The Government wants to see a unitary council in Auckland but is "flexible" on the details, Prime Minister John Key says.

The Auckland governance legislation select committee will sit from 9am to 9pm Monday through Friday as it looks at almost 2500 submissions on the Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill.

While many of those submissions were sent in on forms, hundreds of people still want to be heard at the meetings which begin in Parnell today.

On Thursday and Friday a subcommittee will also be sitting at the same time to consider the issue of Maori representation on the council at marae in Auckland.

"All those things are flexible around that second tier -- so the number of local boards, where the responsibilities start and stop, how they're funded, whether there are councillors elected at large," Mr Key said.

"All of those things are going to be the subject of a significant number of submissions and the Government's happy to look at those."

He said the Government had put forwards its own proposal based on what "we think would work best".

Labour leader Phil Goff said Labour supported the unitary council, but believed the second tier should be reduced in number and given stronger resources and authority than currently envisaged.

The Government has already passed under urgency a law setting up the concept of a council and a transition agency to manage local affairs.

Mr Goff said the Government had been trying to ram through its own plans without consultation.

Not everyone was happy with the Government's proposal, Mr Goff told TV1's Breakfast.

"The general philosophy ought to be: anything that needs to be done at a regional level goes up to the super city, anything that can be done at the local level should be done at the local level with the budget and with powers to carry that out.

"I think the original intention was to restrict them (local boards) to dogs, graffiti and brothels, well that's not local government, it's scarcely relevant."