Do Aucklanders have too much to decide?
ANALYSIS: Change can be good, sometimes catastrophic, and at times something that triggers shifts so incremental that the consequences don’t become apparent for years.
Aucklanders face perhaps the greatest period of change since local body amalgamation in 2010, with new political leadership, financial challenges driven by global shifts, and the aftermath of weather emergencies that have devastated some communities.
We have politicians, skilled officials, and boards of directors to hopefully find the best pathway to making the city better for everyone, but there’s a difficult truth for Aucklanders in all this.
Ultimately it is Aucklanders themselves who can have the crucial say, but the risk of coping with change overload is real.
In ‘‘normal’’ times one might hope that a council budget proposing unprecedented cuts to community funding and support would galvanise engagement with the consultation process.
The irony is that those who may be most affected by the budget are the same ones with new and more compelling distractions.
An inconclusive public response to the budget proposals will put pressure on the politicians to demand and seek consensus on what they think is best for Aucklanders.
The system puts great weight on decisions reflecting public feedback, which is a strength but also a weakness as submitters tend to be older, whiter and property-owning.
That is a harder task than it might look, as the council budget juggernaut builds momentum even before the mayoral proposal gets unveiled each December.
A set of numbers that delivers a ‘‘balanced budget’’ becomes hard to pick apart, no matter how unpalatable elements of it may look.
In the incremental impact category are proposals to cut back funding for economic development work, and for the attraction of major events which have added spirit and optimism to the city, but for which the pipeline is already empty.
It’s not just about the budget. How Aucklanders get around has been disrupted by significant rail track closures and a bus driver shortage leading to thousands fewer services a day.
The city was about to get serious in implementing and funding transport policies aimed at halving driving and greenhouse gas emissions in eight years, but that change may itself be changing with a new mayor with his focus deliberately elsewhere.
The change may infuriate those looking to a faster shift to a greener future, such as those who marched on Queen St in Friday’s student climate strike. It will, however, also be a relief for those not ready to change familiar car-dependent lifestyles.
And of course the immediate and pressing need to restore communities hard-hit by weather disasters – in some cases where continuing earth movement means the question of even whether a return home will be possible for some.
The change overload is something Auckland councillors and local board members will need to have front-of-mind when the processing is done of public feedback to the budget proposal.
It won’t just be a question of doing ‘‘what the public told us’’ but doing what those who couldn’t make it to a community hall in the evening expect to be done by those entrusted with representing them.
There is four months to debate what Auckland Council’s priorities should be. The first month is for all, and from there on it is in the hands of politicians through to sign-off in June.