plan and the planning processes.
4.79. There were two further things that were not completed in 1989: the development of a national planning document, the New Zealand Plan, which was going to be achieved through the implementation of regional and district plans; and the reform of the local government finance sector, and what Elwood saw as its inadequate funding base.
4.80. Despite the unrealised plans, the reform was largely seen as a success by local politicians, one that had achieved participation and results. It redefined functions and delineated lines of funding and accountability. The process had facilitated easier planning and cost containment, with new administration models and modern management systems and practices. Historically, the changes of 1989 can be seen as the first substantial restructuring of local government since the abolition of provincial government in 1876.
4.81. However, the 1989 amalgamation was rarely seen in a positive light by those who commented on it in their submissions to the Royal Commission. For them, the time of the ARA and borough councils was seen as a golden age of local body governance when there was trust, accessibility, and development of council services and responsibility for a wide range of functions:
4.82. A common theme was that councils now are too large to address localised community interests, and community proposals are routinely ignored. One submitter decried the corporatisation of council assets and services such as bus services, forests, refuse disposal, and water services, which occurred after amalgamation. However, a few submitters saw things more critically noting that pre-amalgamation, local body territories were jealously guarded, there was rarely cooperation across boundaries, and that regional representatives then – and now – were often captured by the local council area they represented:
under the ARA structure respective council representatives often saw their role as representing and advocating at the regional level for their local council constituency – even though they have signed a declaration that they would first and foremost represent the regional interests.55
4.83. One submitter to the Commission wrote
It is important that the reasons for change in 1989, and the outcome, are fully understood by the Commission because there will be parallel reasons, and likely outcomes, that this current review can learn from.56
4.84. Bassett, the then Minister of Local Government, is clear what the lessons for successful reform were in 1989: unequivocal support from a minister who is willing to take charge of the process; high-quality commissioners and officials; firm dealing with interest groups; regular, frank consultation with affected groups to canvass issues thoroughly; having the unions on side; sticking to a defined objective and clear timeline; and appointing someone of considerable status and skill to manage the transition process.57
4.85. In 1990, the National Government won a resounding victory at the polls, and the Minister of Local Government, Warren Cooper, set about righting what he saw as flaws in the system. The ARC had a bad run of publicity, with a new highly paid chief executive, an expensive new headquarters building, which was seen as profligate, and infighting within the organisation.58 Cooper’s perception of the ARC was that its 30 members were well-meaning and community-oriented, but they did not have the leadership and business skills to manage aspects of Auckland effectively, such as transport and water, although he was happy to leave them managing areas such as planning and parks and reserves. In 1991 and 1992 he amended the 1989 legislation, and set up separate bodies to manage water and transport, thereby reducing the functions of the ARC. The ARC was expressly forbidden to own public transport infrastructure. Reforms in 1992 transferred regional assets, such as the 80% share in Ports of Auckland and ownership of the Yellow Bus Company, to the newly formed Auckland Regional Services Trust (“ARST”). The result of these reforms left the ARC with diminished powers and shifted its focus to a regulatory, planning and funding role, with particular emphasis on land transport.
4.86. ARST was established to pay back the city’s debts through the sale of its assets. Some people saw its formation as being “clearly custom-designed to be an agent of privatisation”.59 However the trustees had to be elected at large, there was a public backlash against selling off assets, and at the election in 1992 Bruce Jesson and other Alliance Party supporters gained control of the organisation. They refused to sell the trust’s assets. ARST management and its advisers proposed a financial deal (a subordinate debt arrangement) with the ARC, so that the city’s debts were to be repaid over 15 years. Within three years, the debt was repaid,60 and the ARST assets were worth $1.8 billion. The trust had held onto public assets and managed them to create “public wealth in the public interest”.61 The profits from Ports of Auckland and other regional assets have since become a key funder of Auckland’s infrastructure projects, such as transport and stormwater upgrades.
