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The delay in naming the agency to oversee Auckland's Super City transition was caused by the Cabinet wanting to ensure it is chaired by a person with the appropriate leadership skills, Prime Minister John Key says.
The Auckland Transition Agency was to be announced by Local Government Minister Rodney Hide on Monday but Key said an "issue" raised at Cabinet meant the Government would need more time to decide on the agency's leadership.
"We're just finalising the last name and who might chair it."
"I just want to make sure that person can discharge those responsibilities professionally and appropriately to the standard that we require to make sure the Super City is successful," he says.
Key would not say what the issue was, but said none of Hide's suggested appointees had been rejected.
"It's an important decision. It is going to be a very important agency over the next 18 months, we want to make sure we get it right."
Speaking on Radio New Zealand's Morning Report today, Hide said the announcement would take another week.
"It's a big job and there's a concern ... that I dot all the i's and cross all the t's and that's what I need to do.
"Auckland's been waiting 50 years, I said `Look, I'll take another week and I'll come back next week'."
Media reports tipped Mark Ford, chief executive of the water wholesaler Watercare Services, for the position of chairman.
Watercare Services is the largest of a number of water services to be merged under the Super City council.
Reports suggested other businessmen in the running for positions on the five-person board were accountant and Bank of New Zealand chairman John Waller, former Crown Research Institute chairman Chris Mace, and former TranzRail chairman Wayne Walden.
There was also speculation that John Hood, the former vice-chancellor of Auckland University, might be the agency's chair.
Labour attributed the delay in announcing the agency to the fallout over last week's Government appointment of Christine Rankin to the Families' Commission.
The Government last week rushed through legislation establishing the agency under urgency, and Labour leader Phil Goff said the delay showed the situation was becoming chaotic.
"It is the Rankin effect, they have become gun shy about appointments."
Auckland City mayor John Banks yesterday suggested the merger of councils would result in up to 40 percent of current staff, or 2700 jobs, being axed, but later said he regretted using that figure, which was only a guess.
Mr Key said no one, including the Government, had yet crunched numbers on job losses and any numbers put forward were pure speculation.
The agency would restructure Auckland's eight councils into a single body by October 31 next year.
