1. NEW ZEALAND’S NEW
MAYORAL ROLE AND
POWERS
Hamish Coghill
July 2014
10,039 Words
Completed as part of the requirements for the Public Policy Honours Programme at the
School of Government, Victoria University of Wellington
Acknowledgements
Peter McKinlay and Adrienne von Tunzelmann of McKinlay Douglas Ltd, and Dr Chris
Eichbaum of Victoria University of Wellington (Supervisor).

2. 1
Introduction
At the beginning of the current local government triennium in October 2013,
for the first time mayors in local authorities around New Zealand had a statutory
foundation for their position. For the duration of local government history in New
Zealand prior to this reform, mayors operated under a ‘weak mayor’ model where
they were prima inter pares around the council table. This led to a fundamental
imbalance between the community’s expectations of mayoral leadership (as suggested
by their separate election), and of the reality of collective council decision-making
(where the mayor was merely first among equals). Traditionally, this fundamental
imbalance had been acceptably resolved in favour of political (rather than merely
ceremonial) mayoral leadership through supporting conventions and practices.
However, many of these were undermined as a result of a variety of developments in
the local government climate by the 1990’s. Calls for statutory intervention to
reinforce the mayoral role in New Zealand were eventually answered by central
government in the process of establishing the Auckland ‘Supercity’ in 2009. A
streamlined version of the statutory role description given to the Mayor of Auckland
was extended to mayors across the country in October 2013. It is this reform that is
the subject of this paper.
In assessing the impact of section 41A’s introduction (the section containing
the new mayoral role and powers), this paper draws on data taken from interviews
with current and past mayors in order to gain a before-and-after perspective of it’s
effect on the mayoral role in practice. In short, this paper argues that, while section
41A’s establishment of a rational-legal basis for the role of the mayor offers an
additional persuasive tool for mayors to strengthen their leadership role, they
nevertheless remain overly vulnerable to wilfully disruptive councillors and
obstructive chief executives. This is because section 41A does not adequately address
the fundamental imbalance and other structural drivers that allow, and indeed
incentivise behaviours that undermine the leadership role of the mayor. As a result,
the National-led Government’s legislative intention of “empower[ing]” mayors is
unlikely to be realised (Smith, 2012, p. 8). The views of past and current mayors
collected through the interviews broadly support this conclusion. In the opinion of the

3. 2
author, section 41A’s shortcomings are symbolic of the empirical flaws in other
aspects of the ‘Better Local Government’ reforms, as well as of the general
misunderstanding of, and lack of appreciation for, local government’s potential and
needs by its central government masters. Finally this paper argues that, despite
shortcomings in the execution, the underlying rationale for section 41A’s introduction
holds up to scrutiny. Strengthening the role and powers of mayors in New Zealand in
order to enhance local leadership can offer a wide range of real benefits for
communities, and as such, policymakers and legislators ought to revisit the provisions
of section 41A.
Background to the Reforms
The office of Mayor in New Zealand’s local government has its origins in the
early settlements of European pioneers to New Zealand in the first half of the 19th
Century. Initially isolated and small, as these settlements grew so too did the need to
take responsibility for local affairs. Accordingly, local governments sprouted up
organically “as a practical and operational contrivance lacking any fundamental
constitutional conception” (Palmer & Palmer, 2004, p. 247). One of the quirks of this
ad hoc origin was that many of these communities elected their mayors. When after
twenty years of tentative attempts the fledgling central government was able to
effectively provide for local government with the Municipal Corporations Act 1867,
the convention of communities selecting their mayors gained legislative recognition
and was incorporated into the electoral law of municipalities. This was a notable early
divergence from usual early-colonial deference to English example on matters of
governance in New Zealand. There, as with Regional Councils in New Zealand today,
members of territorial authorities were elected by winning their wards. Those ward
representatives then in turn chose a leader from their own number. In New Zealand’s
municipalities however, while councillors were also elected from their wards, the
electorate as a whole elected the mayor from a separate list of mayoral candidates.
Restructurings of local government in the 20th
Century abolished municipalities,
though the practice of the direct election of mayors was carried over into the

4. 3
successor ‘territorial authorities’ (City Councils, District Councils and later, Unitary
Councils).
Prior to the reform that is the subject of this paper (and arguably still), New
Zealand’s mayors operated within a ‘weak mayor’ model. Formally, the role of the
mayor was simply to preside over meetings of the territorial authority (cl 26(1),
Schedule 7, Local Government Act 2002). The Standing Orders of a territorial
authority may also have given a casting vote to the mayor, but otherwise the mayor
was simply one vote around a council table that might sit perhaps ten councillors.
Hence the position of mayor in New Zealand’s local authorities can be described as
prima inter pares (first among equals) (Evans, 2003, p. ii). As noted in 2012 by the
then-Minister of Local Government (Smith, p. 8), this led to a fundamental
imbalance:
Mayors are the public face of councils and publicly carry the responsibility
for their decisions. The problem is that there is a mismatch in the current
local government framework between the high level of public interest,
scrutiny and engagement in mayoral elections, where they are elected for an
entire city or district, and their limited formal powers over the governing
body of a council.
In practice this fundamental imbalance was resolved in favour of mayoral
political leadership (as opposed to mere ceremonial leadership) through an amalgam
of forces in New Zealand’s local government. These included: the community’s
expectations that the electoral mandate given to mayors will be fulfilled; councillor’s
respect for that fact, and their observance of conventional respect of the leadership
role of the Mayor; and importantly, the personal attributes and degree of political
acumen individual mayors can call upon to aid in the performance of their leadership
role (Evans, 2003). Writing in 1904, Thomas Frederic Martin, legal counsel to both
the Municipal Association of New Zealand and New Zealand Counties Association,
made the following observations about the role and power of mayors, much of which
remains accurate today:

