The Auckland mayor’s casting vote to take the Super City out of Local Government NZ shows a lack of team play, says Tory Whanau, while LGNZ’s president insists it will cost everyone, including Auckland ratepayers. 

The Auckland Council withdrawal from Local Government NZ, a national association of local, regional and unitary councils, shows a lack of willingness to work collaboratively in the country’s interests, says Wellington’s mayor, Tory Whanau.

An Auckland governing body vote this afternoon was split down the middle 10-10, with Mayor Wayne Brown using his  casting vote to cut the cord with the group. It amounted to an “Auxit”, said Whanau. 

“It’s disappointing that Auckland has decided to leave LGNZ as councils need to work collaboratively to solve problems facing Aotearoa,” she  told The Spinoff. “Obviously, Mayor Brown and his supporters believe ‘Auxit’ is good for their city and not being a team player is OK. It’s not a view I share.”

Stuart Crosby, president of Local Government New Zealand, said it was “really disappointing that the mayor has used his casting vote to leave LGNZ”, and that claims of savings rung hollow. 

“The irony of cost savings now means Auckland ratepayers will now have to pick up the bill – Aucklanders were to benefit from more than a million dollars a year in savings associated with their membership,” he said. “This decision also has an enormous impact on elected members who are underrepresented such as our Māori elected members and young elected members. By leaving, they’ve ignored the view of the majority of local boards.”

Fifteen of 21 local boards across Auckland supported remaining a member.

“They need us more than we need them,” Brown said of LGNZ, calling withdrawal an “easy saving”. Auckland Council contributions amounted to around $400,000 annually, according to staff. Among the benefits identified was participation in a collective street lighting programme that had saved Auckland around $1 million. 

Brown voted for withdrawal despite solicitations from counterparts, he said. “I have been approached by a number of mayors who actually want me to stay in so that I can come down and fix it,” the mayor told councillors. “Well, there’s quite a lot of things to fix here, before I go and fix that.”

Brown, who told councillors he had received around 1,300 emails from people opposed to LGNZ membership, said the body made it “really easy for the minister of local government to dispense with consultation” by speaking to a group of mayors at the same time. “By staying on our own we force them to come and see us,” he said.

Brown’s disinclination to be a member of the group was informed by his own experience as a musician, he said. “My band regularly plays at the conferences when they’re held in the Bay of Islands,” Brown told the council meeting. “Watching 800 members of local boards – no wonder they love them all – getting completely pissed and dancing all night long for no benefit whatsoever to ratepayers has kind of questioned my value of it.”

Councillors Lotu Fuli and Alf Filipaina both stressed that LGNZ allowed Māori and Pasifika local body politicians around the country to build networks, while Richard Hills said the association had played an important role in encouraging younger people to put themselves forward for office, as well as in advocating shared concerns to local government. To quit, he said, was “pretty petty”.

Jo Bartley agreed, saying the decision reeked of a lack of collegiality and “buying into the Jafa complex”.

Wayne Walker, supporting withdrawal, said LGNZ had taken “counterproductive” stances on three waters and housing intensification, and councils would be better to coordinate “on an issue-by-issue basis”, while Mike Lee reckoned that LGNZ had “evolved to be in many respects another layer of the national bureaucracy … frankly, a part of the elitist Wellington beltway power structure”. Filipaina said he was appalled by some of the arguments put forward by exiters, which reminded him of watching on CNN “Republican Party [advocates] that had listened to QAnon for their theories”.