NEW ZEALAND’S NEW MAYORAL ROLE AND

POWERS

Hamish Coghill

July 2014

10,039 Words

Completed as part of the requirements for the Public Policy Honours Programme at the

School of Government, Victoria University of Wellington

Acknowledgements

Peter McKinlay and Adrienne von Tunzelmann of McKinlay Douglas Ltd, and Dr Chris

Eichbaum of Victoria University of Wellington (Supervisor).

1

Introduction

At the beginning of the current local government triennium in October 2013,

for the first time mayors in local authorities around New Zealand had a statutory

foundation for their position. For the duration of local government history in New

Zealand prior to this reform, mayors operated under a ‘weak mayor’ model where

they were prima inter pares around the council table. This led to a fundamental

imbalance between the community’s expectations of mayoral leadership (as suggested

by their separate election), and of the reality of collective council decision-making

(where the mayor was merely first among equals). Traditionally, this fundamental

imbalance had been acceptably resolved in favour of political (rather than merely

ceremonial) mayoral leadership through supporting conventions and practices.

However, many of these were undermined as a result of a variety of developments in

the local government climate by the 1990’s. Calls for statutory intervention to

reinforce the mayoral role in New Zealand were eventually answered by central

government in the process of establishing the Auckland ‘Supercity’ in 2009. A

streamlined version of the statutory role description given to the Mayor of Auckland

was extended to mayors across the country in October 2013. It is this reform that is

the subject of this paper.

In assessing the impact of section 41A’s introduction (the section containing

the new mayoral role and powers), this paper draws on data taken from interviews

with current and past mayors in order to gain a before-and-after perspective of it’s

effect on the mayoral role in practice. In short, this paper argues that, while section

41A’s establishment of a rational-legal basis for the role of the mayor offers an

additional persuasive tool for mayors to strengthen their leadership role, they

nevertheless remain overly vulnerable to wilfully disruptive councillors and

obstructive chief executives. This is because section 41A does not adequately address

the fundamental imbalance and other structural drivers that allow, and indeed

incentivise behaviours that undermine the leadership role of the mayor. As a result,

the National-led Government’s legislative intention of “empower[ing]” mayors is

unlikely to be realised (Smith, 2012, p. 8). The views of past and current mayors

collected through the interviews broadly support this conclusion. In the opinion of the

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author, section 41A’s shortcomings are symbolic of the empirical flaws in other

aspects of the ‘Better Local Government’ reforms, as well as of the general

misunderstanding of, and lack of appreciation for, local government’s potential and

needs by its central government masters. Finally this paper argues that, despite

shortcomings in the execution, the underlying rationale for section 41A’s introduction

holds up to scrutiny. Strengthening the role and powers of mayors in New Zealand in

order to enhance local leadership can offer a wide range of real benefits for

communities, and as such, policymakers and legislators ought to revisit the provisions

of section 41A.

Background to the Reforms

The office of Mayor in New Zealand’s local government has its origins in the

early settlements of European pioneers to New Zealand in the first half of the 19th

Century. Initially isolated and small, as these settlements grew so too did the need to

take responsibility for local affairs. Accordingly, local governments sprouted up

organically “as a practical and operational contrivance lacking any fundamental

constitutional conception” (Palmer & Palmer, 2004, p. 247). One of the quirks of this

ad hoc origin was that many of these communities elected their mayors. When after

twenty years of tentative attempts the fledgling central government was able to

effectively provide for local government with the Municipal Corporations Act 1867,

the convention of communities selecting their mayors gained legislative recognition

and was incorporated into the electoral law of municipalities. This was a notable early

divergence from usual early-colonial deference to English example on matters of

governance in New Zealand. There, as with Regional Councils in New Zealand today,

members of territorial authorities were elected by winning their wards. Those ward

representatives then in turn chose a leader from their own number. In New Zealand’s

municipalities however, while councillors were also elected from their wards, the

electorate as a whole elected the mayor from a separate list of mayoral candidates.

Restructurings of local government in the 20th Century abolished municipalities,

though the practice of the direct election of mayors was carried over into the

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successor ‘territorial authorities’ (City Councils, District Councils and later, Unitary

Councils).

Prior to the reform that is the subject of this paper (and arguably still), New

Zealand’s mayors operated within a ‘weak mayor’ model. Formally, the role of the

mayor was simply to preside over meetings of the territorial authority (cl 26(1),

Schedule 7, Local Government Act 2002). The Standing Orders of a territorial

authority may also have given a casting vote to the mayor, but otherwise the mayor

was simply one vote around a council table that might sit perhaps ten councillors.

Hence the position of mayor in New Zealand’s local authorities can be described as

prima inter pares (first among equals) (Evans, 2003, p. ii). As noted in 2012 by the

then-Minister of Local Government (Smith, p. 8), this led to a fundamental

imbalance:

Mayors are the public face of councils and publicly carry the responsibility

for their decisions. The problem is that there is a mismatch in the current

local government framework between the high level of public interest,

scrutiny and engagement in mayoral elections, where they are elected for an

entire city or district, and their limited formal powers over the governing

body of a council.

In practice this fundamental imbalance was resolved in favour of mayoral

political leadership (as opposed to mere ceremonial leadership) through an amalgam

of forces in New Zealand’s local government. These included: the community’s

expectations that the electoral mandate given to mayors will be fulfilled; councillor’s

respect for that fact, and their observance of conventional respect of the leadership

role of the Mayor; and importantly, the personal attributes and degree of political

acumen individual mayors can call upon to aid in the performance of their leadership

role (Evans, 2003). Writing in 1904, Thomas Frederic Martin, legal counsel to both

the Municipal Association of New Zealand and New Zealand Counties Association,

made the following observations about the role and power of mayors, much of which

remains accurate today:

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In New Zealand the Mayor is Chairman at meetings of the Council. Further,

a few definite statutory powers are given to him. A person is, however,

usually elected Mayor on the grounds of his possession of certain qualities

of initiative and organisation, and of his knowledge of finance and aptitude

for business generally. Given indeed that a Mayor has the willing support of

a large majority of the Council, his powers as leader of the Council and chief

executive officer may be very wide. On the other hand, seeing that he is

chosen by the electors direct, he might, in face of a hostile majority in the

Council, be unable to do more than preside at meetings and perform his few

formal statutory duties (Opinions on Local Government Law in New

Zealand, p. 22).

Despite this challenging institutional environment for mayors, New Zealand’s local

government history attests to the fact that the ‘weak mayor’ model allowed the

existence of many successful mayoralties over the decades, and in fact did not restrict

the emergence of several particularly strong mayors such as Bob Owens, Bob Harvey

and Tim Shadbolt.