4.87. Cooper was keen to contract out a lot of local government services. He believed there was a lot of bureaucracy, wastage, and indolence in council operations and he wanted a structured method of comparison in regard to outcomes. While he managed to make many changes, he sometimes found himself pitted against municipal authorities and the Local Government Association. His vision was to have unitary councils throughout New Zealand, but Cooper says he was foiled by mayors who wanted to keep their “fiefdoms”62 and pressured the caucus for support. As a result, amending legislation softened the powers of the Local Government Commission and also lowered the barriers to secession, opening the door to breakaway proposals.
4.88. Numerous secessionist movements then sprang up, with the result that the next Minister of Local Government, John Banks, stepped in and supported the Law Reform Act of 1994, which restored much of the Local Government Commission’s authority and made such secession movements more difficult. Two of these secessionist movements retain some energy today: the Devonport proposal for an autonomous ward, and the eastern suburbs of Pakuranga and Howick wanting separate governance from Manukau City.
4.89. Another critical piece of legislation was passed in 1991: the Resource Management Act, designed to promote the sustainable management of physical and natural resources. The Act requires the ARC to provide a number of regional plans covering environmental matters such as management of coastal areas, air, sea, sediment, and so on. The regional plans, naturally, also affect the plans of the territorial authorities.
4.90. Through the 1990s, the process of change continued in the philosophy, politics, and management of local government: town clerks were replaced by chief executives, and public service standards and systems were overtaken by corporate goals such as strategic planning and performance appraisal. Infrastructure became assets, the public became clients, and staff became human resources.63 The language and practices of governance were shifting.
4.91. In 1998, Infrastructure Auckland was established with responsibility for the remaining assets of ARST and a mandate to grant funding for transport projects and stormwater infrastructure. The trust was governed by a board appointed and monitored by local authority appointees, including territorial authorities and the ARC. Watercare Services had a similar governance arrangement as a local authority trading enterprise owned by all six territorial authorities; it was responsible for the supply of bulk water and wastewater services to the Auckland region.
4.92. As the 20th century drew to a close, the concept of collaboration, if not amalgamation, gained increasing purchase. Despite frequent infighting, the councils themselves began to work together on different projects and infrastructure elements and in 1999 they spearheaded a series of shared-services pilot projects. Philip Warren, the chair of the ARC since 1992, had long been an advocate of collaboration among the councils to solve the region’s issues of transport, growth, and the environment, and worked hard to bring a regional focus to these issues. Elected a record four terms in a row, he was an example of a leader who worked tirelessly behind the scenes to bring a new culture of decision making to the region.64
4.93. In 2001, the Local Electoral Act gave local communities the power to choose local electoral systems, such as single transferable vote or first past the post, and representation arrangements, such as the creation of Māori wards and constituencies. (Coincidentally, the same year special empowering legislation was passed – the Bay of Plenty Regional Council (Māori Constituency Empowering) Act – to enable the establishment of separate Māori constituencies in that region. Environment Bay of Plenty is now the only local body in New Zealand with guaranteed Māori seats on its council.)
4.94. The following year, a major piece of legislation was passed by Parliament: the Local Government Act 2002. It marked a fundamental shift in philosophy and purpose from service-oriented local government towards government that is a vehicle for the broader well-being of the population. It spelled out the four areas local government must take into account: the social, economic, environmental, and cultural well-being of the population. Local authorities were given the “power of general competence” (the ability to deal with any issue as long as it is not prohibited by law). However, they were also required to consult so widely the process became costly and inefficient. The Act did not specify much about the relationship between regional and territorial levels of government.
4.95. An amendment to the Act was passed in 2004 to add measures on land transport funding and stormwater management. It also established two new organisations as subsidiaries of the ARC: Infrastructure Auckland was dissolved and its assets were transferred to the newly formed Auckland Regional Holdings, which is now the 100% owner of Ports of Auckland. The Auckland Regional Transport Authority was established to help the ARC fulfil its regional responsibilities of public transport planning and funding, and management of public transport assets. This left the ARC to focus on the preparation and approval of the Auckland Regional Land Transport Strategy, which concentrates on long-range planning.
