David Elliott: Time to pay the bill

David Elliott

I would like to congratulate Mr Nash on his recent ministerial appointments.

He has waited a long time for the chance to make sweeping changes to "how the NZ Police execute proper strategy to both prevent crime and solve cases". This can only be positive for Hawke's Bay. Time and time again we have heard the new Minister for Police criticise not only senior Police officers but also the state of Napier and rural policing. It is of some relief that these issues will now all be solved.

Initially we should expect the Napier Police station to quickly get enlarged with new cell blocks and a dedicated AOS squad. The community stations in Taradale and Marewa will also be fully manned once again. After being used as a campaigning strategy by the new minister for so long these improvements together with the promised large increase in resources for Police overall, will be welcomed in Napier.

It is also fantastic that we have a minister for Fisheries who can now ensure the sustainable rejuvenation of the fish stocks in Hawke Bay . Just last year Mr Nash proposed a 10-year ban on commercial fishing at less than 50m depth to help the recovery of fishing stocks. I would expect that as fisheries minister there is nothing now standing in the way of that taking place.

As he wrote at the time "there should be no politics in sustainability". Having witnessed the vast fishing fleets of the South China Sea I agree with that statement wholeheartedly and welcome the fact that he has now the opportunity to quickly enforce the rejuvenation of our declining fish stocks.

I would go further and ask him to increase our maritime surveillance capabilities to stop foreign fishing vessels from illegally pillaging our fisheries with impunity. This can only be done by leaving in place the extra funding promised to the Defence Force by the previous Government.

We should not expect these promised improvements to happen immediately. It is only fair to allow the new minister time to get to grips with his new responsibilities over the next month, but at some stage the people of Napier will expect the emphatic rhetoric of the last nine years to be fulfilled. The bill has to be paid.

It would be the height of disrespectfulness to campaign for many years on these issues and not seek to correct them at the earliest opportunity.

We all wish the new minister the best of luck, but he should be aware that the true test of his concern for the issues he raised is how quickly they are resolved. The electorate will be holding him to account for the many promises he has made to all of us while in opposition.

David Elliott is a commercial pilot and was the National Party Candidate for Napier in the last election, where Labour's Stuart Nash was re-elected as MP for Napier. Views expressed here are the writer's opinion and not the newspaper's. Email: editor@hbtoday.co.nz