Mr Banks has hired a team of political strategists and held focus groups to determine his chances, telling The New Zealand Herald yesterday he would make a final decision in the next two weeks.
"Phil Goff’s mayoralty reminds me of Grandma’s boiled cabbage. It never gets better by the day,’’ said the former National MP, who entered Parliament with Mr Goff in 1981.
Mr Banks (72), who lives at the Viaduct on the city’s waterfront, said he was approached every day to stand for the mayoralty.
He said the focus groups showed many people would not vote for a mayoral candidate, Auckland’s leadership was colourless and mostly invisible and people wanted a mayor who understood the city and the effects on people’s daily lives.
If no-one stepped up, the city faced a democratic disaster, Mr Banks said.
His team included Topham Guerin, the New Zealand digital and creative agency that helped Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison get re-elected, and Andrew Laidlaw, who had worked for the controversial political strategists Crosby Textor, he said.
He said there was widespread concern about the lack of accountability by council-controlled organisations and he would seek to change the law so councillors could sit on the boards of all CCOs. At present, councillors are only allowed to sit on the board of Auckland Transport.
"If I was the next mayor of Auckland I would chair the Auckland Transport board. Within a week I would change the culture and have a direct link of communication between the ratepayers, local communities and the AT board,’’ Mr Banks said.
The centre-Right has been struggling to find a high-profile candidate to take on Mr Goff, who thrashed the centre-Right’s Vic Crone by 76,000 votes in 2016.
One political source said the centre-Right needed to put up a candidate by the end of this month to have any chance of competing with Mr Goff, who is standing as an independent but has the backing of the Labour Party and volunteers at hand.
Mr Banks stood for election at the first Super City elections in 2010 where he was comfortably beaten by Manukau Mayor Len Brown by 66,000 votes.
He was mayor of the former Auckland City Council from 2001 to 2004, before being defeated by Left-leaning businessman Dick Hubbard.
Mr Banks beat Mr Hubbard in the 2007 local body elections, serving out the last term of the old council.
