Chain of command: How much power does Auckland’s mayor actually have?
As the Auckland mayoral race heats up, hopefuls for the city’s top job are making big promises about what they will deliver if elected in October – but how much power does the mayor have, and can they make good on their campaign promises?
Auckland’s mayoral candidates have proposed everything from fare-free public transport to scrapping the city’s Regional Fuel Tax, axeing the Government’s proposed $29 billion Auckland Light Rail project, and replacing Auckland Transport’s entire board.
However, Auckland Council’s governance director Phil Wilson, who was chief of staff under former mayor Len Brown, said hopefuls would struggle to accomplish any of their goals unless they won the support of a majority of the city’s 20 council members. ‘‘[The mayor] represents one vote around the table. But that’s not the whole story in terms of what their influence is,’’ Wilson said.
‘‘Clearly, they come in with an electoral mandate – they have a moral leadership mandate – and you can expect the decision-making body will take account of that when deciding on policy.’’
The role of mayor, as defined under the Local Government (Auckland Council) Act, is to ‘‘articulate and promote a vision for Auckland’’ and ‘‘provide leadership’’ for the purpose of achieving and contributing to that vision.
Julienne Molineaux, a senior lecturer in social sciences and public policy at AUT, said New Zealand followed what was called the ‘‘weak mayor model’’.
‘‘You might think, looking at places like New York or London, that the mayor is this really powerful executive figure. But in our system, they’re not,’’ Molineaux said.
But, she added, because Auckland Council had its own establishing legislation, Tāmaki Makaurau’s mayor did have more authority than other mayors around the country.
‘‘The mayor has their own office, their own staff, their own budget. That means they have the ability to get outside advice, separate from the council bureaucracy, and separate to what the councillors might see.’’
The mayor also chooses the deputy mayor, the committees of the governing body, and who chairs them.
‘‘This is actually really powerful because you can give your enemies positions of importance to keep them busy, or to make them feel important and to encourage them to cooperate with you. Likewise, the mayor in Auckland is also expected to lead council processes and lead the development of plans, policies and budgets. So they get a lot of agenda-setting power.’’
They are also the public face of the council – and usually the only person the public could name – meaning the head of the city had a lot of ‘‘mana and prestige’’, Molineaux said. ‘‘The media will ring them up and want their opinion, so a mayor has more opportunity – because of their mana – to influence things than a sole councillor does.’’
Wilson added the mayor also had to contend with the 149 members of 21 local boards who made decisions on local community matters. ‘‘So the mayor and governing body need to listen to the local boards and take account of their views too.’’
Political commentator and former Labour activist Shane Te Pou (Nga¯ i Tu¯ hoe) said running the city would be difficult for a mayor who ‘‘polarised people’’. ‘‘The reality is that the mayor is going have to be able to win the ticket – and win the people over,’’ Te Pou said.
The mayor not only has to contend with their own councillors, but also deal with the Government in getting large projects off the ground – or cancelling ones already in progress.
But how would their relationship function if an elected mayor was ideologically opposed to central government?
In a guest post to the blog Great Auckland, Transport Minister Michael Wood offered some insight.
Under Len Brown’s leadership, Wood said, the new Auckland Council established in 2010 faced a National government that was unwilling to support a light rail network.
‘‘The [National] government of the day continued to fixate on a handful of mega-roading projects such as the East-West Link.’’
Then-Prime Minister John Key slowly came around to the idea and confirmed the government would back the rail project in 2013, but delayed the start of construction by five years.
A number of mayoral hopefuls, including Leo Molloy, Viv Beck and Craig Lord, aim to end that project but Wilson said Auckland’s mayor didn’t necessarily have the power to end a central government project.
‘‘Although it would be something central government would take into account, there are other areas of the country that would be more willing to have that investment. So it’s a very high stakes game.’’
Political commentator and former National press secretary Ben Thomas said there would always be tension between central and local government. ‘‘The mayor of Auckland will be wanting more money from central government than it will want to give,’’ Thomas said.
‘‘If you are seen disproportionately spending on Auckland, you’ll face an electoral backlash elsewhere in the country and that doesn’t change whether you’re Labour or National.’’ Candidates have also vowed to scrap Auckland’s Regional Fuel Tax, with Beck wanting the ‘‘harsh tax’’ gone within her first year in office.
Molineaux said that unless the party in power was also in favour of scrapping the tax, this would be difficult. ‘‘It’s a government regulation, at the request of Auckland Council, to pay for specific roading and transport projects. I don’t think the current government would do it.’’
Labour and Greensbacked candidate Efeso Collins has positioned fare-free public transport as his ticket to the mayoral role.
Collins’ time as an Auckland councillor might mean he finds it easier working within the system than the newcomers, Molineaux said. ‘‘I suspect he’s a bit more knowledgeable about how these things are done.’’
Thomas said being able to ‘‘operate in that highly political space’’ was a specialised skill-set that many of the other candidates didn’t have. He was also putting his money on Collin’s coming out on top in October given his ability to access the ‘‘Labour Party machine’’ in Auckland.
Thomas said it was unlikely National would look to endorse any of the Right-leaning candidates as it had concerns over potentially alienating people who weren’t supporters of the party. ‘‘They’re already outmatched, and now, they’re trying to slice it six ways.’’
Molineaux said the mayor ‘‘can’t always get their own way,’’ with a notable example being when current mayor Phil Goff lost a key vote on the future of the Western Springs speedway.
Wilson said it was important to remember it was still early in the election cycle and candidates needed to be clear with the electorate about what they wanted to achieve.
‘‘We can be cynical about whether they can implement their policies, but it serves a very important purpose in that it clarifies for people what their priorities are.’’
Te Pou said that to date, the campaign has been more around ‘‘positioning than substance, more about profile that policy’’.
Molineaux echoed Wilson’s stance on election promises, saying there was nothing wrong with a mayor voicing what they would like to do. ‘‘But they need to be realistic that they actually can’t do it by themselves, they can’t do it on day one, and it might take some time for it to actually happen.’’