Three Waters To Rule Them All

In new episodes of life imitating art, the Government sends in the giants.

- Jane Clifton

Game of Thrones has a gentle giant named Hodor; the game of politics now has a giant of as-yet uncertainn temperament called Huda.

For the next little while we’ll be playing “spot the difference”. Hodor is a simple-minded hulk, but one who, through heft and muscle, can make himself tremendously useful if wisely and benevolently directed. Huda, the Housing and Urban Development Authority, unless wisely and benevolently directed – remembering we’re talking by politicians here – could become an absolute tyrant. Arguably, if there’s no tyranny, Huda won’t be doing its job. If this new political fantasy creation were given a costume, it would include a titanium breastplate and a spiked ball on a chain.

The new agency has been designed as a sort of morphing monolith, as much out of political desperation as calculation. Housing shortages in many districts have become so critical and costs so high that what was once a temptation to blast local planning and resource management rules out of the way has become a positive duty. Mayors are still talking hopefully about Huda operating collaboratively and consultatively, but the inevitability is it’ll be more like, “Fe fifo fum/Got my ’dozer, here I come.”

The authority will have the power to override local-body restrictions wherever the Government deems a timely development necessary. Any hopes it would be used only for new suburbs “somewhere out there” have been dashed. Huda will have free range, including within well-established urban areas.

Is this an abrogation of local democracy? Tick. Will it restrict or even squash the ability of locals whose amenity or asset values are harmed to stop or modify a development? Tick. Does it relocate a fair chunk of power from local government to central for an indefinite number of years? Double tick.

BUBBLING AWAY