5. 4
In New Zealand the Mayor is Chairman at meetings of the Council. Further,
a few definite statutory powers are given to him. A person is, however,
usually elected Mayor on the grounds of his possession of certain qualities
of initiative and organisation, and of his knowledge of finance and aptitude
for business generally. Given indeed that a Mayor has the willing support of
a large majority of the Council, his powers as leader of the Council and chief
executive officer may be very wide. On the other hand, seeing that he is
chosen by the electors direct, he might, in face of a hostile majority in the
Council, be unable to do more than preside at meetings and perform his few
formal statutory duties (Opinions on Local Government Law in New
Zealand, p. 22).
Despite this challenging institutional environment for mayors, New Zealand’s local
government history attests to the fact that the ‘weak mayor’ model allowed the
existence of many successful mayoralties over the decades, and in fact did not restrict
the emergence of several particularly strong mayors such as Bob Owens, Bob Harvey
and Tim Shadbolt.
By the 1990’s however, the forces that supported the resolution of the
fundamental imbalance in favour of mayoral leadership had undergone a degree of
diminution as a result of a number of changes in New Zealand’s local government
scene. Three-term ex-Hamilton Mayor Margaret Evans brought together the concerns
and arguments of many commentators and practitioners in her 2003 Master’s Thesis:
The Role of the Mayor in New Zealand. In it, Evans explored “the implications of the
legally undefined role of the mayor for the exercise of local leadership” (p. 1) in
drawing on her own experiences as mayor, interviews with sitting mayors at the time,
and with reference to historical background and scholarship. In brief, Evans argued
that there had been a decline in observance of the conventions supporting the mayor’s
leadership role. This had been aided and abetted by declining reportage and awareness
of local government issues in many communities, accompanied by a commensurate
increase in the confidence in which councillors felt they could avoid public
accountability for undermining the mayor’s leadership role. Furthermore, the
imposition of a weighty compliance regime and the imposition of a policy/operations
division of responsibilities that placed newly statutorily empowered Chief Executives

6. 5
at the head of the administrative arm of local authorities in the late 1980s presented an
additional challenge to the mayor’s leadership role. As a result, Evans observed that
greater pressure was placed on the personal attributes and political acumen of
individual mayors to effectively resolve the fundamental imbalance inherent in the
‘weak mayor’ model in favour of mayoral leadership:
My thesis is that convention and tradition have been eroded to the detriment
of the mayoral leadership function, and while the person-position-situation
mix will continue to produce a variety of results, clarification of the mayor’s
role, to include responsibilities and accountabilities, would in turn clarify
leadership relationships both with the CEO and councillors and enhance the
potential for effective local governance. This is an argument in favour of
authority clarification, not a call for an extension of mayoral powers (pp. 43-
44).
Evans concluded that New Zealand’s mayors needed statutory clarification and
support that would provide a rational-legal basis for mayoral authority, and finally,
offered a draft statutory provision based on her empirically-based findings of what the
mayoral role in practice entails.
It was not until 2007 that the issue of mayoral leadership in New Zealand local
government next achieved a degree of saliency following the passage of the Local
Government Act 2002 where the issue was shelved. In response to Auckland’s
increasingly problematic local governance in the mid-2000s (see Reid, 2009; Bush,
2008), the then-Labour-led government established the Royal Commission on
Auckland Governance to investigate options for improvement. Reporting back in
2009, the Royal Commission called for an “improved governance structure [that]
should help foster the possibility of great leadership” (p. 420). It explored both the
current landscape and the future options for improvement before making its detailed
recommendations for the role of the Mayor of Auckland. Balancing its attraction to
the strong executive mayoral models operating in New York and London and its
acknowledgement of New Zealand’s more collaborative and consensus-driven local
government political culture, the Royal Commission settled a “middle path” where
Evan’s recommendations exhibit a clear influence (p. 428). In the eventual statutory

7. 6
provision for the Mayor of Auckland (section 9(3) of the Local Government
(Auckland Council) Act 2009 (see Appendix)), Evans’ call for authority clarification
via a rational-legal basis for the mayoral role was answered (section 9(1) and (2)).
Though Evans expressly did not advocate giving mayors executive powers, arguably
the limited powers suggested by the Commission and accepted by the Government
(Minister of Local Government, 2009, pp. 16-17) did not entail a significant departure
from the ‘weak mayor’ model or a paradigm shift to a strong-mayor model.
In March 2012 the Government announced the ‘Better Local Government’
reform programme. These reforms were intended to “provide better clarity about
council’s roles, stronger governance, improved efficiency and more responsible fiscal
management” (Smith, 2012, p. 3). A key element of the plan to strengthen council
governance was the proposal to extend the Mayor of Auckland’s statutory powers
throughout New Zealand so that “other communities [can] access the benefits of an
empowered mayor and more definite roles for elected officials” (DPMC, 2012, p. 10).
The influence of the Auckland mayoral model was illustrated plainly by the close
resemblance of the new statutory provision for the role of the mayor initially
introduced to Parliament in June 2012. As the Local Government 2002 Amendment
Bill (No 2) progressed through the stages of the legislative process however, much of
the public narrative was focussed on the proposed removal of the ‘four well-beings’
from the purpose of local government, the removal of some barriers to amalgamations
and the granting to the Minister of greater powers of intervention (Easton, 2012;
Rankin, 2012; Dixon, 2012). Hansard too records a lack of critical evaluation of the
proposed mayoral provision, although Andrew Williams MP (ex-mayor of North
Shore City Council) expressed concern that giving mayors executive powers would
stress the necessary working relationships around council tables and went against the
existing principle of collective council decision-making (Williams, 2012). The
Department of Internal Affairs’ report to the Select Committee on the Bill (2012, pp.
60-62) noted that two-thirds of public submitters and half of territorial authorities
opposed the mayoral provision, yet they were unsuccessful in their endeavour to
strike it out. However, a key concession to these arguments was the inclusion of a
provision (subsection (4)) that operated to limit the mayors’ executive powers to
appoint the deputy, committee chairs, and determine committee structure (Local
Government and Environment Select Committee, 2012, pp. 4-5). In this altered state,

8. 7
the Local Government 2002 Amendment Act 2012 passed its third reading on 29
November 2012, and received royal assent five days later. The mayoral provision
subsequently inserted into the Local Government Act 2002 appears as follows:
41A Role and powers of mayors
(1) The role of a mayor is to provide leadership to—
(a) the other members of the territorial authority; and
(b) the people in the district of the territorial authority.
(2) Without limiting subsection (1), it is the role of a mayor to lead the
development of the territorial authority’s plans (including the long-
term plan and the annual plan), policies, and budgets for consideration
by the members of the territorial authority.
(3) For the purposes of subsections (1) and (2), a mayor has the following
powers:
(a) to appoint the deputy mayor:
(b) to establish committees of the territorial authority:
(c) to appoint the chairperson of each committee established
under paragraph (b), and, for that purpose, a mayor—
(i) may make the appointment before the other members of
the committee are determined; and
(ii) may appoint himself or herself.
(4) However, nothing in subsection (3) limits or prevents a territorial
authority from—
(a) removing, in accordance with clause 18 of Schedule 7, a
deputy mayor appointed by the mayor under subsection
(3)(a); or
(b) discharging or reconstituting, in accordance with clause 30 of
Schedule 7, a committee established by the mayor under
subsection (3)(b); or
(c) appointing, in accordance with clause 30 of Schedule 7, 1 or
more committees in addition to any established by the mayor
under subsection (3)(b); or
(d) discharging, in accordance with clause 31 of Schedule 7, a
chairperson appointed by the mayor under subsection (3)(c).
(5) A mayor is a member of each committee of a territorial authority.
(6) To avoid doubt, a mayor must not delegate any of his or her powers
under subsection (3).
(7) To avoid doubt,--
(a) clause 17(1) of Schedule 7 does not apply to the election of a
deputy mayor of a territorial authority unless the mayor of the
territorial authority declines to exercise the power in
subsection (3)(a):
(b) clauses 25 and 26(3) of Schedule 7 do not apply to the
appointment of the chairperson of a committee of a territorial
authority established under subsection (3)(b) unless the mayor
of the territorial authority declines to exercise the power in
subsection (3)(c) in respect of that committee.

