Auckland Deal is a start. But will it be strong enough to matter? – Mark Thomas
Auckland’s deal is a start. But will it be strong enough to matter?
Auckland has rarely lacked plans for growth. What it has lacked, more often, is the power, certainty and investment to deliver them. The new City and Regional Deal is the latest attempt to close that gap.
For the first time, central and local government have formalised a broad long-term partnership for the country’s largest city. Auckland’s importance to the national economy is already clear, but it is increasing: it contributes roughly four times as much to output as the primary sector, is expected to absorb about 40% of New Zealand’s population growth and has lifted its share of national gross domestic product (GDP) from 34% in 2010 to 38% in 2024.
The evidence from 15 years of city deals in the United Kingdom is clear. They have improved delivery capacity in areas that were previously fragmented: Greater Manchester is often cited for more integrated transport, the West Midlands for stronger brownfield regeneration and housing tools, and places such as West Yorkshire and the Liverpool City Region for skills systems shaped more directly around local labour-market needs.
Before the deal was released, I said Auckland should judge it by three tests: whether it has enough substance to change outcomes; whether the institutional architecture is strong enough to endure; and whether there is a credible decision-making and funding framework.
On those tests, the deal is a stronger foundation than Auckland has had before, but it’s still some way from a best-practice deal.
Its main strength is structural. A formal 10-year framework has been established, with an implementation plan due within six months. The agreement also creates a defined governance model, including responsible ministers and councillors, an oversight board, and six-monthly reporting. That is an advance on the looser and more transactional arrangements of the past.
City deals are meant to do more than announce good intentions. At their best, they create continuity, force co-ordination, and make it harder for important decisions to stall between agencies, ministers and tiers of government.
There is also some real content. Transport, city-centre revitalisation, growth in places such as Drury, and innovation all have a clearer place in the agreement than they might once have had. Eden Park also secures one of the deal’s clearest wins: it is recognised as the national stadium and placed on a credible pathway to resolve long-running ownership, governance and funding disputes.
However, too much of the document still sits in the language of future process.
A large share of the commitments is framed around working together, considering options, investigating tools or developing plans. That may be understandable in a first-generation deal. But it also means much of the document reads more like a tentatively agreed work programme than a binding delivery compact.
The difference between a useful deal and a transformational one is not tone. It is commitment: milestones, sequencing, accountability, and decisions that actually move power, money or delivery.
There is also an early establishment risk. The government machinery that will carry out the deal is itself being folded into the new Ministry for Cities, Environment, Regions and Transport. The first implementation phase will therefore run through an institutional transition, with the six-month timetable landing close to the November election.
The biggest weakness remains funding.
A serious deal with Auckland should help close the gap between what the city is expected to deliver and the tools it has to pay for it. This agreement does put funding and financing tools more squarely on the table. It says central Government will consider and explore new tools to help Auckland fund both the initiatives in the deal and its infrastructure deficit over its term. But that is still some distance from a funding settlement.
There is no obvious multi-year funding envelope, no major new capital commitment embedded in the agreement itself, and no hard guarantee of co-investment beyond further case-by-case decisions. Auckland is therefore still in a familiar position: greater alignment, but not greater certainty.
The governance architecture is stronger, but it is still more about co-ordination than devolution.
That may be inevitable in a highly centralised system. But a city can have more meetings, better reporting lines and clearer oversight, yet remain dependent on decisions made elsewhere.
That is still broadly Auckland’s position. The city gets a better table to sit at, but not enough additional authority to change the logic of the relationship. In that sense, the deal still tends to subordinate Auckland rather than fully back it as a national economic platform.
Two further weaknesses stand out.
The first is political durability. A 10-year deal should aspire to survive changes of government and ministerial priorities. A deal designed to endure should seek a wider political base than the government of the day, as has been pursued with the RMA reforms. Greater engagement with the Opposition is needed to secure this deal.
The second is public accountability. The agreement includes metrics and reporting requirements to be built into the implementation plan, and six-monthly reporting through the oversight structure. But for something of this significance, public report-back still feels underdone. Aucklanders should be able to see what has been promised, what is being delivered, what has slipped and who is responsible.
The Auckland Deal is a more serious framework than the city has had before. On the three tests that matter most, however, the picture is mixed. The architecture is stronger. The substance is still incomplete. The funding framework remains uncertain.
This is not yet the breakthrough Auckland needs. It is the beginning of one, but only if the next stage converts process into commitments, improves public accountability, and closes the gap between partnership language and real fiscal and decision-making power.
Otherwise, Auckland will again have been given a better structure for talking about its future, without being given enough means to shape it.
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