By the 1990’s however, the forces that supported the resolution of the

fundamental imbalance in favour of mayoral leadership had undergone a degree of

diminution as a result of a number of changes in New Zealand’s local government

scene. Three-term ex-Hamilton Mayor Margaret Evans brought together the concerns

and arguments of many commentators and practitioners in her 2003 Master’s Thesis:

The Role of the Mayor in New Zealand. In it, Evans explored “the implications of the

legally undefined role of the mayor for the exercise of local leadership” (p. 1) in

drawing on her own experiences as mayor, interviews with sitting mayors at the time,

and with reference to historical background and scholarship. In brief, Evans argued

that there had been a decline in observance of the conventions supporting the mayor’s

leadership role. This had been aided and abetted by declining reportage and awareness

of local government issues in many communities, accompanied by a commensurate

increase in the confidence in which councillors felt they could avoid public

accountability for undermining the mayor’s leadership role. Furthermore, the

imposition of a weighty compliance regime and the imposition of a policy/operations

division of responsibilities that placed newly statutorily empowered Chief Executives

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at the head of the administrative arm of local authorities in the late 1980s presented an

additional challenge to the mayor’s leadership role. As a result, Evans observed that

greater pressure was placed on the personal attributes and political acumen of

individual mayors to effectively resolve the fundamental imbalance inherent in the

‘weak mayor’ model in favour of mayoral leadership:

My thesis is that convention and tradition have been eroded to the detriment

of the mayoral leadership function, and while the person-position-situation

mix will continue to produce a variety of results, clarification of the mayor’s

role, to include responsibilities and accountabilities, would in turn clarify

leadership relationships both with the CEO and councillors and enhance the

potential for effective local governance. This is an argument in favour of

authority clarification, not a call for an extension of mayoral powers (pp. 43-

44).

Evans concluded that New Zealand’s mayors needed statutory clarification and

support that would provide a rational-legal basis for mayoral authority, and finally,

offered a draft statutory provision based on her empirically-based findings of what the

mayoral role in practice entails.

It was not until 2007 that the issue of mayoral leadership in New Zealand local

government next achieved a degree of saliency following the passage of the Local

Government Act 2002 where the issue was shelved. In response to Auckland’s

increasingly problematic local governance in the mid-2000s (see Reid, 2009; Bush,

2008), the then-Labour-led government established the Royal Commission on

Auckland Governance to investigate options for improvement. Reporting back in

2009, the Royal Commission called for an “improved governance structure [that]

should help foster the possibility of great leadership” (p. 420). It explored both the

current landscape and the future options for improvement before making its detailed

recommendations for the role of the Mayor of Auckland. Balancing its attraction to

the strong executive mayoral models operating in New York and London and its

acknowledgement of New Zealand’s more collaborative and consensus-driven local

government political culture, the Royal Commission settled a “middle path” where

Evan’s recommendations exhibit a clear influence (p. 428). In the eventual statutory

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provision for the Mayor of Auckland (section 9(3) of the Local Government

(Auckland Council) Act 2009 (see Appendix)), Evans’ call for authority clarification

via a rational-legal basis for the mayoral role was answered (section 9(1) and (2)).

Though Evans expressly did not advocate giving mayors executive powers, arguably

the limited powers suggested by the Commission and accepted by the Government

(Minister of Local Government, 2009, pp. 16-17) did not entail a significant departure

from the ‘weak mayor’ model or a paradigm shift to a strong-mayor model.

In March 2012 the Government announced the ‘Better Local Government’

reform programme. These reforms were intended to “provide better clarity about

council’s roles, stronger governance, improved efficiency and more responsible fiscal

management” (Smith, 2012, p. 3). A key element of the plan to strengthen council

governance was the proposal to extend the Mayor of Auckland’s statutory powers

throughout New Zealand so that “other communities [can] access the benefits of an

empowered mayor and more definite roles for elected officials” (DPMC, 2012, p. 10).

The influence of the Auckland mayoral model was illustrated plainly by the close

resemblance of the new statutory provision for the role of the mayor initially

introduced to Parliament in June 2012. As the Local Government 2002 Amendment

Bill (No 2) progressed through the stages of the legislative process however, much of

the public narrative was focussed on the proposed removal of the ‘four well-beings’

from the purpose of local government, the removal of some barriers to amalgamations

and the granting to the Minister of greater powers of intervention (Easton, 2012;

Rankin, 2012; Dixon, 2012). Hansard too records a lack of critical evaluation of the

proposed mayoral provision, although Andrew Williams MP (ex-mayor of North

Shore City Council) expressed concern that giving mayors executive powers would

stress the necessary working relationships around council tables and went against the

existing principle of collective council decision-making (Williams, 2012). The

Department of Internal Affairs’ report to the Select Committee on the Bill (2012, pp.

60-62) noted that two-thirds of public submitters and half of territorial authorities

opposed the mayoral provision, yet they were unsuccessful in their endeavour to

strike it out. However, a key concession to these arguments was the inclusion of a

provision (subsection (4)) that operated to limit the mayors’ executive powers to

appoint the deputy, committee chairs, and determine committee structure (Local

Government and Environment Select Committee, 2012, pp. 4-5). In this altered state,

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the Local Government 2002 Amendment Act 2012 passed its third reading on 29

November 2012, and received royal assent five days later. The mayoral provision

subsequently inserted into the Local Government Act 2002 appears as follows:

41A Role and powers of mayors

(1) The role of a mayor is to provide leadership to—

(a) the other members of the territorial authority; and (b) the people in the district of the territorial authority.

(2) Without limiting subsection (1), it is the role of a mayor to lead the

development of the territorial authority’s plans (including the long-term plan and the annual plan), policies, and budgets for consideration

by the members of the territorial authority.

(3) For the purposes of subsections (1) and (2), a mayor has the following

powers: (a) to appoint the deputy mayor:

(b) to establish committees of the territorial authority:

(c) to appoint the chairperson of each committee established under paragraph (b), and, for that purpose, a mayor—

(i) may make the appointment before the other members of

the committee are determined; and (ii) may appoint himself or herself.

(4) However, nothing in subsection (3) limits or prevents a territorial

authority from—

(a) removing, in accordance with clause 18 of Schedule 7, a deputy mayor appointed by the mayor under subsection

(3)(a); or

(b) discharging or reconstituting, in accordance with clause 30 of Schedule 7, a committee established by the mayor under

subsection (3)(b); or

(c) appointing, in accordance with clause 30 of Schedule 7, 1 or

more committees in addition to any established by the mayor under subsection (3)(b); or

(d) discharging, in accordance with clause 31 of Schedule 7, a

chairperson appointed by the mayor under subsection (3)(c). (5) A mayor is a member of each committee of a territorial authority.