9. 8
The New Mayoral Role and Powers
Section 41A of the Local Government Act 2002 became operative at the
beginning of the current local government triennium on 12 October 2013. With some
time having passed since then, this paper seeks to make some early observations of
the effect of the new mayoral role and powers in practice, and also offers some
tentative conclusions as to the success of the reforms. Of invaluable aid, the author
has had the privilege of access to qualitative data obtained through interviews with
past and current mayors undertaken by McKinlay Douglas Ltd (MDL) over the period
December 2013 to February 2014. Eleven mayors participated in the interviews,
including five past mayors, and six mayors currently in office. Those mayors hailed
from a wide variety of territorial authorities, and helpfully some had experience as
mayor both before and after the introduction of section 41A. Having access to this
data was of such value because, as was explained earlier, the mayoral role had no
‘role description’, and as such the role and powers of mayors were not consistent
among all territorial authorities and all mayors. Therefore, in order to undertake the
before and after comparison it was necessary to speak directly to mayors about their
experiences – indeed, this was the same approach Margaret Evans found necessary to
follow in researching her thesis. In assessing the impact and effectiveness of section
41A, each provision is examined individually below with reference to: the
conventions or practices originally governing the subject of the provision; whether
and/or how those conventions or practices have been undermined; a legalistic analysis
of the provision itself; and finally an assessment of the provision’s overall
effectiveness. As a footnote, in obtaining the consent of participants and enabling
their free comment, MDL undertook to keep their identities confidential and
consequently, no attributable quotes or information is used below.
Subsection (1)(a) – Political Leadership
Subsection (1)(a) of section 41A provides that it is the role of the mayor to
“provide leadership to the other members of the territorial authority.” This
corresponds with the ‘political leadership’ role of mayors as described by Margaret
Evans (2003), and by Robin Hambleton (2008) who saw it as one arm of a ‘trinity’ of
overlapping and interacting mayoral leadership roles. Evans found that in New

10. 9
Zealand’s local authorities, the mayor’s political leadership role largely consisted of:
leading the elected members, managing councillor interactions during council
meetings in adherence to Standing Orders as presiding member; leading elected
member interactions with, and monitoring of, the Chief Executive and council staff;
influencing decision making processes and outcomes in the council; determining the
structure of committees and improving council governance; and the primary
spokesperson for the council (Evans, 2003, pp. 70-74). MDL’s interview data
confirmed that these functions of political leadership remain relatively unchanged
since Evans’ surveys. The lack of a formal role description meant that mayors were
on the whole left to define their roles themselves, albeit commonly assisted by
advisors and fellow mayors. Evans and MDL’s research suggests that the more
functions that mayors were able to recognise and perform competently, the more
successful a mayoralty was likely to be.
As noted earlier in this paper, the forces supporting the resolution of the
fundamental imbalance in favour of mayoral political leadership were weakening by
the 1990’s. The conventional respect for the leadership role of mayors by councillors,
although never absolute, was perceived by Evans (and many others) to have suffered a
noticeable drop in observance (2003, p. 4). A lack of media coverage coupled with
diminishing awareness of local politics in communities heightened the confidence
with which councillors judged they could escape accountability for contravening
accepted standards of political conduct. Furthermore, council chief executives had
begun to seriously rival the leadership role of mayors following reforms to local
government in the late 1980’s that introduced a strict Policy/Operations split in local
authorities. These reforms handed the responsibility for leading the administrative
structure of local authorities to chief executives, who now had a statutory basis for
their role where they occupied the powerful position of being a council’s chief policy
advisor and chief policy implementer. The artificiality of the policy/operations split,
advocated by the New Public Management theory salient at the time, has since been
widely acknowledged, with Sansom noting in particular that: “the idea of a sharp
separation of roles between politicians and officers [is] a longstanding myth” (2013,
p. 216). This rise of the power of chief executives was contributed to by the
simultaneous imposition of further weighty compliance demands from central
government, which as Reid (2013, p. 169) observes, can ‘crowd out’ policy and

11. 10
strategy by strengthening an administrative imperative for council activity at the
expense of a political imperative.
A useful case study demonstrating the effect of many of these contemporary
challenges on mayoral leadership was provided by one of the mayors interviewed by
MDL. The mayor had been a three-term councillor of a provincial local authority
before deciding to stand as a mayoral candidate against the incumbent mayor (as is
common practice). He ran on an electoral platform of reform of the status quo,
advocating a more conservative approach to expenditure which he felt had been too
high. He won the election, and duly became mayor. However, the electorate also
returned most of the members of the previous council who had presided over the state
of affairs the newly-elected mayor had apparently been elected to change (a common-
place occurrence in many smaller authorities where name recognition is often enough
to gain election). Those incumbents and their supporters were able to form a majority
around the council table, whereupon they went about politically isolating the new
mayor, and stymieing his efforts to realise the reforms that his electoral platform had
consisted of. He had to accept a rival as his deputy mayor, who then appeared to
collude with the chief executive to exclude him from the from the key mayoral
leadership role of leading the elected member’s interactions with the council’s
administrative staff. This chief executive had also contributed to the state of affairs
the newly elected mayor wished to reform and had dominated the planning processes
– only one or two policies that were driven by elected members were adopted over a
number of planning rounds. As a result, during his first term the mayor was largely
unable to exercise political leadership of the council – in other words, he was
rendered a ‘lame duck’.
Subsection (1)(a) of section 41A provides that: “the role of a mayor is to
provide leadership to the other members of the territorial authority.” On its face, this
provision is relatively straightforward: it identifies the mayor as responsible for
providing political leadership to their local authority. However, two potential
ambiguities warrant closer examination. Firstly, it is unclear whether “territorial
authority” refers to the entire council or only to the elected members. This carries
particular implications for whether the relationship between mayors and their chief
executives is an equal one or a subservient one. Utilising recognised principles of

