George Sydney Wood (born 5 August 1946) is a former mayor of North Shore City and a former Auckland Councillor. He was the only North Shore City mayor to be elected for three terms and later represented North Shore ward on the Auckland Council between 2010 and 2016. He is now the Deputy Chair of the Devonport-Takapuna Local Board.
Early life
Wood was born in Birkenhead on Auckland's North Shore. He was educated at Birkdale Primary School, Northcote Intermediate School and Northcote College.
Police career
Wood originally worked for the New Zealand Police, primarily as a crime investigations manager. As a Police investigator, he worked on many inquiries and served at various times in Auckland, Rotorua and Palmerston North. In his final years of service (1995–98), he was the manager of Police services within North Shore City.
A graduate of the Royal New Zealand Air Force Command and Staff College and the Australian Institute of Police Management Sydney from where he gained a Graduate Certificate in Applied Management.
He is the recipient of a New Zealand Police long service and good conduct medal awarded in 1980.
Political career
Mayor of North Shore City
In October 1998 Wood was elected Mayor of North Shore City following a fiercely contested election. Wood was able to bring together a new style of council administration with only three standing committees and all councillors members of these committees.
During his three consecutive terms as mayor (1998–2007), Wood was most successful in melding the council together and pushed through major reforms in relation to sewerage (waste water) infrastructure improvements, revamping the strategic plan and long term funding programme for North Shore City and developing and building the Northern Busway project.
Chairman of the Auckland Mayoral Forum
Following the 2001 local government elections Wood was elected to the position of chairman of the Auckland Mayoral Forum. In this role Wood pushed through a major joint programme between the Government and Auckland councils for transport funding. This culminated in the Government passing the Local Government Auckland Amendment Act 2004 and the provision of an additional $1.6 billion of transport funding over the following ten years. This extra funding has resulted in huge improvements to the Auckland roading and public transport networks.
Falun Gong
In April 2007, Wood acceded to pressure from Chinese officials not to attend an international cultural show by Divine Performing Arts, which contained scenes depicting the oppression of people who practice the Falun Gong spiritual system. Wood was planning to attend the show with his wife, but after a phone call from the Chinese Consular General's office he backed out, and was quoted as saying:
I don't want to get involved in internal People's Republic of China politics but I also want to maintain a reasonable relationship with the People's Republic of China. They said that [the show] was involved in Falun Gong, they indicated Falun Gong, and I don't know what the true impact of that is, but it obviously has some concerns for them.I had indicated that I probably would go to the show, but I'm not going to cause an international kerfuffle by going to something that I don't know anything about. I don't know anything about the Falun Gong or whatever it means. I am a mayor of a city not an international diplomat and I haven't really got the time to analyse the thing out.
Hiatus from political office
Wood stood for a fourth term as an independent mayoralty candidate in the 2007 North Shore City elections but was defeated by Andrew Williams.
In the period since the October 2007 election Wood has worked behind the scenes on a number of projects mainly relating to transport. He is particularly vocal over the need to upgrade or replace the Auckland Harbour Bridge. Wood has also strongly urged the improvement of public transport across the Auckland region whilst at the same time warning about the huge escalation in operational costs. In 2009, in the lead up to the formation of Auckland Council, he questioned whether the new Auckland mayor would be able to control the proposed Auckland Transport Agency under the new proposed model.
In the 2008 New Year Honours, Wood was appointed a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to local-body affairs.