Craig Little: Hastings may die and Napier grow bigger

Craig Little

I have read with interest the letters from Chris Tremain, Lawrence Yule, Craig Foss and Alistair Scott.

The National Party continually say they have no position on amalgamation, yet their MPs in Hawke's Bay openly support amalgamation.

Previously, we had three pro-amalgamation National MPs representing Hawke's Bay and also had Mr Yule as Local Government president. They were always very quick to point out the troubles of Hawke's Bay, yet didn't realise they were a lot of the problem.

My father always said to me, "be careful when you point your finger at someone, because you always have three of your fingers pointing back at you".

Imagine what those three MPs could have achieved for our region, instead of jumping on the Auckland bandwagon, forgetting how they should have been promoting Hawke's Bay and its rural areas. They and Mr Yule mention the dysfunction of five separate plans/visions and not one, the fact is, the five councils cannot legally have one plan, because government legislation does not allow this. You would have thought these three MPs and Mr Yule would have been aware of this and concentrated on changing the legislation, so we could have progressed Hawke's Bay. Why have they not done this?
These MPs and Mr Yule are quite happy to waste up to $30 million to implement amalgamation ($19 million estimated by LGC, at least $5 million not yet budgeted, the millions the LGC has cost, plus ongoing catastrophes - look at Auckland).

I look at what the HBRC has just achieved through their LTP around tourism, great for Hawke's Bay. Imagine, if we could have got our hands on the $30 million plus for the Hawke's Bay region, the cost of amalgamation, the benefits would be huge for this region, something amalgamation will never achieve!

They talk about public support for amalgamation, another fallacy, the fact is the National Government changed legislation to include a word with an ambiguous meaning, "demonstrable support", so they could push this crazy proposal through, even though there were over 700 submissions against and only about 100 for amalgamation, the Local Government Commission (LGC) saw "demonstrable support", they came to Wairoa and were felt very unwelcome, yet the LGC saw "demonstrable support".

The supporters of amalgamation continually say Hawke's Bay deserves better, it will solve all the problems Hawke's Bay is experiencing, yet cannot substantiate how this will happen. My answer is, these self-appointed leaders simply don't understand - local government is all about local people. Mayors' number one priority should be to have their "local communities" interest at heart, but working together with a vision for the greater region, as we do, the MPs should also have a vision for the greater region, working with the mayors to obtain this, in the past this link hasn't been great.

I will include a quote (promoting LGNZ governance) from the Local Government president (Mr Yule): "Local Government New Zealand believes that local democracy is about: having the right mix of people, elected locally, to best represent each community; ensuring services are provided to the community in the best way possible; taking a collective approach to meeting community needs and creating a sense of local identity and place" (doesn't quite fit his amalgamation dreams).

If amalgamation is the silver bullet for the region, why not go further and also amalgamate with Tararua, Whakatane and Gisborne, whip over into Taupo and Rangitikei as well, because apparently bigger is better.

We are told how local boards will serve us well - the fact is they have around 20 per cent of the power of what we have now and cannot set rates and have to go cap in hand to the super city council to get anything substantial done.
That will then sit in the region-wide list of priorities of the Super City Council. How do you think outlying areas like Wairoa will go?

I am not sure if Hastings people realise, the centre of power will more than likely be Napier, it makes sense because the existing HBRC and NCC buildings are side by side, Hastings will die and Napier will grow - is that advancement?

The sooner this pointless scheme can be voted out, the better, Hawke's Bay will then prosper, without living in the shadows of amalgamation.

¦Craig Little is the Mayor of Wairoa.
¦Viewpoints on the Hawke's Bay amalgamation debate can be submitted for consideration and will be used as long as no council resources, money, time or expertise are used in their preparation. This is a requirement of the Local Government Act 2002.