12. 11
statutory interpretation (section 5, Interpretation Act 1999), this ambiguity can be
clarified with reference to the Act’s background materials that indicate subsection
(1)(a) was intended to encompass the entire council. This interpretation corresponds
with the apparent intention of then-Minister of Local Government Nick Smith, who in
introducing the ‘Better Local Government’ expressed his preference for placing
mayors at the top of local authority hierarchies: “Mayors are the public face of
councils and publicly carry the responsibility for their decisions. … Mayors need the
capacity to provide clearer and stronger leadership” (Better Local Government, 2012,
p. 8). Another, less immediately consequential uncertainty (in a legal sense), is the
meaning of the word “leadership.” Leadership has been a subject that has exercised
many of mankind’s greatest minds, yet our understanding of the concept is in constant
flux and by nature impossible to completely agree on. It follows that mayors seeking
guidance on how to fulfil their statutory leadership roles will need to look beyond the
language of the Local Government Act 2002. Evans’ thesis and English academic
Robin Hambleton’s numerous works on civic leadership offer useful introductions.
At the time MDL’s interviews were undertaken, it was difficult to assess the
impact of subsection (1)(a) on the practice of mayoral leadership. This was because
the provision had only been in effect for 3-4 months, and the effects of the provision
could only be expected to fully reveal themselves over a longer time scale. With this
caveat in mind, this paper tentatively concludes that subsection (1)(a) is likely to
provide mayors with only a limited degree of persuasive power in support their
political leadership role. The mayors that were interviewed did not report any
significant deviation from existing practice which had stemmed from the enactment of
subsection (1)(a), although most were pleased to have statutory support for their
political leadership role. The power of subsection (1)(a) is limited in the sense that it
does not address the structural drivers that serve to undermine the mayoral political
leadership role means that the provision’s effect is likely to be limited. For instance,
in the above example of the provincial mayor, the community had elected a mayor
who promised to bring about change, but at the same time returned to the council the
architects of the situation the community was apparently unhappy with. While the
mayor may protest that he possesses a mandate for change from the community, the
councillors can also reasonably argue that, in a system based on collective council
governance, they had also received the confidence of the community for their prior

13. 12
performance. This brings us back to the key imbalance described at the beginning of
this paper, and it is key note here that, while subsection (1)(a) can be seen as shore-
ing up the ‘weak mayor’ model, mayors will still need to build coalitions of political
support within their council to avoid being rendered lame ducks despite government
rhetoric that they were empowering mayors.
Subsection (1)(b) – Community Leadership
‘Community leadership’ is the second arm of the trinity of mayoral roles
identified by Hambleton. Evans’ research produced the key aspects and functions of
the community leadership role for mayors in New Zealand: the role of ‘first citizen’
for ceremonial occasions; networking, strategizing, and promoting the district and the
wellbeing of its people within and outside the community; and consulting, facilitating,
and helping to resolve the problems of the community and its constituents (2003, p.
75). Notable examples of mayors performing their community leadership role include
the Mayor of Christchurch Bob Parker in the wake of severe earthquakes in that city,
and Grey District Mayor Tony Kokshoorn in the wake of the Pike River Mine
disaster. Beyond the ceremonial functions which are rarely challenged, other
functions of community leadership “are inherently political” (Sansom, 2012, p. 10),
and cannot be completely divorced from the mayor’s political leadership role. One
MDL interviewee reported that issues could arise over whom the mayor purported to
speak on behalf of when speaking publicly – themselves as mayor or on behalf of all
councillors? However, beyond these potential political constraints, mayoral
performance of their community leadership role does not appear to have been overly
threatened in recent years.
Section 41A(1)(b) provides that “the role of a mayor is to provide leadership
to the people in the district of the territorial authority.” As with subsection (1)(a),
prima facie the provision seems clear, although what “leadership” means is not
clarified. Thus mayors will need to define for themselves what their community
leadership role entails, and that this might get mayors thinking more deeply about
what this entails could lift the standard to which this role is performed. Subsection
(1)(b) could be interpreted as an encouragement for mayors and their councils to
move beyond ‘roads, rates and rubbish’ and to contemplate contemporary challenges
such as ‘wicked’ social and economic policy problems (McKinlay & Selwood, 2014),

14. 13
and to utilise new understandings of the role of local government following the shift
towards network and community governance (Rhodes, 2007; Ryan, 2011). Notable
examples of community leadership that incorporate these understandings include the
Mayors Taskforce for Jobs where mayors have coordinated social and business
networks in their communities and steered them towards addressing the issue of youth
unemployment. Another example are MSD’s Social Sector Trials, where mayors
coordinate and steer central-government administered services and programmes in
their communities to improve collaboration. Mayors could potentially use this
subsection as a statutory basis to advocate for community governance solutions to
central government. At the time of MDL’s interviews, most mayors appeared to have
thought briefly about the implications of subsection (1)(b), though none seemed to
have deeply considered its potential. This is perhaps unsurprising given how at odds
this view is with the direction the Better Local Government reforms pointed towards
(as encapsulated by the repeal of the ‘four wellbeing’s’ as the purpose of local
government, and its replacement with the current purpose of providing cost-effective
infrastructure and services).
Subsection (2) – Policy Leadership
‘Policy leadership’ is the final aspect of Evans’ ‘trinity’ of mayoral roles in
New Zealand. Functions within the ‘policy leadership’ role include: influencing the
processes concerning the consideration of issues brought to the attention of the
council; leading communication of information between community and council and
elected members; monitoring the implementation of policy, and therefore, also the
performance of the council organisation and that of the chief executive (Evans, 2003,
pp. 74-75). However, the MDL interviews made it apparent that there were often a
variety of approaches by mayors to performing these functions in practice, and that
practice was also susceptible to the nature of the mayor’s performance of their
political leadership role. Despite this, a general trend was apparent that mayors and
chief executives worked closely together in the preparation of draft Annual and Long
Term Council Community Plan (LTCCP). The division of responsibilities between
the mayor (policy and strategy) and the chief executive (operations and compliance),
and their necessary coming-together in those plans, was evident in the primary
importance mayors attached to the health of their relationship with the chief
executive. Aside from the statutory requirement of engaging in public consultation on