(6) To avoid doubt, a mayor must not delegate any of his or her powers

under subsection (3). (7) To avoid doubt,--

(a) clause 17(1) of Schedule 7 does not apply to the election of a

deputy mayor of a territorial authority unless the mayor of the

territorial authority declines to exercise the power in subsection (3)(a):

(b) clauses 25 and 26(3) of Schedule 7 do not apply to the

appointment of the chairperson of a committee of a territorial authority established under subsection (3)(b) unless the mayor

of the territorial authority declines to exercise the power in

subsection (3)(c) in respect of that committee.

8

The New Mayoral Role and Powers

Section 41A of the Local Government Act 2002 became operative at the

beginning of the current local government triennium on 12 October 2013. With some

time having passed since then, this paper seeks to make some early observations of

the effect of the new mayoral role and powers in practice, and also offers some

tentative conclusions as to the success of the reforms. Of invaluable aid, the author

has had the privilege of access to qualitative data obtained through interviews with

past and current mayors undertaken by McKinlay Douglas Ltd (MDL) over the period

December 2013 to February 2014. Eleven mayors participated in the interviews,

including five past mayors, and six mayors currently in office. Those mayors hailed

from a wide variety of territorial authorities, and helpfully some had experience as

mayor both before and after the introduction of section 41A. Having access to this

data was of such value because, as was explained earlier, the mayoral role had no

‘role description’, and as such the role and powers of mayors were not consistent

among all territorial authorities and all mayors. Therefore, in order to undertake the

before and after comparison it was necessary to speak directly to mayors about their

experiences – indeed, this was the same approach Margaret Evans found necessary to

follow in researching her thesis. In assessing the impact and effectiveness of section

41A, each provision is examined individually below with reference to: the

conventions or practices originally governing the subject of the provision; whether

and/or how those conventions or practices have been undermined; a legalistic analysis

of the provision itself; and finally an assessment of the provision’s overall

effectiveness. As a footnote, in obtaining the consent of participants and enabling

their free comment, MDL undertook to keep their identities confidential and

consequently, no attributable quotes or information is used below.

Subsection (1)(a) – Political Leadership

Subsection (1)(a) of section 41A provides that it is the role of the mayor to

“provide leadership to the other members of the territorial authority.” This

corresponds with the ‘political leadership’ role of mayors as described by Margaret

Evans (2003), and by Robin Hambleton (2008) who saw it as one arm of a ‘trinity’ of

overlapping and interacting mayoral leadership roles. Evans found that in New

9

Zealand’s local authorities, the mayor’s political leadership role largely consisted of:

leading the elected members, managing councillor interactions during council

meetings in adherence to Standing Orders as presiding member; leading elected

member interactions with, and monitoring of, the Chief Executive and council staff;

influencing decision making processes and outcomes in the council; determining the

structure of committees and improving council governance; and the primary

spokesperson for the council (Evans, 2003, pp. 70-74). MDL’s interview data

confirmed that these functions of political leadership remain relatively unchanged

since Evans’ surveys. The lack of a formal role description meant that mayors were

on the whole left to define their roles themselves, albeit commonly assisted by

advisors and fellow mayors. Evans and MDL’s research suggests that the more

functions that mayors were able to recognise and perform competently, the more

successful a mayoralty was likely to be.

As noted earlier in this paper, the forces supporting the resolution of the

fundamental imbalance in favour of mayoral political leadership were weakening by

the 1990’s. The conventional respect for the leadership role of mayors by councillors,

although never absolute, was perceived by Evans (and many others) to have suffered a

noticeable drop in observance (2003, p. 4). A lack of media coverage coupled with

diminishing awareness of local politics in communities heightened the confidence

with which councillors judged they could escape accountability for contravening

accepted standards of political conduct. Furthermore, council chief executives had

begun to seriously rival the leadership role of mayors following reforms to local

government in the late 1980’s that introduced a strict Policy/Operations split in local

authorities. These reforms handed the responsibility for leading the administrative

structure of local authorities to chief executives, who now had a statutory basis for

their role where they occupied the powerful position of being a council’s chief policy

advisor and chief policy implementer. The artificiality of the policy/operations split,

advocated by the New Public Management theory salient at the time, has since been

widely acknowledged, with Sansom noting in particular that: “the idea of a sharp

separation of roles between politicians and officers [is] a longstanding myth” (2013,

p. 216). This rise of the power of chief executives was contributed to by the

simultaneous imposition of further weighty compliance demands from central

government, which as Reid (2013, p. 169) observes, can ‘crowd out’ policy and

10

strategy by strengthening an administrative imperative for council activity at the

expense of a political imperative.

A useful case study demonstrating the effect of many of these contemporary

challenges on mayoral leadership was provided by one of the mayors interviewed by

MDL. The mayor had been a three-term councillor of a provincial local authority

before deciding to stand as a mayoral candidate against the incumbent mayor (as is

common practice). He ran on an electoral platform of reform of the status quo,

advocating a more conservative approach to expenditure which he felt had been too

high. He won the election, and duly became mayor. However, the electorate also

returned most of the members of the previous council who had presided over the state

of affairs the newly-elected mayor had apparently been elected to change (a common-

place occurrence in many smaller authorities where name recognition is often enough

to gain election). Those incumbents and their supporters were able to form a majority

around the council table, whereupon they went about politically isolating the new

mayor, and stymieing his efforts to realise the reforms that his electoral platform had

consisted of. He had to accept a rival as his deputy mayor, who then appeared to

collude with the chief executive to exclude him from the from the key mayoral

leadership role of leading the elected member’s interactions with the council’s

administrative staff. This chief executive had also contributed to the state of affairs

the newly elected mayor wished to reform and had dominated the planning processes

– only one or two policies that were driven by elected members were adopted over a

number of planning rounds. As a result, during his first term the mayor was largely

unable to exercise political leadership of the council – in other words, he was

rendered a ‘lame duck’.

Subsection (1)(a) of section 41A provides that: “the role of a mayor is to

provide leadership to the other members of the territorial authority.” On its face, this

provision is relatively straightforward: it identifies the mayor as responsible for

providing political leadership to their local authority. However, two potential

ambiguities warrant closer examination. Firstly, it is unclear whether “territorial

authority” refers to the entire council or only to the elected members. This carries

particular implications for whether the relationship between mayors and their chief

executives is an equal one or a subservient one. Utilising recognised principles of

11

statutory interpretation (section 5, Interpretation Act 1999), this ambiguity can be

clarified with reference to the Act’s background materials that indicate subsection

(1)(a) was intended to encompass the entire council. This interpretation corresponds

with the apparent intention of then-Minister of Local Government Nick Smith, who in

introducing the ‘Better Local Government’ expressed his preference for placing

mayors at the top of local authority hierarchies: “Mayors are the public face of

councils and publicly carry the responsibility for their decisions. … Mayors need the

capacity to provide clearer and stronger leadership” (Better Local Government, 2012,

p. 8). Another, less immediately consequential uncertainty (in a legal sense), is the

meaning of the word “leadership.” Leadership has been a subject that has exercised

many of mankind’s greatest minds, yet our understanding of the concept is in constant

flux and by nature impossible to completely agree on. It follows that mayors seeking

guidance on how to fulfil their statutory leadership roles will need to look beyond the

language of the Local Government Act 2002. Evans’ thesis and English academic

Robin Hambleton’s numerous works on civic leadership offer useful introductions.

