Bruce Bisset: Damned if you don't, sometimes

Bruce Bisset.

Political contests are strange beasts at the best of times, and those in rural areas where one big issue dominates thinking and confuses roles are perhaps strangest, as evidenced by the candidates' meeting I attended in Central Hawke's Bay on Wednesday night.

Naturally the Ruataniwha dam and irrigation scheme are the talk of the district. Wanting to know where candidates stand on the issue is fair enough - except that questioners, aided rather brusquely by the Rotary chap chairing the meeting, started badgering those standing for the district council about their stance.

It wasn't til the fourth (of nine) CHBDC "town" ward wannabes, Paula Fern, pointed out it was irrelevant what she and the others thought of it because they don't get a vote - it's purely a regional council issue - that that penny dropped.

I mention this because it's an example of how blurred are the lines between city and district councils and regional councils in the minds of most voters, and to point up that candidates for one should not be shot, or praised, for a decision made by the other.

Relate this to the Havelock North water contamination: people have been quick to demand answers of Hastings District Council as to how they've allowed the aquifer the water is drawn from to become contaminated, when that issue is one that rests firmly at the Hawke's Bay regional council's door.

With the exception of the wellhead security of the HDC bore itself, all of the multitude of possible reasons for the problem - earthworks cutting the "seal" to allow contamination inflow, pollution "coming across" from the Tukituki river, bovine residue-containing waste being sprayed out nearby, the proliferation of "feedlot" dairying without consents or adequate controls - are HBRC matters.

They guard the environment; it's their responsibility to ensure the water supply, at source, remains pure.

Perhaps they've been too busy trying to push through the RWSS over the past six years to do the basic job they should otherwise be doing, eh?

I need hardly mention the RWSS will, by the HBRC's own evidence, worsen some of the existing problems - such as increased nitrogenous runoff, which bacteria are fond of accumulating around and clinging to.

But back to CHB: the RWSS is by no means universally backed. My own read of the audience at the meeting had it split about 60:40 for and against.

Since there's one candidate (Debbie Hewitt) for, and one (Dan Elderkamp) against, I guess we'll see how that read stacks up in the vote count.

Of equal interest was the "change" undercurrent in evidence for the district council seats, led by mayoral aspirant Alex Walker.

Judging by the positive reaction she received, she looks to have the wood on her rivals; what CHB voters need to consider is that for her to be effective in creating a new more inclusive culture within council, she will need other new blood around the table - so some of the existing councillors may have to go.

For what it's worth, I would pick Paula Fern and Pip Burne in the town ward, and Clint Deckard and Shelley Burne-Field in the rural ward, as people with a diverse range of views it would be good to give a chance to shine in council.

The dichotomy of wanting to change a council supportive of the dam (even though it's not their decision) but flagging in many other areas, and wanting to keep a regional councillor supportive of the dam but missing in action on accumulated environmental effects, is fascinating.

Whoever said rural politics was boring obviously hasn't passed through CHB of late.

- Bruce Bisset is a freelance writer and poet.

- All opinions expressed here are his and not those of Hawke's Bay Today.