Wallace's Blog: Auckland Supercity (Mar 31)
March 31
Auckland City. A mini state. A country within a country. The Rome within Italy. I talked to Upper Hutt Mayor Wayne Guppy about the super-city issue on the radio yesterday, and I asked if Auckland would be a mini-state, and he replied: "Not a mini-state. A major state!"
Concern is building in regards to what type of influence Auckland would be capable of exerting on the rest of the country. But the Auckland versus the rest of the Country argument isn't a new phenomenon. It's over a century old.
Until the late nineteenth century most of the communication between Auckland and Wellington was via Sydney. Travel between cities was still faster by sea until the North Island main trunk railway was finished in 1908.
But more than that, Auckland wanted to secede itself from the rest of New Zealand. That's right. Not a mini state, but an entirely separate Colony. And they tried bloody hard to do it too. In Gordon McLauchlan's recent The life and times Auckland, he has a fascinating account of all this. McLauchlan states: "Auckland wanted to secede from New Zealand and petitioned the Queen to declare it a separate Colony." And the city tried three more times over the next ten years. But the next bit is really interesting, and could well be applied to today:
"The petition to be a separate colony said there was no community interest or feeling, and neither commercial nor social intercourse between the inhabitants of the Northern Province and those of the South&the petitioners pointed out that Auckland had more inhabitants than all the other provinces combined and 'four-fifths' of the total revenue."
What's kinda neat about history is you can view the broad-brush strokes of an issue and open the lens to macro. You can then see that what's going on now with Auckland governance are repeating themes back throughout the city's history.
So maybe Auckland should just be done with it and ask Government and Queen for secession&again. Auckland to become a separate country. Imagine the shockwaves produced in the other cities and provinces. Good riddance they'd probably say. But why not? Now THERE'S a story.
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