At the time MDL’s interviews were undertaken, it was difficult to assess the

impact of subsection (1)(a) on the practice of mayoral leadership. This was because

the provision had only been in effect for 3-4 months, and the effects of the provision

could only be expected to fully reveal themselves over a longer time scale. With this

caveat in mind, this paper tentatively concludes that subsection (1)(a) is likely to

provide mayors with only a limited degree of persuasive power in support their

political leadership role. The mayors that were interviewed did not report any

significant deviation from existing practice which had stemmed from the enactment of

subsection (1)(a), although most were pleased to have statutory support for their

political leadership role. The power of subsection (1)(a) is limited in the sense that it

does not address the structural drivers that serve to undermine the mayoral political

leadership role means that the provision’s effect is likely to be limited. For instance,

in the above example of the provincial mayor, the community had elected a mayor

who promised to bring about change, but at the same time returned to the council the

architects of the situation the community was apparently unhappy with. While the

mayor may protest that he possesses a mandate for change from the community, the

councillors can also reasonably argue that, in a system based on collective council

governance, they had also received the confidence of the community for their prior

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performance. This brings us back to the key imbalance described at the beginning of

this paper, and it is key note here that, while subsection (1)(a) can be seen as shore-

ing up the ‘weak mayor’ model, mayors will still need to build coalitions of political

support within their council to avoid being rendered lame ducks despite government

rhetoric that they were empowering mayors.

Subsection (1)(b) – Community Leadership

‘Community leadership’ is the second arm of the trinity of mayoral roles

identified by Hambleton. Evans’ research produced the key aspects and functions of

the community leadership role for mayors in New Zealand: the role of ‘first citizen’

for ceremonial occasions; networking, strategizing, and promoting the district and the

wellbeing of its people within and outside the community; and consulting, facilitating,

and helping to resolve the problems of the community and its constituents (2003, p.

75). Notable examples of mayors performing their community leadership role include

the Mayor of Christchurch Bob Parker in the wake of severe earthquakes in that city,

and Grey District Mayor Tony Kokshoorn in the wake of the Pike River Mine

disaster. Beyond the ceremonial functions which are rarely challenged, other

functions of community leadership “are inherently political” (Sansom, 2012, p. 10),

and cannot be completely divorced from the mayor’s political leadership role. One

MDL interviewee reported that issues could arise over whom the mayor purported to

speak on behalf of when speaking publicly – themselves as mayor or on behalf of all

councillors? However, beyond these potential political constraints, mayoral

performance of their community leadership role does not appear to have been overly

threatened in recent years.

Section 41A(1)(b) provides that “the role of a mayor is to provide leadership

to the people in the district of the territorial authority.” As with subsection (1)(a),

prima facie the provision seems clear, although what “leadership” means is not

clarified. Thus mayors will need to define for themselves what their community

leadership role entails, and that this might get mayors thinking more deeply about

what this entails could lift the standard to which this role is performed. Subsection

(1)(b) could be interpreted as an encouragement for mayors and their councils to

move beyond ‘roads, rates and rubbish’ and to contemplate contemporary challenges

such as ‘wicked’ social and economic policy problems (McKinlay & Selwood, 2014),

13

and to utilise new understandings of the role of local government following the shift

towards network and community governance (Rhodes, 2007; Ryan, 2011). Notable

examples of community leadership that incorporate these understandings include the

Mayors Taskforce for Jobs where mayors have coordinated social and business

networks in their communities and steered them towards addressing the issue of youth

unemployment. Another example are MSD’s Social Sector Trials, where mayors

coordinate and steer central-government administered services and programmes in

their communities to improve collaboration. Mayors could potentially use this

subsection as a statutory basis to advocate for community governance solutions to

central government. At the time of MDL’s interviews, most mayors appeared to have

thought briefly about the implications of subsection (1)(b), though none seemed to

have deeply considered its potential. This is perhaps unsurprising given how at odds

this view is with the direction the Better Local Government reforms pointed towards

(as encapsulated by the repeal of the ‘four wellbeing’s’ as the purpose of local

government, and its replacement with the current purpose of providing cost-effective

infrastructure and services).

Subsection (2) – Policy Leadership

‘Policy leadership’ is the final aspect of Evans’ ‘trinity’ of mayoral roles in

New Zealand. Functions within the ‘policy leadership’ role include: influencing the

processes concerning the consideration of issues brought to the attention of the

council; leading communication of information between community and council and

elected members; monitoring the implementation of policy, and therefore, also the

performance of the council organisation and that of the chief executive (Evans, 2003,

pp. 74-75). However, the MDL interviews made it apparent that there were often a

variety of approaches by mayors to performing these functions in practice, and that

practice was also susceptible to the nature of the mayor’s performance of their

political leadership role. Despite this, a general trend was apparent that mayors and

chief executives worked closely together in the preparation of draft Annual and Long

Term Council Community Plan (LTCCP). The division of responsibilities between

the mayor (policy and strategy) and the chief executive (operations and compliance),

and their necessary coming-together in those plans, was evident in the primary

importance mayors attached to the health of their relationship with the chief

executive. Aside from the statutory requirement of engaging in public consultation on

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the drafts, by virtue of council collective decision making councillors would also have

input into the planning processes. As expanded upon earlier, the conduct of

councillors and the chief executive can have a significant detrimental impact on the

ability of mayors to perform their policy leadership role. As such, the same drivers

that undermine the mayoral political leadership role are at play here, although the

chief executive’s role is especially important. Their focus on ensuring compliance and

form can ‘crowd out’ or restrict innovation and creativity on the part of elected

members (Reid, 2013, p. 179). More unhealthy mayor/chief executive relationships

can result in obstructiveness of behalf of chief executives, or as demonstrated in the

account from one MDL interviewee, can result in the mayor being side-lined from

leading the relationship between council staff and elected members and being shut out

of much of the governance process.

Section 41A(2) provides that: “the role of a mayor to lead the development of

the territorial authority’s plans (including the long-term plan and the annual plan),

policies, and budgets for consideration by the members of the territorial authority.”