15. 14
the drafts, by virtue of council collective decision making councillors would also have
input into the planning processes. As expanded upon earlier, the conduct of
councillors and the chief executive can have a significant detrimental impact on the
ability of mayors to perform their policy leadership role. As such, the same drivers
that undermine the mayoral political leadership role are at play here, although the
chief executive’s role is especially important. Their focus on ensuring compliance and
form can ‘crowd out’ or restrict innovation and creativity on the part of elected
members (Reid, 2013, p. 179). More unhealthy mayor/chief executive relationships
can result in obstructiveness of behalf of chief executives, or as demonstrated in the
account from one MDL interviewee, can result in the mayor being side-lined from
leading the relationship between council staff and elected members and being shut out
of much of the governance process.
Section 41A(2) provides that: “the role of a mayor to lead the development of
the territorial authority’s plans (including the long-term plan and the annual plan),
policies, and budgets for consideration by the members of the territorial authority.”
Aside from ambiguity once again as to the meaning and implications of “leadership,”
the provision is clear that the development of plans, policies and budgets is the
responsibility of the mayor. At the time MDL’s interviews took place, the annual
planning round had not yet begun and therefore there is a lack of firm empirical
evidence as to the impact of this provision on mayoral practice. However it is likely
that this provision will lead to a rebalancing and homogenisation of relationships
between mayors and chief executives in New Zealand’s local government, from one
that was somewhat open to interpretation though slightly favouring administrative
control, to one that institutionalises political control (through the mayor) over these
key processes. Likely benefits of this rebalancing may include clearly defined
responsibilities and institutionalised political control over executive, potentially
reducing barriers to mayoral policy leadership from obstructive or dominant chief
executives. Despite the potential for these benefits though, it is somewhat unrealistic
to expect mayors to have the knowledge and expertise required to adequately
understand and therefore be accountable for the significant amount of compliance that
must be followed in development of these documents. This issue was touched on by
Evans who advocated a clearer statement of mayoral and council responsibility for
monitoring the performance of the chief executive and the provision of technical

16. 15
support with which to do so (2003, pp. 165-167). Supporting this imperative, the
Fourth Labour Government’s imperfect implementation of New Public Management
theory into practice in their local government reforms means that chief executives in
local authorities act as both policy advisors and implementers. Recent instances where
unchecked chief executives have been responsible for fundamental failures of council
governance include Hamilton City Council’s ‘V8 Supercars’ events (Audit New
Zealand, 2011) and Kaipara District Council’s Mangawhai wastewater scheme
(Auditor-General, 2013). Subsection (2) could give the impression of mayoral
responsibility for the eventual plans, policies and budgets, rather than just their
development, and this would be an unfair representation given the various actors
within a council that have input into these processes such as councillors, chief
executives, and other officers within the council structure. Subsection (2) may serve
to shield them from the scrutiny they might otherwise deservedly attract due to their
influence.
Subsection (3)(a) – Appointing the Deputy Mayor
The role of deputy mayor is one of the most important in local government.
They are second-in-command to the mayor and are often called upon to perform
mayoral functions in the absence of the mayor. One past mayor, comparing the
mayoral role to that of an orchestra conductor, colourfully described the deputy
mayoral role as being akin to ‘first violin’. The deputy mayor is often a confidante or
ally of the mayor and forms a key part of the ‘political executive group’ – i.e.
councillor allies of the mayor around the council table (Evans, 2003, p. 71).
Conventionally, the appointment of the deputy mayor was arranged in the post-
election period before the inaugural council meeting of the new triennium. During this
period, the mayor conventionally leads a process whereby they meet individually with
the elected members to find out what the member is hoping to achieve as a councillor,
and whether they have any particular skills that might be utilised on a committee or
board (LGNZ, 2013). Having done so, a mayor would often then develop preferences
as to who they would like to be their deputy, as well as who should chair each
committee. The mayor will then consult and engage in politicking among the elected
members to try to gain majority support for their preferred appointees – though the
mayor will often have to compromise to achieve a line up that a majority will support.
Appointments are usually settled before the inaugural meeting, at which one of the

17. 16
first orders of business for the council is to vote confirming appointments that the
mayor usually puts forward.
Despite the undermining of some conventions that favour mayoral political
leadership (as explored above), MDL’s interviews did not record a widespread
departure from this particular post-election/pre-inaugural-meeting mayoral function.
This however ought not to be conflated with a finding that this process is immune
from challenges to a mayor’s preferred appointees by the other elected members.
Given that majority support is needed for the appointment of elected members to
posts within the structure, the mayor has always had to build coalitions of support. If a
mayor was unsuccessful in this for whatever reason, they could be side-lined and a
‘political executive group’ put in place that is hostile to the mayor’s plans. This
appeared to have been the case in the earlier account of one of MDL’s interviewees.
In cases of less political foment, but perhaps suspicion or wariness on behalf of
councillors towards the mayor, some interviewees reported that a rival or non-ally
might be elected as deputy mayor to act as somewhat of a check on the mayor. Such
cases can be clear examples of how the key imbalance described early in this paper,
and the subsequent undermining of practices and conventions that resolve this
imbalance in favour of mayoral political leadership, can manifest in practice. When
viewed through the lens of mayors (as the MDL interviews did), such disturbances are
examples of councillor misbehaviour designed to deliberately stymie the expressed
will of the community. However it is important to also appreciate the perspective of
councillors who may have been elected en-masse on electoral platforms opposing or
inconsistent with that of the mayor, and who may view ensuring representation of
their political perspective at the core of the political executive group as a way of
fulfilling their legitimate electoral mandate. The practical effect of a political rival or
non-ally of the mayor becoming deputy mayor can pose a serious challenge to the
mayoral leadership role. For instance a hostile deputy mayor might prove unwilling to
tow the mayoral line when speaking publicly or ceremonially in place of an absent
mayor, and the same might be the case around the council table.
Section 41A(3)(a) provides that, for the purposes of their leadership roles in
subsections (1) and (2), the mayor has the power to appoint the deputy mayor. On its
face, this subsection is clear and without ambiguity: mayors have the power to appoint

18. 17
the deputy mayor. However, owing to principles of statutory interpretation, section
41A(3)(a) cannot be read in isolation from the rest of the section, and indeed the
entire Act and its legislative purpose. And it is in the surrounding provisions of
section 41A, and indeed in the Local Government Act 2002, that the power ostensibly
conferred in subsection (3)(a) is emasculated. Subsection (4)(a) provides that the
council as a whole retains the power to remove a deputy mayor under clause 18 of
schedule 7 of the Local Government Act 2002 in accordance with clause 25, which
stipulates that the votes of a simple majority of elected members is required to do so.
Subsection (4) was inserted at the Committee stage of the Bill, where there was
confusion as to whether a council’s Schedule 7 power has been repealed by
implication, and concern (particularly from Labour and Green parties) about a loss of
collective council decision-making (Local Government and Environment Select
Committee, 2012). The practical effect of subsection (4)’s inclusion is that a mayor
must be sure of majority support for their appointment before announcing it lest they
risk it being overturned. The corollary of this is that the existing convention of the
post-election process remains unchanged as the key process by which it is determined
who will be appointed as deputy mayor. Lastly, subsection (7) of section 41A holds
that the powers in subsection (3) are discretionary, and subsection (6) stipulates that
those powers cannot be delegated.
Because subsection (3)(a) is at its most widely applicable in the post-
election/pre-inaugural meeting period, it was possible to gain a measure of
appreciation for the early impact of this subsection in MDL’s interviews conducted in
late 2013 and early 2014. What they, and other sources revealed, was that subsection
(3)(a) has had a very limited impact on practice and has fallen well short of the
Government’s original promise to “empower” mayors (Smith, 2012, p. 8). Mayors
confirmed that the process following the election remained unchanged, as they still
required the assent of a majority of the councillors for their appointments. However,
MDL’s interviews also revealed that subsection (3)(a) is not wholly without practical
use for mayors. Mayors felt that it provided persuasive support for their function of
leading the post-election process and the precedence of their views, and that it may be
a useful tactical tool within a mayor’s ‘bully pulpit’ that forces councillors to go
public with any disagreement in a council meeting in utilising their power under
subsection (4). On the other hand, such a move by a mayor may also backfire and