4.96. Auckland remained bedevilled by the problem of complex governance that failed to deliver progressive and necessary solutions to infrastructure issues, particularly transport. As the population continued its runaway growth, the region faced increasing challenges in ensuring areas such as public transport, affordable housing, and urban growth kept up with demand.
4.97. The 21st century saw an increasing shift in public awareness about regional and local governance. Different groups were set up to focus on Auckland’s needs and develop a vision for the area, such as the Auckland Transport Action Group, a group of private and public sector chief executives which, in 2001, presented a report to the Prime Minister asking for a single decision-making and priority-setting process for regional transport projects, and for the mandatory implementation of the regional land transport strategy.4.98. The thorny problem of competing councils remained. Auckland rarely spoke with one voice on major issues, and the issues of infrastructure development and transport grew increasingly urgent. In 2006, two situations demonstrated the problem. The first involved the four city mayors (of North Shore, Waitakere, Auckland, and Manukau Cities) planning what was called a “Mayoral Coup”. In this proposal the region would amalgamate into three cities with a Lord Mayor; the neighbouring district councils of Franklin, Papakura, and Rodney would be annexed; Waitakere would be carved up; and each of the four city mayors would be appointed to the ARC as of right, along with business leaders and central government politicians and officials – all of which would give them control of ARC assets. The public response was immediate and negative, and the plan was quickly abandoned.65
4.99. The second example happened when Auckland won the right to host the 2011 Rugby World Cup. The Minister for Sport, Trevor Mallard, championed the idea of building a new stadium on the waterfront and gave a commitment to fund half the estimated $700 million cost, without burdening the ratepayers. The Auckland councils were divided in their response, and the idea was shelved.
4.100. Many people saw the general lack of ability to take these and other regional decisions as symbolic of Auckland’s fractured governance. Historian R.C.J. Stone wrote critically of the “highly inefficient system of local government” that had existed since 1989:
Auckland has 264 elected representatives to run the region, twice the number of MPs who are running the whole country. It follows that the failure of the eight Auckland councils to speak with a united voice has been a great handicap in getting the requisite funding from central government for the region’s infrastructural projects.66
4.101. Despite all these disagreements, the seven territorial authorities and the ARC joined forces in 2006 to focus on recommendations for strengthening Auckland’s regional governance. The “One Plan” was a long-term strategic direction for the area based on the regionally endorsed Auckland Sustainability Framework, with a list of agreed, prioritised actions and projects and a five- to 20-year programme of action. Their recommendations were broadly endorsed by the Labour Government.
4.102. By the end of 2007, the Government announced the establishment of a Royal Commission on Auckland Governance to investigate the governance arrangements for the future and to ensure the optimal development of New Zealand’s largest city.
4.103. Lessons can be learned from the patterns that are revealed by the history of Auckland’s governance. In particular,
4.104. Political scientist Graham Bush notes that
an appreciation of the history of Auckland’s governance should inculcate the realisation that there is no formulaic or absolutely foolproof answer to what is going to best serve Auckland’s governance needs. It should teach that informed and carefully-weighed judgement will be crucial.67
Details of local government bodies in 1960
* Auckland City Council, Birkenhead Borough Council, Devonport Borough Council, East Coast Bays Borough Council, Ellerslie Borough Council, Franklin County, Glen Eden Borough Council, Helensville Borough Council, Howick Borough Council, Manukau Borough Council, Manurewa Borough Council, Mt Albert Borough Council, Mt Eden Borough Council, Mt Wellington Borough Council, New Lynn Borough Council, Newmarket Borough Council, Northcote Borough Council, One Tree Borough Council, Onehunga Borough Council, Otahuhu Borough Council, Papakura Borough Council, Papatoetoe Borough Council, Pukekohe Borough Council, Rodney County, Takapuna Borough Council, Tuakau Borough Council, Waiheke County, Waitemata County, Waiuku Borough Council, Warkworth Town District.
