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Basking in his election success as a man of the people, in a city of 1.4 million people Auckland Super City mayor Len Brown's future success depends on winning over his new 20 seat council.
"It's my job to deliver for Auckland and I will do that and I am very confident this will council will work in support of that vision," he said.
The new Super City council is evenly split along political lines and full of strong personalities not used to taking a back seat.
Christine Fletcher, George Wood and Penny Webster are among five who have worn their own mayoral chains, while left-leaning Mike Lee has been a long-time top dog at the Regional Council.
"You loosely call them all friends at the moment but the test will come when it comes to making important decisions with large resource implications," said Jon Johansson of Victoria University.
But Brown has some top right-leaning men on side.
The Prime Minister, keen to see Auckland develop its potential, said he is confident about his working relationship with the new mayor and will give Brown all the support he can.
"I've always found him (Brown) to be a very constructive person, he's positive," Key said.
The PM said despite Auckland's challenges for the new council, it is time to build a world class city.
Local government minister Rodney Hide is also confident a left-wing Auckland mayor can work with a right-wing government. Hide said he has seen a similar situation operating in London and it can work because "they actually have to work for the good of the region".
To set the city up for the international market place, the government knows it will have to invest and transport is a key part of that.
Brown has already promised to spend big on transport infrastructure but he must also keep rates down.
"It's one thing to campaign on bringing people together but the rubber hits the road now and people will be looking at their back pockets," said Johansson.
"People are going to be very, very sensitive to rates increases and it's going to be very difficult for the new mayor to actually live up to the campaign hype."
There are already early predictions that it will be difficult.
"The rates increases have got to be the same I understand across all existing council areas and that's going to be an issue that's not going to be easy," said George Wood, North Shore councillor-elect.
A lot now rides on Auckland's success and the city must lift its game economically.
"We need to get Auckland moving more quickly because we know from all the research we see that if your major city is powering ahead and doing well it just lifts your national economic growth exponentially," said Prime Minister John Key.