19. 18
foment divisiveness and dysfunction, so instead of improving council governance, it
may in fact worsen it. This point was noted explicitly by Andrew Williams MP in
Select Committee, and by a number of submitters (Department of Internal Affairs,
2012). One MDL interviewee also gave this reason as to why they didn’t invoke
subsection (3) in making their appointments. Others expressed concern that utilising
subsection (3) publicly identifies as a mayoral decision that which in practical effect
is a collective council decision and obscuring councillors from fair public
accountability for their decisions.
Subsection (3)(b) – Determining the Committee Structure
Council committees are where the bulk of council business is conducted.
Conventionally, a committee will be devoted to a particular subject area of council
business (such as Finance, Infrastructure, or Events), and often it will have decision-
making powers devolved to it by the council. The structure and the terms of reference
of committees are therefore important to a council’s governing performance. Prior to
the reforms, the decision over whether to adjust the committee structure of a council
was a collective one (as with appointments), and was often taken at the beginning of
each new triennium in the pre-inaugural meeting period. As above, there doesn’t seem
to be much evidence for saying this had changed, though as mayors conventionally
led this process as a function of their political leadership role, it was not free of the
political disturbances common to the appointment process of the deputy mayor or
committee chairs. To return again to the same example of the MDL mayoral
interviewee whose political leadership role was challenged, one of his initiatives that
were blocked by the hostile majority was a proposal for an Audit and Risk
Committee. The Government’s original intention in providing mayors with this
power, as with subsection (3) as a whole, was to support the mayoral “capacity to
provide clearer and stronger leadership” (Smith, 2012, p. 8).
Subsection (3)(b) of section 41A provides that mayors have the power to
establish committees of the governing authority. Again, subsection (7) states that this
power is discretionary, and subsection (6) that the power is not delegable. Two
potential ambiguities reside in what is otherwise a fairly clear conferral of the power
to establish committees upon mayors. Firstly, as one prominent local government
lawyer posited at the time section 41A was passed, did this impliedly confer upon

20. 19
mayors the power to determine the composition of such-established committees too?
That subsection (3)(c) only confers upon mayors the power to appoint the chairs of
committees would suggest by omission that the power in subsection (3)(b) is confined
to establishing committees only and not their membership. DIA officials have also
reportedly expressly confirmed that this is the case. The second potential ambiguity is
whether mayors have the power to disestablish committees as well as establish them.
Aside from these ambiguities, the power conferred by this subsection suffers from the
same emasculation by subsection (4) as the other subsection (3) powers do.
Subsections (4)(b) and (4)(c) hold that the previous systems of establishing and
disestablishing council committees under Schedule 7 of the Local Government Act
2002 remain in place. The practical effect of subsection (3)(b), as reported by mayors
and as with other subsection (3) powers, is that there is only a marginal departure
from prior practice given similar ancillary benefits and drawbacks described above for
subsection (3)(a).
Subsection (3)(c) – Appointing Committee Chairs
Given that, as explained above, council committees are where much of the
important and detailed work of councils is done, the role of committee chair is key to
the overall functioning of council governance. Council committees are often
delegated decision-making responsibility for their particular area, hence the
importance for mayors of having allies chairing and controlling these committees. As
with the decision of who shall be deputy mayor, the allocation of committee chairs to
elected members is determined in the post-election/pre-inaugural meeting process.
The accounts of mayors recorded by Evans (2003) and in MDL’s interviews are that,
during this process, mayors fought to obtain support for their preferences of
committee chairs. Those preferences tended to be based on imperatives such as
rewarding political allies, building a core political executive group, subject-matter
competency (e.g. accountants chairing the Finance Committee) and bringing potential
political rivals into the proverbial ‘tent’. A mayor may have needed to sacrifice their
preferences to obtain majority support, and in extreme cases they might have been
unable to realise their preferences due to a subordinate majority. Subsection (3)(c) of
section 41A provides that the mayor has the power to appoint chairs of council
committees, including themselves (mayors are de facto members of all council
committees (section 41A(5)). However, as with the powers apparently conferred by

21. 20
subsection (3), this power is emasculated by subsection (4)(d) that makes clear
councils as a whole retain the power to remove a committee chairperson under the
pre-existing process in Schedule 7 of the Local Government Act 2002. The MDL
interviews confirmed that subsection (3)(c) has not precipitated a major departure
from practice and has not conferred any real power beyond the ancillary benefits
common across subsection (3) as described above for subsection (3)(a).
Overall Assessment and Potential Alternatives
Given the above analysis of the individual provisions of section 41A, this
paper next seeks to draw conclusions as to the success or otherwise of the introduction
of the section. At the outset it is acknowledged that the supporting material for this
paper’s analysis and conclusions were obtained in close proximity to the introduction
of reforms, and as such, further research is required in order to ensure the accuracy of
the following conclusions. At a fundamental level, the criteria against which the effect
of the introduction of section 41A must be assessed ought to be whether the reforms
have achieved their legislative intention. The National-led government’s justification
for the inclusion of section 41A into their overall Better Local Government reforms
was to address the mismatch between the public’s expectations of mayoral leadership
and the reality of the ‘weak mayor’ model requiring council collective decision-
making; they wanted to give the mayor “the capacity to provide clearer and stronger
leadership” (Smith, 2012, p. 8). The conferral of powers was intended to work toward
that end by assisting mayors in building an effective leadership team and thereby
strengthening the capacity and capability of the council. They also wanted to extend
the similar governance powers available to the Mayor of Auckland across New
Zealand to minimise discrepancies in local government and all mayors and
communities to experience the benefits of having an empowered mayor (DPMC,
2012; Smith, 2012).
As shown above, the key imbalance underlying much of the tension in local
government surrounding the mayoral role was not addressed, and as such, the

