Ian Shirley: Central Government is a problem
Opinion piece by AUT Professor of Public Policy Ian Shirley, Director of the Policy Observatory.
The relationship between central and local government was singled out by the Royal Commission on Auckland Governance as a key measure of the success of the reforms that produced a unitary council for the region. It is relationship that has been fraught with difficulties since the nineteenth century when Auckland was so annoyed with the way in which the ‘city’ was being over-powered by Wellington that they formed a group to challenge the anti-Auckland rhetoric and policies.
A major concern emanating from recent research I have been involved with on the Governance of Auckland was central government’s under-funding of the region’s infrastructure over several decades that left Auckland with a major infrastructure deficit. At the time that the super-city was being constructed, part of the blame for this deficit was levelled at the fractured nature of decision-making in Auckland. If Auckland could integrate its 8 local and regional councils then these problems would be solved. Central government wanted to see Auckland talking with one voice so that Wellington could respond more effectively.
Well Auckland did start speaking with one voice but central government’s response has been laboured and contradictory with the public comments of Cabinet Ministers confused, unhelpful and as of yesterday ‘threatening’. Despite attempts by the Auckland Council to address on-going issues emanating from the deficits in both the physical and social infrastructure, central government has been a problematic partner in the governance of Auckland. It’s a problem for Auckland that needs to be addressed.
As with the Auckland Harbour Bridge that required two ‘clip-ons’ to cater for traffic soon after it was built, the Auckland Council has had to rely on population ‘clip-ons’ to accommodate Maori and other groups that were excluded from the governance body of regional government. Some of these ‘clip-ons’ were prompted because central government has failed over the past seven years to address issues raised by the Royal Commission concerning what has been referred to as the social deficit the region has incurred. It was a deficit identified by the Treasury in 2001 and highlighted by numerous reports over the past fifteen years.
The most obvious signs of the social deficit today are evident in disparities between different neighbourhoods and communities with housing the most significant failure of central government policy. Housing policy in Auckland is a shambles with central government doing its best to blame everyone else for the crisis - Auckland Council, the planning system, the supply of available housing land and even individual councillors for what is effectively an ‘own goal’. It is a crisis that has been exacerbated by immigration, by the deterioration in trades education and apprenticeships, by the running down of public housing, by the failure of the building industry to build affordable homes, and by the withdrawal of Housing NZ from engagement with vulnerable households.
It is a crisis for young families locked out of the housing market because the housing market is loaded in favour of speculators and those with capital assets from New Zealand and abroad seeking to make a capital gain. It is a crisis for our most vulnerable families who are living in garages and paying rents of $300 to $400 a week because those banking land are mopping up the affordable housing. It is a crisis for the Auckland economy because the investment is going into housing rather than the productive economy.
Because it has failed to address Auckland’s social deficit and especially the crisis in housing the Minister of Finance has now threatened to step in if the Auckland Council does not release more land for housing. There are two aspects to this threatening behaviour that are disturbing. The first concerns the so-called housing accord in which central and local government are supposedly working together to address the housing problem. The threats from the Minister are a graphic commentary on how well the partnership is ‘working’. The more invidious aspect is the way in which the Minister indicates that central government is prepared to over-ride the democratically elected regional government of Auckland if the council doesn’t do what he says.
The Minister is trying to focus attention on what he considers to be the basic problem underlying housing in Auckland (the supply of land) when we know it is far more complex than that with many of the major problems arising from the policies of central government itself. But ultimately he is threatening the local and regional government of Auckland and in the process he has demonstrated the failure of central government to work in partnership with the Auckland Council. If the government does go ahead with the threats levelled by the Minister then he should not be surprised if the citizens of Auckland respond as they did in the 19th century and form a group to repel the anti-Auckland rhetoric and policies.