I sat a few seats along from Rodney Hide at this morning’s launch of the draft Auckland Plan, and as Len Brown and his team unveiled the elements of the plan I wondered if the Local Government Minister was thinking ‘where did it all go wrong?’

It wasn’t meant to be like this. Hide, backed by PM Key and Transport Minister Steven Joyce, set out to hijack the process begun by the last Labour Government when it set up the Royal Commission on Auckland Governance. Their plan was to go for a more highly centralised model, wrap up most of Council operations in corporate-style CCOs, and then win control of the mayoralty and council. They achieved the first two aims, but Len Brown’s resounding win derailed the bigger plan which would have seen the ACT Party’s current Epsom candidate preside over asset sales, dismantling of the metropolitan urban limits, and roads roads roads.

Instead Len Brown and the Auckland Council have developed a plan that is distinctly social democratic.  It assumes active government creating the conditions for and managing growth, reducing social inequalities, and putting people first, all under the banner of creating the world’s most liveable city. It builds seamlessly on the brilliant work done by the Royal Commission, and when implemented will herald big change for Auckland.

Which is why the Government now speaks about the draft plan through gritted teeth. Managed growth? Urban limits? Public investment in public transport? Hands on support for economic development? These things are anathema to the National Party. Not to mention ambitious education and health targets that invite central government to sign on.

The genius of Len Brown’s mayoral campaign was that he evoked an optimistic, inclusive, twenty-first century Auckland with a place for everyone, including the young, the brown, and the new arrivals. It had success stamped all over it. The demographics are all on his side, and John Banks was left looking like an angry old white guy.

National are now being wrong-footed in a similar way.  Aucklanders know the motorways and sprawl model imposed by National in the 1950s won’t do any more. We yearn for a vibrant waterfront and central city. Look at the crowds that descended on Wynyard Quarter’s phase one in recent weeks. We know a modern public transport system can be done. We see them everytime we visit almost any Australian state capital.

In a funny way I think Rodney Hide probably gets it. He is an urban liberal with an interest in what makes cities tick. But Steven Joyce and the National Cabinet are so imbued with an anti-urban, pro-motorways, anti-planning ideology. It is setting up an interesting choice for Aucklanders at this election, given that Auckland’s big ambitions cannot be met without funding and support from central government. If you support Len Brown’s vision for Auckland as the world’s most liveable city you are not going to get it under a National Government.