22. 21
mismatch was not conclusively or substantially resolved. Instead, the conventions and
practices that helped to resolve that imbalance in favour of mayoral leadership
received a limited degree of strengthening. Mayors now have a statutory legal basis
for their role, which will likely provide a degree of persuasive force for the mayor’s
political leadership role in the face of challenges from councillors. Section 41A may
also benefit in the essential task for mayors of self-defining their role by drawing their
attention to particular aspects of mayoral leadership they otherwise might not have
ignored – particularly the potential of their community leadership role. This might
reduce the incidence of mayoralties that fail for want of effective leadership, and may
also perhaps encourage existing mayors to reflect on how they view their own role,
perhaps producing improvements. Mayors also now have the statutory backing to
more effectively exert political control over the chief executive and council staff,
although that power is again merely persuasive and does not address the heart of the
underlying structural and institutional causes. Despite the likelihood that mayors will
benefit from the rational-legal statutory support for their role as envisaged by Evans,
with the emasculation of subsection (3) powers by subsection (4), section 41A only
offers persuasive power over other key actors in local authorities. Councillors, and
indeed CE’s who wish to be disruptive or circumvent mayoral leadership (whether for
good or bad reasons) remain unimpeded. The importance of the personal capacities
and political acumen of individual mayors, and the simultaneous observance by
councillors and council staff to the conventional leadership role performed by mayors
therefore remain as the essential ingredients of a successful mayoralty and indeed
good local governance. Therefore, the status quo is to a large extent maintained.
Many MDL interviewees shared the sentiment that, while having a statutory
role description was a welcome development, the powers were (as one mayor
colourfully described) ‘Clayton’s powers’. Invercargill Mayor Tim Shadbolt, who
criticised the introduction of section 41A on the additional basis that, while it is bad
enough that the reform doesn’t satisfy the strong case for change that existed, it is
even worse because it has given the impression that mayors are now empowered,
made this point forcefully:
Absolutely nothing has changed … if anything it’s been made worse … the
mayor will get all the blame. The public expectation is that the mayor is

23. 22
leading everything – its just rubbish. [The new powers are] pathetic,
contradictory and illusionary [and has] made us into toothless tigers and
undermined mayoralty (Russell, 2013).
As an aside, it is interesting to note that Tim Shadbold utilised his powers under
section 41A(3) in appointing his deputy, setting the committee structure, appointing
the chairs of those committees, as well as making recommendations as to the
composition of each committee (Shadbolt, 2013). A redeeming factor may be that
there was little coverage of local government and the reforms, and so communities
may not realise this and mayors might not see a corresponding increase in the
expectations of mayoral accountability from the local community. Where this is more
likely to be problematic is the context of central and local government relations and
the wider context of Better Local Government. Section 41A’s ‘empowerment’ of
mayors is one aspect of a reform programme particularly geared towards increasing
local government’s accountability to central government, and in that context there was
concern that section 41A gave powers with one hand (or at least appeared to), and by
singling mayors out as responsible for the performance of the whole council, took
with the other. Associate Professor of Political Science at Otago University, Janine
Hayward, noted that in Better Local Government context where central government
granted extensive powers of intervention to itself: ''… it's basically central
government saying `we want someone to be accountable for this ... and we're going to
make sure that if there's a problem with that, the minister can intervene” (Morris,
2013). This is a cynical view of the new mayoral powers. An alternative, and in this
author’s opinion, more accurate explanation, is that legislators initially had the
genuine intention of empowering mayors – especially given that enhancing
‘leadership’ has been trumpeted by the current government as an antidote to failures
in public sector governance (Better Public Services Advisory Group, 2011, p. 8).
However, the effort to empower mayors was critically undermined during the Select
Committee stage when the Department of Internal Affairs buckled to pressure to
emasculate the subsection (3) powers to preserve the status quo.
It is argued that this failure is indicative of broader, more fundamental failings
of the performance of the Department across the Better Local Government reforms in
general. The failures surrounding the use financial data upon which the fundamental

24. 23
case for change apparently rested, including numerical errors, attracted sharp criticism
from LGNZ. Given the weakness of the Government’s empirical evidence supporting
the reforms, Cheyne (2012) suggests that ideology was their chief motivation –
unsurprising given that ACT MP Rodney Hide originally conceived Better Local
Government. This ideological imperative is symbolised by the removal of the ‘four
well-beings’ as the purpose of local government, and their replacement:
The purpose of local government is … to meet the current and future needs
of communities for good-quality local infrastructure, local public services,
and performance of regulatory functions in a way that is most cost-effective
for households and businesses (s 10, Local Government Act, 2002).
It also symbolised a broader lack of understanding and appreciation of local
government by central government, given that the introduction of the ‘four well-
beings’ was lauded at the time as a permissive provision, not a directive. Furthermore,
as noted by Reid (2011, p. 55), the Better Local Government reforms also represent a
shift away from general trends in accepted local government and governance
scholarship that increasingly recognises the importance of local government’s role in
leading the community networks essential in addressing many of today’s most
intractable and wicked policy problems (Ryan, 2011). The success of the ‘Mayor’s
Taskforce for Jobs’ scheme is often cited as an example of the potential of local
government and leadership to address difficult social problems (McKinlay Douglas
Ltd, 2013). Others have highlighted the connection between empowered local
governments and economic growth (Heseltine, 2012; Hambleton, 2011; New Zealand
Productivity Commission, 2013). Given these understandings, McKinlay &
Selwood’s strong criticism of central government’s current policy settings towards
local government is unsurprising:
…our current understandings and practices [in local government] are
seriously out of line with what is needed to deal with the challenges New
Zealand’s economy and society face now and for the foreseeable future…
Our contention is that the present arrangements for and understanding of
local government are no longer ‘fit for purpose’ for reasons including: An

25. 24
increasingly dysfunctional set of governance and accountability
arrangements; … (2014, p. 1).
There are signs that this may be beginning to change however. The Treasury has
recently held events and commissioned reports into the potential of local government
to more efficiently and effectively administer and coordinate social programmes. This
makes sense given that New Zealand is by far the most centralised country in the
OECD, with over 80% of total government expenditure spent by central government
despite a fairly even split in the value of assets owned by local government compared
with central government (OECD, 2013, p. 67). The United Kingdom, our closest
‘competitor’ for this title, has recently taken steps through the Localism Act 2011 to
devolve powers and resources from central government. Strengthening local
leadership was a key element of the reforms there (Department for Communities and
Local Government, 2012), with Sansom echoing the broad consensus in like-
jurisdictions about the importance of local leadership in these efforts: “New functions
and enhanced authority for mayors are part of broader changes sweeping through
local government” (2013, p. 213).
Given, therefore, that section 41A is unlikely to resolve the structural drivers
that undermine mayoral leadership in New Zealand, and also that trends in the
scholarship and like-jurisdictions such as the United Kingdom and Australia that are
in favour of strengthening mayoral leadership for the foreseeable future, New
Zealand’s government may need to revisit section 41A in the future. In such a
circumstance, what are the options for reforming the role of the mayor, and which
would be the most appropriate? One option would be to resolve the key imbalance,
described at the opening of this paper, in favour of collective governance by
introducing indirectly elected mayors. This is the present status quo for the election of
Chairs of Regional Councils, however this method of council leader election has not
eradicated the instances of poor leadership and governance. A similar model was in
existence in the United Kingdom until their 2000 reforms, and there this system it was
felt to be deficient in transparency, accountability and democracy when paired with
the strong presence of political parties in local government there (Department for
Communities and Local Government, 2012). The Royal Commission on Auckland
Governance (2009) also gave consideration to this model, though was to reject it.

