I want to see investment that maximises and enhances our port so we, as a region, our growers, our farmers, our service business sector are enabled to reach our full potential selling and shipping the millions of dollars worth of premium products we grow and make that are demanded by our international customers.
This is our livelihood.
We owe it to our forebears and future generations to ensure our port is capable and viable to meet world-changing demands.
We need new energy and fresh ideas, leadership that puts forward solutions and opportunities, that commits to working for the people first and delivers more for those of us who live and work in Hawke's Bay.
Our port has signalled that an option for financing its expansion is selling a shareholding to pay for the new wharf and associated infrastructure to cope with increased cargo and bigger ships.
While the port should not be for sale, I am prepared, if it comes down to the survival of our regional asset, to consider looking at an option that would ensure that we grow our regional asset not sell it down.
But the bottom line is it must remain in Hawke's Bay ownership, and this should not burden ratepayers.
I believe we owe to the public to deliver an option that ensures our port remains ours, and ours only, for Hawke's Bay.
I believe that our Hawke's Bay consumer-owned power lines company Unison could be considered a possibility. Unison has the scale and size to enable it to invest in another infrastructure business.
There are great synergies with our port, and more importantly it would keep ownership in our hands.
I have worked for Unison and I have a good understanding of the business. I am also a very strong advocate for keeping the ownership local, having stood for the Hawke's Bay Power Consumer Trust.
Both our power and exporting infrastructure are valuable regional assets.
I have discussed this with Unison's chairman Kevin Atkinson who agrees that this option is worthy of consideration. I wouldn't be surprised if there are not others thinking along the same lines.
I also think that the Hawke's Bay Power Consumer Trust, which owns the shares in Unison on behalf of consumers, would, if given the mandate, have the vision and the foresight to see this opportunity as a good one to take out to the people for consideration.
Any arrangement must be water tight to protect the interests of Hawke's Bay ownership - we certainly don't want to find ourselves in the same predicament that we did with Richmond Meat Company where we lost complete control and the company went to our competitor.
This has to be about local ownership and to protect the port of outside investment or watered down community interest.
And as our port grows and dividends increase so will the return in our annual dividend back to power consumers, as well as ratepayers.
I see this as a potential opportunity.
Supporting this is the ownership of Unison is secure in Hawke's Bay's consumers' hands, and while every five years an ownership review is held, there has never been any level of support to sell it.
Again it comes down to what people want and under the trust deed it would take over 90 per cent of all consumers to support a sale of Unison.
I am about investment in growing Hawke's Bay for locals and keeping ownership of our assets.
We must protect the right for locals to make local decisions that impact on the economic benefits of Hawke's Bay.
Make no mistake, signalling the sale of shares in our port will spark significant debate. But in the end it must be for the people of Hawke's Bay to decide and I fully support going to a public referendum.
I will do all I can to protect the port because it belongs to the people of Hawke's Bay.
But if the majority of Hawke's Bay decide to sell a share in the port, the
bottom line for me is that any investment must fully protect Hawke's Bay ownership which returns greater benefits back to all of us as the shareholders in dividends, jobs, and keeping our rates down.
The future to powering up the port is in our hands.
Anna Lorck is Labour's candidate for the Tukituki seat in the upcoming general election. Views expressed here are the writer's opinion and not the newspaper's. Email: editor@hbtoday.co.nz.