Aside from ambiguity once again as to the meaning and implications of “leadership,”

the provision is clear that the development of plans, policies and budgets is the

responsibility of the mayor. At the time MDL’s interviews took place, the annual

planning round had not yet begun and therefore there is a lack of firm empirical

evidence as to the impact of this provision on mayoral practice. However it is likely

that this provision will lead to a rebalancing and homogenisation of relationships

between mayors and chief executives in New Zealand’s local government, from one

that was somewhat open to interpretation though slightly favouring administrative

control, to one that institutionalises political control (through the mayor) over these

key processes. Likely benefits of this rebalancing may include clearly defined

responsibilities and institutionalised political control over executive, potentially

reducing barriers to mayoral policy leadership from obstructive or dominant chief

executives. Despite the potential for these benefits though, it is somewhat unrealistic

to expect mayors to have the knowledge and expertise required to adequately

understand and therefore be accountable for the significant amount of compliance that

must be followed in development of these documents. This issue was touched on by

Evans who advocated a clearer statement of mayoral and council responsibility for

monitoring the performance of the chief executive and the provision of technical

15

support with which to do so (2003, pp. 165-167). Supporting this imperative, the

Fourth Labour Government’s imperfect implementation of New Public Management

theory into practice in their local government reforms means that chief executives in

local authorities act as both policy advisors and implementers. Recent instances where

unchecked chief executives have been responsible for fundamental failures of council

governance include Hamilton City Council’s ‘V8 Supercars’ events (Audit New

Zealand, 2011) and Kaipara District Council’s Mangawhai wastewater scheme

(Auditor-General, 2013). Subsection (2) could give the impression of mayoral

responsibility for the eventual plans, policies and budgets, rather than just their

development, and this would be an unfair representation given the various actors

within a council that have input into these processes such as councillors, chief

executives, and other officers within the council structure. Subsection (2) may serve

to shield them from the scrutiny they might otherwise deservedly attract due to their

influence.

Subsection (3)(a) – Appointing the Deputy Mayor

The role of deputy mayor is one of the most important in local government.

They are second-in-command to the mayor and are often called upon to perform

mayoral functions in the absence of the mayor. One past mayor, comparing the

mayoral role to that of an orchestra conductor, colourfully described the deputy

mayoral role as being akin to ‘first violin’. The deputy mayor is often a confidante or

ally of the mayor and forms a key part of the ‘political executive group’ – i.e.

councillor allies of the mayor around the council table (Evans, 2003, p. 71).

Conventionally, the appointment of the deputy mayor was arranged in the post-

election period before the inaugural council meeting of the new triennium. During this

period, the mayor conventionally leads a process whereby they meet individually with

the elected members to find out what the member is hoping to achieve as a councillor,

and whether they have any particular skills that might be utilised on a committee or

board (LGNZ, 2013). Having done so, a mayor would often then develop preferences

as to who they would like to be their deputy, as well as who should chair each

committee. The mayor will then consult and engage in politicking among the elected

members to try to gain majority support for their preferred appointees – though the

mayor will often have to compromise to achieve a line up that a majority will support.

Appointments are usually settled before the inaugural meeting, at which one of the

16

first orders of business for the council is to vote confirming appointments that the

mayor usually puts forward.

Despite the undermining of some conventions that favour mayoral political

leadership (as explored above), MDL’s interviews did not record a widespread

departure from this particular post-election/pre-inaugural-meeting mayoral function.

This however ought not to be conflated with a finding that this process is immune

from challenges to a mayor’s preferred appointees by the other elected members.

Given that majority support is needed for the appointment of elected members to

posts within the structure, the mayor has always had to build coalitions of support. If a

mayor was unsuccessful in this for whatever reason, they could be side-lined and a

‘political executive group’ put in place that is hostile to the mayor’s plans. This

appeared to have been the case in the earlier account of one of MDL’s interviewees.

In cases of less political foment, but perhaps suspicion or wariness on behalf of

councillors towards the mayor, some interviewees reported that a rival or non-ally

might be elected as deputy mayor to act as somewhat of a check on the mayor. Such

cases can be clear examples of how the key imbalance described early in this paper,

and the subsequent undermining of practices and conventions that resolve this

imbalance in favour of mayoral political leadership, can manifest in practice. When

viewed through the lens of mayors (as the MDL interviews did), such disturbances are

examples of councillor misbehaviour designed to deliberately stymie the expressed

will of the community. However it is important to also appreciate the perspective of

councillors who may have been elected en-masse on electoral platforms opposing or

inconsistent with that of the mayor, and who may view ensuring representation of

their political perspective at the core of the political executive group as a way of

fulfilling their legitimate electoral mandate. The practical effect of a political rival or

non-ally of the mayor becoming deputy mayor can pose a serious challenge to the

mayoral leadership role. For instance a hostile deputy mayor might prove unwilling to

tow the mayoral line when speaking publicly or ceremonially in place of an absent

mayor, and the same might be the case around the council table.

Section 41A(3)(a) provides that, for the purposes of their leadership roles in

subsections (1) and (2), the mayor has the power to appoint the deputy mayor. On its

face, this subsection is clear and without ambiguity: mayors have the power to appoint

17

the deputy mayor. However, owing to principles of statutory interpretation, section

41A(3)(a) cannot be read in isolation from the rest of the section, and indeed the

entire Act and its legislative purpose. And it is in the surrounding provisions of

section 41A, and indeed in the Local Government Act 2002, that the power ostensibly

conferred in subsection (3)(a) is emasculated. Subsection (4)(a) provides that the

council as a whole retains the power to remove a deputy mayor under clause 18 of

schedule 7 of the Local Government Act 2002 in accordance with clause 25, which

stipulates that the votes of a simple majority of elected members is required to do so.

Subsection (4) was inserted at the Committee stage of the Bill, where there was

confusion as to whether a council’s Schedule 7 power has been repealed by

implication, and concern (particularly from Labour and Green parties) about a loss of

collective council decision-making (Local Government and Environment Select

Committee, 2012). The practical effect of subsection (4)’s inclusion is that a mayor

must be sure of majority support for their appointment before announcing it lest they

risk it being overturned. The corollary of this is that the existing convention of the

post-election process remains unchanged as the key process by which it is determined

who will be appointed as deputy mayor. Lastly, subsection (7) of section 41A holds

that the powers in subsection (3) are discretionary, and subsection (6) stipulates that

those powers cannot be delegated.