26. 25
Another option at the opposite end of the spectrum is to introduce strong executive
mayors. The advantages of these systems are that usually a single person is
empowered to lead their local authority and is simultaneously clearly identifiable as
accountable. Strong executive mayors are a feature of the governance of many
American and European cities, and indeed served as the inspiration for the
institutional design of the Mayor of London’s role and powers within the Greater
London Authority. However, when deciding to introduce a strong executive mayor
model, the key issue becomes what precisely the mayoral role will be, and what
powers they will have at their disposal in order to perform that role. Adopting the
strong executive mayoral model in New Zealand would entail a major departure from
current local government political culture, and indeed a wider reformulation of the
role of councillors, chief executives and local government as a whole. There does not
appear to be the appetite for the wholesale reform of local government that such
proposals would require in either the current government or among opposition parties.
In this author’s view, an option worthy of consideration is to opt for the
middle ground between the two extremes given above, as advocated by the Royal
Commission on Auckland Governance. A persuasive case exists that stronger mayoral
leadership needs to be better enabled and responsibilities made clearer. In the tradition
of constitutional change in New Zealand, reformers may well opt to proceed
incrementally, meaning the repeal of subsection (4) of section 41A would be an
obvious first step. However, reformers would be well advised to consider starting
afresh with a new mayoral provision based on Sansom’s (2012, p. 30) suggestions set
out in the Appendix to this paper. Such a legislative provision would fill out what, in
comparison to Evans’ originally suggested provision (2003, pp. 165-167), is at present
a rather threadbare in section 41A. Sansom’s provision also provides a limited set of
semi-executive powers to mayors, and its development with reference to the New
Zealand context, as well as the Australian context, has resulted in a provision that
would slot easily into the current local government system and would not entail a
major departure from current practice. One small addition perhaps could be a recall
provision to allow voters to recall a mayor – an electorate power that Brian Rudman
noticed was absent during the scandal surrounding Auckland Mayor Len Brown’s
performance in late 2013 (Rudman, 2013). As a final note, and an illustration of the
remarkable extent of the neglect shown to the issue of the role and powers of mayors

27. 26
in New Zealand, Thomas Frederic Martin, counsel to both the Municipal Association
of New Zealand and New Zealand Counties Association, wrote 110 years comments
that to a remarkable extent remain relevant today:
It being customary in the Colony to hold the Mayor responsible for the
policy of the Council and the success of its administration, it seems worthy
of consideration whether his powers and functions should not be enlarged
and extended (Martin, 1904, p. 22).
My hope is that this research may contribute to such a consideration.
Conclusion
In summary, the introduction of section 41A, while built on a solid case for
change and providing mayors with a persuasive rational-legal authority for their role,
is unlikely to have a substantial impact on the practice of mayoral leadership in local
authorities around New Zealand. Mayors remain vulnerable to disruptive councillor
behaviour and uncooperative chief executives because section 41A fails to adequately
address the fundamental structural drivers that undermine the mayoral leadership role,
and the limited semi-executive powers it contemplated conferring on mayors that
would have helped to address this were emasculated. Therefore, it is improbable that
the government’s legislative intention of ‘empowering’ mayors will be realised.
However, policy makers engaged in evaluating the overall utility of the introduction
of section 41A ought to be aware of the several ancillary benefits described above that
may make themselves evident as the current local government triennium unfolds.
Further research into the impact of section 41A during this time is required in order to
corroborate or refute the findings of this paper whose conclusions were largely based
on the early observable effect of the provision’s introduction on mayors’ practice of
their leadership role. This paper supports future efforts to strengthen mayoral
leadership, albeit in an incremental and empirically based fashion that is bold while
sensitive to New Zealand’s local government culture. The framework recommended
by Graham Sansom (2012) provides, in this author’s view, a solid foundation from
which policy makers might design amendments to what is a rather threadbare section
41A.

28. 27
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Appendix
(Local Government (Auckland Council) Act 2009)
9 Mayor of Auckland
(1) The role of the mayor is to—
(a) articulate and promote a vision for Auckland; and
(b) provide leadership for the purpose of achieving objectives that will
contribute to that vision.
(2) Without limiting subsection (1), it is the role of the mayor to—
(a) lead the development of Council plans (including the LTP and the
annual plan), policies, and budgets for consideration by the governing
body; and
(b) ensure there is effective engagement between the Auckland Council
and the people of Auckland, including those too young to vote.
(3) For the purposes of subsections (1) and (2), the mayor has the following
powers:
(a) to establish processes and mechanisms for the Auckland Council to
engage with the people of Auckland, whether generally or particularly
(for example, the people of a cultural, ethnic, geographic, or other
community of interest):
(b) to appoint the deputy mayor:
(c) to establish committees of the governing body:
(d) to appoint the chairperson of each committee of the governing body
and, for that purpose, the mayor—
(i) may make the appointment before the other members of the
committee are determined; and
(ii) may appoint himself or herself:
(e) to establish and maintain an appropriately staffed office of the mayor.
(4) The mayor must exercise the power in subsection (3)(e)-
(a) in consultation with, and acting through, the Council’s chief executive;
and
(b) within the budget in the annual plan adopted for that particular
expenditure (being an amount not less than 0.2% of the Council’s total
budgeted operating expenditure for that year).
(5) The mayor must not delegate any of his or her powers under subsection (3).
(6) The mayor is a member of each committee of the governing body.
(7) The avoid doubt,—
(a) clause 17(1) of Schedule 7 of the Local Government Act 2002 does not
apply to the election of the deputy mayor of the Auckland Council
(unless the mayor declines to exercise the power under subsection
(3)(b) of this section); and
(b) clause 25 of Schedule 7 of the Local Government Act 2002 does not
apply to the election of the chairperson of a committee of a governing
body, if the mayor exercises the power in subsection (3)(d) of this
section in respect of that committee; and
(c) clause 30 of Schedule 7 of the Local Government Act 2002 applies to
the Auckland Council, except to the extent that the mayor exercises the
power in subsection (3)(c) of this section.

33. 32
(Sansom, Australian Mayors: What Can and Should They Do?, 2012, p. 30)