** Airport Committee, Auckland Centennial Memorial Park Board, Auckland Electric Power Board, Auckland Harbour Board, Auckland Harbour Bridge Authority, Auckland Metropolitan Drainage Board, Auckland Metropolitan Fire Board, Auckland Metropolitan Milk Board, Auckland Planning Authority, Auckland Transport Board, Civil Defence Sub Committee, North Shore Drainage, North Shore Fire Board, South Auckland Local Government Authority, Suburban Local Bodies Association, Waitemata Electric Power Board.
1. Bush, Graham, “Historical Overview of Auckland Governance”, in Royal Commission on Auckland Governance, Report, Volume 4: Research Papers, Auckland, 2009, pp. 1–37.
2. Stone, R.C.J., Logan Campbell’s Auckland: Tales from the Early Years, Auckland University Press, Auckland, 2007, p. 41.
3. Orange, Claudia, An Illustrated History of the Treaty of Waitangi, Allen & Unwin, Wellington, 1990, p. 11.
4. Ibid., p. 11.
5. For example, the submission to the Royal Commission on Auckland Governance from Ngāti Whātua Nga Rima o Kaipara made the point that “the Auckland regional councils are in our tribal area (not the other way around!)” [p.14]; and a submission from C. Maanu Paul on behalf of Tamaki ki te Tonga District Maori Council pointed out that settlements in Auckland, and all the subsequent local bodies that governed them, did not recognise tangata whenua [people of the land] boundaries, despite “these having [been] established for some seven Hundred years” [p. 2]. (All submissions are available at www.royalcommission.govt.nz.)
6. King, Michael, The Penguin History of New Zealand, Penguin Books, Auckland, 2003, p. 160.
7. Sinclair, Keith (additional material by Raewyn Dalziel), A History of New Zealand, Penguin Books, Auckland, 1991, p. 75.
8. Stone, Logan Campbell’s Auckland, p. 42.
9. Sinclair, A History of New Zealand, p. 102.
10. Stone, Logan Campbell’s Auckland, p. 6.
11. Belich, James, Paradise Reforged: A History of the New Zealanders From the 1880s to the Year 2000, Allen Lane/The Penguin Press, Auckland, 2001, p. 525.
12. A “hundred” was an administrative division of a county, based on the English system.
13. Bush, in Royal Commission on Auckland Governance, Report, Volume 4: Research Papers, p. 4.
14. Lee, Michael, “Strangers in the 21st Century: Auckland and New Zealand Politics Without Bruce Jesson”, lecture on behalf of the Bruce Jesson Foundation, Maidment Theatre, Auckland University, 6 October 2008 (available at www.brucejesson.com, accessed February 2009).
15. Stone, Logan Campbell’s Auckland, p. 12.
16. Ibid., p. 13.
17. Quoted in Stone, Logan Campbell’s Auckland, p. 14.
18. Ibid., p. 14.
19. Anthony Trollope in “Australia and New Zealand” (1873), quoted in Sinclair, A History of New Zealand, p. 221.
20. Lee, “Strangers in the 21st Century”, lecture, 6 October 2008.
21. Quoted in Stone, Logan Campbell’s Auckland, p. 34.
22. Ibid., p. 35. Logan Campbell donated Cornwall Park to the people of Auckland in 1903. It remains a park administered by a private trust, for use by the city’s residents.
23. Bush, in Royal Commission on Auckland Governance, Report, Volume 4: Research Papers, p. 5.
24. Sinclair, A History of New Zealand, p. 160.
25. Bush, in Royal Commission on Auckland Governance, Report, Volume 4: Research Papers, p. 5.
26. Stone, Logan Campbell’s Auckland, p. 4.
27. Ibid., p. 4.
28. Bush, Graham, “On the trail of the modernising city (1919-1945)”, in “History of Auckland City”, Auckland City Council website (www.aucklandcity.govt.nz, accessed February 2009).
29. Bush, in “History of Auckland City”, Auckland City Council website.
30. Bush, in Royal Commission on Auckland Governance, Report, Volume 4: Research Papers, pp. 9–10.
31. Lee, “Strangers in the 21st Century”, lecture, 6 October 2008.
32. Bush, Graham, “Thinking and being metropolitan (1945-1971)”, in “History of Auckland City”, Auckland City Council website.
