Christine Scott: We all vote for what will be best for us

Christine Scott

We are being bombarded by slogans " I mean to make a note of them " slick but not memorable enough to recall. Something like "One council one vision"; "Do it for our children"; "Go forward together". They all would find a place on a Tui billboard. Yeah right!

Anyone who thinks there will be one vision is dreaming " the aspirations of every community will be fiercely defended in the representatives they elect. Anyone who thinks they will be voting for the big-picture person rather than the one who will represent their interest is being less than honest " we all vote for what will be best for us.

One council maybe, but a unified council will take many cycles of elections, if ever. In Auckland the battle for de-amalgamation has taken a step forward with Rodney winning the first stage in their battle to separate from Auckland with the High Court ruling that such decisions were supposed to be driven by local communities, ordering the Local Government Commission to consider the proposal.

North Rodney is mostly rural with farming or farm servicing being the main industry. Their concerns are symptomatic of Auckland's failure to deliver on natural resource management, which raises the biggest alarm bells for me. Auckland super city has over twice as much land in dairying and over twice the number of dairy cows that we have in Hawke's Bay. And yet the old regional council functions are so back seat to the urban built environment and all its issues " that they just do not deliver.

No matter what anyone says about this new council having the whole picture " it will be an urban council with 12 councillors, and most likely the mayor, elected by people with a solely urban focus, because they are the majority of our population.

A handful of 6 remaining councillors will be elected across Hawke's Bay. This will be a council with the focus on the built environment " opera houses, sports parks, international swimming pools and all the glitz. The natural environment won't compete.

What does that mean for Hawke's Bay? Our economy is based on the rural sector and the value added and the support services around that. If you lump them all together 41 per cent of our economy is driven by the primary sector. That compares with a national average of 25 per cent. Can we afford to let this take a back seat?

Oh yes the new council will happily regulate that " but what actually brings about change? I will try and draw you a picture of the Taharua stream " tributary of the Mohaka. Plenty of urban advice to tell the farmers how to farm and what they should be banned from doing. And change for the better has occurred there.

The Taharua arises from a spring, so it starts as a trickle and runs down through farmland and tussock until it meets up with the Mohaka.

Through local stakeholder engagement and the work of our land management team the area is transformed " but it was the farmers who did the transformation.

Now a well planted 30-metre buffer of native plants has changed the landscape, lifting water quality and improving farming outcomes.

No regulation would have brought about this stunning transformation. It was a combination of the science, education and support of our land management team that brought the farmers on board. That would never pass the cut on an urban-focused council.

In fact, you never hear it mentioned in the rhetoric we are subjected to.

What is rarely heard is that our regional council staff are a very highly qualified science resource - 75 per cent of our staff have degrees, and 8 per cent have a doctorate. Only the EIT competes with that. Hawke's Bay cannot afford to lose this resource.

Sustainable land use; healthy environment, healthy economy, a thriving port returning a good dividend to ratepayers. A metropolitan council will not deliver this.

It's our heritage, our future. See, I can do the slogans too. Whatever form any eventual reconfiguring of local government may take, Hawke's Bay needs to keep a council focused on the natural environment. The Regional Council, a council focused on the natural resources, is essential to our overall prosperity.

-Christine Scott is deputy chairman of the Hawke's Bay Regional Council.