Alan Dick: Hoary old urban myth surfaces once more

Alan Dick

Your correspondent Stuart Foote in his letter of August 28 entitled "The whole Bay" once again raises the hoary old urban myth, that Hawke's Bay missed out on a university because "Napier and Hastings could not agree where it should be sited".

This is just simply not true and history's reality is that the university issue was a particularly good example of real co-operation between the region's councils (which, despite occasional differences, happens all the time)

What actually happened is that, in 1958, Hawke's Bay celebrated the centennial of Provincial Government in New Zealand (provincial governments were abolished in 1876 as a failed system, yet this is what A Better Hawke's Bay and the Local Government Commission want to take us back to). But to mark the centennial occasion, all Hawke's Bay councils contributed to a fund for a future University of Hawke's Bay.

The Hawke's Bay University Trust Board was established, with membership being the mayors and MPs from across the region, to administer the funds.

At the same time the trust received the most generous bequest of the present EIT site at Otatara, from the late Margaret Hetley.

Armed then with the support of all councils, a splendid site and funds, the trust then lobbied hard to persuade the Government to establish a Hawke's Bay University.

However, in 1961 the Government dissolved the University of New Zealand, allowing its six campuses across the country to each become independent university entities, as they are today.

Unfortunately, with rationalisation happening at the same time, the Government then decreed that Massey Agricultural College (in business since 1926 and to become Massey University in 1963) was to serve Hawke's Bay as part of its catchment.

However, the consolation was that, with land, funds and lobbying, the trust board finally succeeded in convincing the Government in 1974 to support the establishment of what is now our fine tertiary education institution - EIT.

Again in the early 1990s, the Napier and Hastings councils actually provided funding grants to EIT to assist it in a strong development phase.

As to Dr Foote's misgivings about the need for five councils in Hawke's Bay, it is worth noting that international experience proves that a local council with population in the range of 50-70,000 is in a "sweet spot" - with economies of scale and ability to attract good staff, yet at the same time being accessible and responsive to the needs of its citizens. Then again, councils the size of Wairoa and Central Hawke's Bay are not small by international standards, have multitasked staff and can meet the needs of their district communities far better than a large and remote centralised bureaucracy.

I hope Dr Foote and his colleague know more about medicine than they do about local government and local history.

-Alan Dick is a Hawke's Bay regional councillor and former mayor of Napier.