Because subsection (3)(a) is at its most widely applicable in the post-

election/pre-inaugural meeting period, it was possible to gain a measure of

appreciation for the early impact of this subsection in MDL’s interviews conducted in

late 2013 and early 2014. What they, and other sources revealed, was that subsection

(3)(a) has had a very limited impact on practice and has fallen well short of the

Government’s original promise to “empower” mayors (Smith, 2012, p. 8). Mayors

confirmed that the process following the election remained unchanged, as they still

required the assent of a majority of the councillors for their appointments. However,

MDL’s interviews also revealed that subsection (3)(a) is not wholly without practical

use for mayors. Mayors felt that it provided persuasive support for their function of

leading the post-election process and the precedence of their views, and that it may be

a useful tactical tool within a mayor’s ‘bully pulpit’ that forces councillors to go

public with any disagreement in a council meeting in utilising their power under

subsection (4). On the other hand, such a move by a mayor may also backfire and

18

foment divisiveness and dysfunction, so instead of improving council governance, it

may in fact worsen it. This point was noted explicitly by Andrew Williams MP in

Select Committee, and by a number of submitters (Department of Internal Affairs,

2012). One MDL interviewee also gave this reason as to why they didn’t invoke

subsection (3) in making their appointments. Others expressed concern that utilising

subsection (3) publicly identifies as a mayoral decision that which in practical effect

is a collective council decision and obscuring councillors from fair public

accountability for their decisions.

Subsection (3)(b) – Determining the Committee Structure

Council committees are where the bulk of council business is conducted.

Conventionally, a committee will be devoted to a particular subject area of council

business (such as Finance, Infrastructure, or Events), and often it will have decision-

making powers devolved to it by the council. The structure and the terms of reference

of committees are therefore important to a council’s governing performance. Prior to

the reforms, the decision over whether to adjust the committee structure of a council

was a collective one (as with appointments), and was often taken at the beginning of

each new triennium in the pre-inaugural meeting period. As above, there doesn’t seem

to be much evidence for saying this had changed, though as mayors conventionally

led this process as a function of their political leadership role, it was not free of the

political disturbances common to the appointment process of the deputy mayor or

committee chairs. To return again to the same example of the MDL mayoral

interviewee whose political leadership role was challenged, one of his initiatives that

were blocked by the hostile majority was a proposal for an Audit and Risk

Committee. The Government’s original intention in providing mayors with this

power, as with subsection (3) as a whole, was to support the mayoral “capacity to

provide clearer and stronger leadership” (Smith, 2012, p. 8).

Subsection (3)(b) of section 41A provides that mayors have the power to

establish committees of the governing authority. Again, subsection (7) states that this

power is discretionary, and subsection (6) that the power is not delegable. Two

potential ambiguities reside in what is otherwise a fairly clear conferral of the power

to establish committees upon mayors. Firstly, as one prominent local government

lawyer posited at the time section 41A was passed, did this impliedly confer upon

19

mayors the power to determine the composition of such-established committees too?

That subsection (3)(c) only confers upon mayors the power to appoint the chairs of

committees would suggest by omission that the power in subsection (3)(b) is confined

to establishing committees only and not their membership. DIA officials have also

reportedly expressly confirmed that this is the case. The second potential ambiguity is

whether mayors have the power to disestablish committees as well as establish them.

Aside from these ambiguities, the power conferred by this subsection suffers from the

same emasculation by subsection (4) as the other subsection (3) powers do.

Subsections (4)(b) and (4)(c) hold that the previous systems of establishing and

disestablishing council committees under Schedule 7 of the Local Government Act

2002 remain in place. The practical effect of subsection (3)(b), as reported by mayors

and as with other subsection (3) powers, is that there is only a marginal departure

from prior practice given similar ancillary benefits and drawbacks described above for

subsection (3)(a).

Subsection (3)(c) – Appointing Committee Chairs

Given that, as explained above, council committees are where much of the

important and detailed work of councils is done, the role of committee chair is key to

the overall functioning of council governance. Council committees are often

delegated decision-making responsibility for their particular area, hence the

importance for mayors of having allies chairing and controlling these committees. As

with the decision of who shall be deputy mayor, the allocation of committee chairs to

elected members is determined in the post-election/pre-inaugural meeting process.

The accounts of mayors recorded by Evans (2003) and in MDL’s interviews are that,

during this process, mayors fought to obtain support for their preferences of

committee chairs. Those preferences tended to be based on imperatives such as

rewarding political allies, building a core political executive group, subject-matter

competency (e.g. accountants chairing the Finance Committee) and bringing potential

political rivals into the proverbial ‘tent’. A mayor may have needed to sacrifice their

preferences to obtain majority support, and in extreme cases they might have been

unable to realise their preferences due to a subordinate majority. Subsection (3)(c) of

section 41A provides that the mayor has the power to appoint chairs of council

committees, including themselves (mayors are de facto members of all council

committees (section 41A(5)). However, as with the powers apparently conferred by

20

subsection (3), this power is emasculated by subsection (4)(d) that makes clear

councils as a whole retain the power to remove a committee chairperson under the

pre-existing process in Schedule 7 of the Local Government Act 2002. The MDL

interviews confirmed that subsection (3)(c) has not precipitated a major departure

from practice and has not conferred any real power beyond the ancillary benefits

common across subsection (3) as described above for subsection (3)(a).

Overall Assessment and Potential Alternatives

Given the above analysis of the individual provisions of section 41A, this

paper next seeks to draw conclusions as to the success or otherwise of the introduction

of the section. At the outset it is acknowledged that the supporting material for this

paper’s analysis and conclusions were obtained in close proximity to the introduction

of reforms, and as such, further research is required in order to ensure the accuracy of

the following conclusions. At a fundamental level, the criteria against which the effect

of the introduction of section 41A must be assessed ought to be whether the reforms

have achieved their legislative intention. The National-led government’s justification

for the inclusion of section 41A into their overall Better Local Government reforms

was to address the mismatch between the public’s expectations of mayoral leadership

and the reality of the ‘weak mayor’ model requiring council collective decision-

making; they wanted to give the mayor “the capacity to provide clearer and stronger

leadership” (Smith, 2012, p. 8). The conferral of powers was intended to work toward

that end by assisting mayors in building an effective leadership team and thereby

strengthening the capacity and capability of the council. They also wanted to extend

the similar governance powers available to the Mayor of Auckland across New

Zealand to minimise discrepancies in local government and all mayors and

communities to experience the benefits of having an empowered mayor (DPMC,

2012; Smith, 2012).

