The chains that grind

Auckand’s mayor has barely donned his official garb and he’s already thrown a spanner in the government’s Three Waters works.

- JANE CLIFTON

Central ordinarily trumps local in our politics, but the government is about to find out that the old saying, You can't fight city hall’, has acquired a new lease of life.

Auckland’s ornery new mayor, Wayne Brown, is clanking his chains, having just potentially deactivated a critical component of Labour’s Three Waters reform.

With the enabling legislation about to go back to Parliament, Brown has told Auckland’s Watercare to ignore the process henceforth. That latches a mighty drag-anchor to the reforms, as 90% of the new northern water agency would effectively be ghosting itself.

It’s not clear whether the government can stop him from stopping it, other than by heavy-handed and therefore ugly-looking legislative force. Having retained a hefty law firm to advise him, Brown is behaving as though he has already delivered a fatal blow to the water infrastructure shakeup. Alternatively, the new Auckland Council its leanings still untested by any vote could reverse the mayor’s decision, making him look silly.

Whichever way it goes, considering there are also two pending legal challenges to the reforms and ongoing protest din, this looks a lot like the cosmos telling the government it’s more trouble than it’s worth.

But Labour has dug in so hard for so long, crying uncle” would be snap-election territory. Being routed by a mayor would be un-feasibly humiliating let alone the stroppy, iconoclastic Brown, who's just seen off the Prime Minister’s preferred candidate in Auckland.