EDITORIAL: Transportsmanship | Auckland Opinion | Local Voices from Auckland, New Zealand

You couldn't say it was out of left field. You could certainly be forgiven for thinking - like so many decisions and announcements and edicts surrounding the formation of Auckland's new council - that it was right out of right field.

The about-to-be Gauleiter of Auckland, Doug McKay, divulged in a recent Herald interview he's the only person who drives a car around the city with "no knowledge of the history of bus lanes". Or, it follows, the outgoing Citizens & Ratepayers council's outrageous gouging of motorists.

Later the same morning, the Auckland Transition Authority sent out a press release crowning the new head of Auckland Transport. This is the council-controlled (oh, do stop sniggering, that's the official name) organisation that will control a budget larger than several members of the Commonwealth and determine where the bus stops, traffic lights, pedestrian crossings, new motorways, new arterial routes, new trains, new trams, new light-rail (okay, we're joking about the last three) will go.

Except that he isn't a new chief executive. He's an "interim" chief executive, taking up the role "for a fixed term until 30 June 2012".

Continued the press release, dropped without fanfare into the media's inboxes on Friday lunchtime, when most journalists are giving far more serious consideration to the first libation of the day: Dr David Warburton, 60, "has extensive senior management experience and is currently the chief executive for Australia and New Zealand of infrastructure and consulting company CPG, part of Downer EDI.

"Dr Warburton is the former chief executive of Wanganui District Council and serves on both Whanganui and Mid-Central district health boards. He has a PhD in environmental engineering from Massey University.

"Dr Warburton said: 'Transport is the number one issue faced by many Aucklanders and I'm looking forward to leading the team at Auckland Transport as it plays its part in making Auckland greater.'

"ATA Executive Chairman Mark Ford described Dr Warburton as "an outstanding candidate for the role".

"Mr Ford said: 'His background includes significant infrastructure leadership and he is experienced in working collaboratively with local government and other stakeholders. His experience will be invaluable to the new organisation as it delivers results for the people of Auckland.'

"A former Auckland resident, Dr Warburton said: 'I'm looking forward to returning to Auckland after being away for nine years. This is an exciting time for the city and I welcome the opportunity we have to address Auckland's transport challenges.' "

Well, Mr Ford would say that, wouldn't he? Dr Warburton is presumably more outstanding than the highly experienced, highly valued public transport executives from London and Perth who walked away from consideration for the job. Perth, you may be interested to know, is generally regarded as a world-leader in building a public transport system out of a car-bound, motorway-throttled city over the past decade or so. In fact, it's been so difficult to find a chief executive for Auckland Transport that many second and third tier managers have been appointed to their roles before him. Let's hope they all get along.

Dr Warburton lives in Wanganui, which doesn't have so much of a rush hour as a slight moue of impatience when one's Mercedes coupe has to pause for a red light. The Companies Office register lists his name as a director and / or shareholder more than 60 times. Some of these businesses are highly successful.

Most of his interests are rural-based, from Kaitaia and other logging, dairy, sheep, transport and farming towns, though he has interests in more environmentally inclined industries. This may stem from his academic past: the "Dr" is attached to a PhD from Massey, studying dairy shed effluent. There is no apparent attachment to urban - let alone public - transport.

Dr Warburton appears to have the happy knack of being around when the effluent attaches itself to a quickly revolving object. From 2005-08 he was chief executive of Wanganui District Council, which was in a process, as the HR people like to say, of rapid change under its newly elected mayor, Michael Laws.

One of Dr Warburton's moves was to denude the council of surplus staff, particularly at management level. The CEO achieved such remarkable economies and business strategies that he was able, while still serving as the city's top executive, to be seconded to the Wanganui Gas Board for 20 hours a week.

At the time - just two years ago - he told the Wanganui Chronicle: "We're going to continue living in Wanganui. We've got a home here, and got friends here."

Perhaps one of the qualifications to set up the new Auckland Transport quango could be knowing what the boys in the Beehive want. Dr Warburton has achieved the remarkable feat - remarkable in such a small and parochial neighbourhood - of being a Government-appointed member on both the Whanganui (that's with an 'h', unlike the city, where the Mayor lays down the laws) and Mid-Central (aka Palmerston North-Manawatu) District Health Boards.

To understand how delicate that position is, you have to know that little Wanganui and Whanganui are mightily afeared that the Government down in Wellington plans to merge those boards and mid-centralise their health care in Palmy. Officially, the boards have "an ongoing alliance which is intended to investigate ways that the boards can collaborate to strengthen health services across both regions," and you don't need a degree in Communications Studies to read between those lines.

As one Whanganui member put it, the appearance of Dr Warburton and his fellow Government-appointed Mid-Centralist in the River City boardroom was like "putting Israelis in a Palestinian camp and giving them voting rights".

We should note that for his contribution to the good of the Wanganui, Dr Warburton picks up $27,500 as Whanganui deputy chair and $22,000 as a member of Mid-Central.

So after less than two years with Melbourne-based CPG, though he flies in and out of Wanganui for home (and health board and other business) commitments, he moves on to his new annual salary of $535,000 plus an incentive bonus of up to $55,000 (ratepayers' money this time), with 1000 staff and a budget of $608 million a year of yes, ratepayers' money.

Two years seems a prodigously short time to take on Auckland's traffic woes, but this is a man with connections: if he and Steven Joyce agree that the answer is more motorways (and please don't expect the CEO of Auckland Transport to have to go through the nicety of consulting Auckland's elected representatives first), Dr Warburton can pick up the phone and get straight through to the lads with the concrete mixers at Downer EDI.

To northern conspiracy theorists who believe this whole exercise is nothing more than a blind for Wellington to strengthen its backroom and boardroom control of Aucklanders' everyday lives, the architects of Dr Warburton's appointment have successfully delivered more ammunition.

For the rest of us there are, as that great philosopher Jimmy Cliff once opined, more questions than answers.