As shown above, the key imbalance underlying much of the tension in local

government surrounding the mayoral role was not addressed, and as such, the

21

mismatch was not conclusively or substantially resolved. Instead, the conventions and

practices that helped to resolve that imbalance in favour of mayoral leadership

received a limited degree of strengthening. Mayors now have a statutory legal basis

for their role, which will likely provide a degree of persuasive force for the mayor’s

political leadership role in the face of challenges from councillors. Section 41A may

also benefit in the essential task for mayors of self-defining their role by drawing their

attention to particular aspects of mayoral leadership they otherwise might not have

ignored – particularly the potential of their community leadership role. This might

reduce the incidence of mayoralties that fail for want of effective leadership, and may

also perhaps encourage existing mayors to reflect on how they view their own role,

perhaps producing improvements. Mayors also now have the statutory backing to

more effectively exert political control over the chief executive and council staff,

although that power is again merely persuasive and does not address the heart of the

underlying structural and institutional causes. Despite the likelihood that mayors will

benefit from the rational-legal statutory support for their role as envisaged by Evans,

with the emasculation of subsection (3) powers by subsection (4), section 41A only

offers persuasive power over other key actors in local authorities. Councillors, and

indeed CE’s who wish to be disruptive or circumvent mayoral leadership (whether for

good or bad reasons) remain unimpeded. The importance of the personal capacities

and political acumen of individual mayors, and the simultaneous observance by

councillors and council staff to the conventional leadership role performed by mayors

therefore remain as the essential ingredients of a successful mayoralty and indeed

good local governance. Therefore, the status quo is to a large extent maintained.

Many MDL interviewees shared the sentiment that, while having a statutory

role description was a welcome development, the powers were (as one mayor

colourfully described) ‘Clayton’s powers’. Invercargill Mayor Tim Shadbolt, who

criticised the introduction of section 41A on the additional basis that, while it is bad

enough that the reform doesn’t satisfy the strong case for change that existed, it is

even worse because it has given the impression that mayors are now empowered,

made this point forcefully:

Absolutely nothing has changed … if anything it’s been made worse … the

mayor will get all the blame. The public expectation is that the mayor is

22

leading everything – its just rubbish. [The new powers are] pathetic,

contradictory and illusionary [and has] made us into toothless tigers and

undermined mayoralty (Russell, 2013).

As an aside, it is interesting to note that Tim Shadbold utilised his powers under

section 41A(3) in appointing his deputy, setting the committee structure, appointing

the chairs of those committees, as well as making recommendations as to the

composition of each committee (Shadbolt, 2013). A redeeming factor may be that

there was little coverage of local government and the reforms, and so communities

may not realise this and mayors might not see a corresponding increase in the

expectations of mayoral accountability from the local community. Where this is more

likely to be problematic is the context of central and local government relations and

the wider context of Better Local Government. Section 41A’s ‘empowerment’ of

mayors is one aspect of a reform programme particularly geared towards increasing

local government’s accountability to central government, and in that context there was

concern that section 41A gave powers with one hand (or at least appeared to), and by

singling mayors out as responsible for the performance of the whole council, took

with the other. Associate Professor of Political Science at Otago University, Janine

Hayward, noted that in Better Local Government context where central government

granted extensive powers of intervention to itself: ''… it's basically central

government saying `we want someone to be accountable for this ... and we're going to

make sure that if there's a problem with that, the minister can intervene” (Morris,

2013). This is a cynical view of the new mayoral powers. An alternative, and in this

author’s opinion, more accurate explanation, is that legislators initially had the

genuine intention of empowering mayors – especially given that enhancing

‘leadership’ has been trumpeted by the current government as an antidote to failures

in public sector governance (Better Public Services Advisory Group, 2011, p. 8).

However, the effort to empower mayors was critically undermined during the Select

Committee stage when the Department of Internal Affairs buckled to pressure to

emasculate the subsection (3) powers to preserve the status quo.

It is argued that this failure is indicative of broader, more fundamental failings

of the performance of the Department across the Better Local Government reforms in

general. The failures surrounding the use financial data upon which the fundamental

23

case for change apparently rested, including numerical errors, attracted sharp criticism

from LGNZ. Given the weakness of the Government’s empirical evidence supporting

the reforms, Cheyne (2012) suggests that ideology was their chief motivation –

unsurprising given that ACT MP Rodney Hide originally conceived Better Local

Government. This ideological imperative is symbolised by the removal of the ‘four

well-beings’ as the purpose of local government, and their replacement:

The purpose of local government is … to meet the current and future needs

of communities for good-quality local infrastructure, local public services,

and performance of regulatory functions in a way that is most cost-effective

for households and businesses (s 10, Local Government Act, 2002).

It also symbolised a broader lack of understanding and appreciation of local

government by central government, given that the introduction of the ‘four well-

beings’ was lauded at the time as a permissive provision, not a directive. Furthermore,

as noted by Reid (2011, p. 55), the Better Local Government reforms also represent a

shift away from general trends in accepted local government and governance

scholarship that increasingly recognises the importance of local government’s role in

leading the community networks essential in addressing many of today’s most

intractable and wicked policy problems (Ryan, 2011). The success of the ‘Mayor’s

Taskforce for Jobs’ scheme is often cited as an example of the potential of local

government and leadership to address difficult social problems (McKinlay Douglas

Ltd, 2013). Others have highlighted the connection between empowered local

governments and economic growth (Heseltine, 2012; Hambleton, 2011; New Zealand

Productivity Commission, 2013). Given these understandings, McKinlay &

Selwood’s strong criticism of central government’s current policy settings towards

local government is unsurprising:

…our current understandings and practices [in local government] are

seriously out of line with what is needed to deal with the challenges New

Zealand’s economy and society face now and for the foreseeable future…

Our contention is that the present arrangements for and understanding of

local government are no longer ‘fit for purpose’ for reasons including: An

24

increasingly dysfunctional set of governance and accountability

arrangements; … (2014, p. 1).

There are signs that this may be beginning to change however. The Treasury has

recently held events and commissioned reports into the potential of local government

to more efficiently and effectively administer and coordinate social programmes. This

makes sense given that New Zealand is by far the most centralised country in the

OECD, with over 80% of total government expenditure spent by central government

despite a fairly even split in the value of assets owned by local government compared

with central government (OECD, 2013, p. 67). The United Kingdom, our closest

‘competitor’ for this title, has recently taken steps through the Localism Act 2011 to

devolve powers and resources from central government. Strengthening local

leadership was a key element of the reforms there (Department for Communities and

Local Government, 2012), with Sansom echoing the broad consensus in like-

jurisdictions about the importance of local leadership in these efforts: “New functions

and enhanced authority for mayors are part of broader changes sweeping through

local government” (2013, p. 213).