33. Lee, “Strangers in the 21st Century”, lecture, 6 October 2008.
34. Ibid.
35. See Appendix 4.1 at end of this chapter, which details the names of these bodies, pp. –.
36. Lee, “Strangers in the 21st Century”, lecture, 6 October 2008.
37. The five municipalities and three counties were Auckland City, Northern City, Western City, Southern City, Pukekohe Borough, Northern County, Waiheke County, and Franklin County. The 11 ad hoc authorities were the Auckland Harbour Board, the Auckland Regional Water Board,an urban fire authority (Northern County), the North Shore Fire Board, an urban fire authority (Western City), the Auckland Metropolitan Fire Board, an urban fire authority (Franklin County), the Pukekohe Fire Board, the Waiheke secondary urban fire authority, the Waikato Valley Authority, and the Hauraki Catchment Board and Regional Water Board.
38. Sir Robert Muldoon was Prime Minister from 1975 to 1984.
39. Lee, “Strangers in the 21st Century”, lecture, 6 October 2008.
40. Ibid.
41. In 1956, when the population was just over 400,000 people, there were over 100 million passenger trips per year on public transport, and the electric trams made a modest profit for the city. In 2008, with a population of nearly 1.4 million, there were just over 54 million passenger trips per year, mainly on buses, at an annual cost of $140 million in public subsidies.
42. Lee, “Strangers in the 21st Century”, lecture, 6 October 2008.
43. Sir Dove-Myer Robinson was Mayor of Auckland City from 1959 to 1965 and 1968 to 1970.
44. “State ‘Won’t Ever Pay’ for Rapid Transit Plan”, New Zealand Herald, 21 May 1976.
45. “Keep On To The Last Gasp”, New Zealand Herald, 21 May 1976.
46. Lee, “Strangers in the 21st Century”, lecture, 6 October 2008.
47. Interview with Sir Brian Elwood, 5 September 2008.
48. “Local Government Structure and Efficiency”, report prepared for Local Government New Zealand, McKinlay Douglas Limited, October 2006, available at www.lgnz.co.nz/library/publications/download-docs.html (accessed February 2009).
49.“Reform of Local Government in New Zealand: Final Reorganisation Scheme for the Auckland Region”, Local Government Commission, Wellington, June 1989.
50. Additional functions included air quality, biosecurity, maritime planning and harbour functions, and landfill aftercare.
51. North Shore City Council, Waitakere City Council, Auckland City Council, Manukau City Council, Rodney District Council, Papakura District Council, and Franklin District Council.
52. Interview with Sir Brian Elwood, 5 September 2008.
53. Submission to the Royal Commission on Auckland Governance from Graeme Barnard, p. 2. (All submissions are available at www.royalcommission.govt.nz.)
54. Submission to the Royal Commission on Auckland Governance from David Collett, p. 1.
55. Submission to the Royal Commission on Auckland Governance from Craig Shearer, p 4.
56. Submission from Graeme Barnard, p. 3.
57. Interview with Dr Michael Bassett, 12 September 2008.
58. Lee, “Strangers in the 21st Century”, lecture, 6 October 2008.
59. Ibid.
60. Phil Warren in the Chairman’s Report, Auckland Regional Council, 1996, p. 9.
61. Lee, “Strangers in the 21st Century”, lecture, 6 October 2008.
62. Interview with Warren Cooper, 5 September 2008.
63. McDermott, Philip, “Future of Local Government”, in “Our Country: Our Choices”, The Futures Trust, 2008, at www.futurestrust.org.nz/content/view/25/43 (accessed February 2009).
64. Beehive, “Lee adds to tributes for Phil Warren”, media release, 23 January 2002 (http://beehive.govt.nz/release/lee+adds+tributes+phil+warren, accessed February 2009).
65. McCarten, Matt, “Some political predictions in a year of reckoning”, New Zealand Herald, 31 December 2006.
66. Stone, Logan Campbell’s Auckland, p. 231.
67. Bush, Graham, email comment, 9 September 2008.
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