Given, therefore, that section 41A is unlikely to resolve the structural drivers

that undermine mayoral leadership in New Zealand, and also that trends in the

scholarship and like-jurisdictions such as the United Kingdom and Australia that are

in favour of strengthening mayoral leadership for the foreseeable future, New

Zealand’s government may need to revisit section 41A in the future. In such a

circumstance, what are the options for reforming the role of the mayor, and which

would be the most appropriate? One option would be to resolve the key imbalance,

described at the opening of this paper, in favour of collective governance by

introducing indirectly elected mayors. This is the present status quo for the election of

Chairs of Regional Councils, however this method of council leader election has not

eradicated the instances of poor leadership and governance. A similar model was in

existence in the United Kingdom until their 2000 reforms, and there this system it was

felt to be deficient in transparency, accountability and democracy when paired with

the strong presence of political parties in local government there (Department for

Communities and Local Government, 2012). The Royal Commission on Auckland

Governance (2009) also gave consideration to this model, though was to reject it.

25

Another option at the opposite end of the spectrum is to introduce strong executive

mayors. The advantages of these systems are that usually a single person is

empowered to lead their local authority and is simultaneously clearly identifiable as

accountable. Strong executive mayors are a feature of the governance of many

American and European cities, and indeed served as the inspiration for the

institutional design of the Mayor of London’s role and powers within the Greater

London Authority. However, when deciding to introduce a strong executive mayor

model, the key issue becomes what precisely the mayoral role will be, and what

powers they will have at their disposal in order to perform that role. Adopting the

strong executive mayoral model in New Zealand would entail a major departure from

current local government political culture, and indeed a wider reformulation of the

role of councillors, chief executives and local government as a whole. There does not

appear to be the appetite for the wholesale reform of local government that such

proposals would require in either the current government or among opposition parties.

In this author’s view, an option worthy of consideration is to opt for the

middle ground between the two extremes given above, as advocated by the Royal

Commission on Auckland Governance. A persuasive case exists that stronger mayoral

leadership needs to be better enabled and responsibilities made clearer. In the tradition

of constitutional change in New Zealand, reformers may well opt to proceed

incrementally, meaning the repeal of subsection (4) of section 41A would be an

obvious first step. However, reformers would be well advised to consider starting

afresh with a new mayoral provision based on Sansom’s (2012, p. 30) suggestions set

out in the Appendix to this paper. Such a legislative provision would fill out what, in

comparison to Evans’ originally suggested provision (2003, pp. 165-167), is at present

a rather threadbare in section 41A. Sansom’s provision also provides a limited set of

semi-executive powers to mayors, and its development with reference to the New

Zealand context, as well as the Australian context, has resulted in a provision that

would slot easily into the current local government system and would not entail a

major departure from current practice. One small addition perhaps could be a recall

provision to allow voters to recall a mayor – an electorate power that Brian Rudman

noticed was absent during the scandal surrounding Auckland Mayor Len Brown’s

performance in late 2013 (Rudman, 2013). As a final note, and an illustration of the

remarkable extent of the neglect shown to the issue of the role and powers of mayors

26

in New Zealand, Thomas Frederic Martin, counsel to both the Municipal Association

of New Zealand and New Zealand Counties Association, wrote 110 years comments

that to a remarkable extent remain relevant today:

It being customary in the Colony to hold the Mayor responsible for the

policy of the Council and the success of its administration, it seems worthy

of consideration whether his powers and functions should not be enlarged

and extended (Martin, 1904, p. 22).

My hope is that this research may contribute to such a consideration.

Conclusion

In summary, the introduction of section 41A, while built on a solid case for

change and providing mayors with a persuasive rational-legal authority for their role,

is unlikely to have a substantial impact on the practice of mayoral leadership in local

authorities around New Zealand. Mayors remain vulnerable to disruptive councillor

behaviour and uncooperative chief executives because section 41A fails to adequately

address the fundamental structural drivers that undermine the mayoral leadership role,

and the limited semi-executive powers it contemplated conferring on mayors that

would have helped to address this were emasculated. Therefore, it is improbable that

the government’s legislative intention of ‘empowering’ mayors will be realised.

However, policy makers engaged in evaluating the overall utility of the introduction

of section 41A ought to be aware of the several ancillary benefits described above that

may make themselves evident as the current local government triennium unfolds.

Further research into the impact of section 41A during this time is required in order to

corroborate or refute the findings of this paper whose conclusions were largely based

on the early observable effect of the provision’s introduction on mayors’ practice of

their leadership role. This paper supports future efforts to strengthen mayoral

leadership, albeit in an incremental and empirically based fashion that is bold while

sensitive to New Zealand’s local government culture. The framework recommended

by Graham Sansom (2012) provides, in this author’s view, a solid foundation from

which policy makers might design amendments to what is a rather threadbare section

41A.

27

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31

Appendix

(Local Government (Auckland Council) Act 2009)

9 Mayor of Auckland

(1) The role of the mayor is to—

(a) articulate and promote a vision for Auckland; and

(b) provide leadership for the purpose of achieving objectives that will

contribute to that vision.

(2) Without limiting subsection (1), it is the role of the mayor to—

(a) lead the development of Council plans (including the LTP and the

annual plan), policies, and budgets for consideration by the governing

body; and

(b) ensure there is effective engagement between the Auckland Council

and the people of Auckland, including those too young to vote.

(3) For the purposes of subsections (1) and (2), the mayor has the following

powers:

(a) to establish processes and mechanisms for the Auckland Council to

engage with the people of Auckland, whether generally or particularly

(for example, the people of a cultural, ethnic, geographic, or other

community of interest):

(b) to appoint the deputy mayor:

(c) to establish committees of the governing body:

(d) to appoint the chairperson of each committee of the governing body

and, for that purpose, the mayor—

(i) may make the appointment before the other members of the

committee are determined; and

(ii) may appoint himself or herself:

(e) to establish and maintain an appropriately staffed office of the mayor.

(4) The mayor must exercise the power in subsection (3)(e)-

(a) in consultation with, and acting through, the Council’s chief executive;

and

(b) within the budget in the annual plan adopted for that particular

expenditure (being an amount not less than 0.2% of the Council’s total

budgeted operating expenditure for that year).

(5) The mayor must not delegate any of his or her powers under subsection (3).

(6) The mayor is a member of each committee of the governing body.

(7) The avoid doubt,—

(a) clause 17(1) of Schedule 7 of the Local Government Act 2002 does not

apply to the election of the deputy mayor of the Auckland Council

(unless the mayor declines to exercise the power under subsection

(3)(b) of this section); and

(b) clause 25 of Schedule 7 of the Local Government Act 2002 does not

apply to the election of the chairperson of a committee of a governing

body, if the mayor exercises the power in subsection (3)(d) of this

section in respect of that committee; and

(c) clause 30 of Schedule 7 of the Local Government Act 2002 applies to

the Auckland Council, except to the extent that the mayor exercises the

power in subsection (3)(c) of this section.

32

(Sansom, Australian Mayors: What Can and Should They Do?, 2012, p. 30)