Kathie Furlong: Vote while we have the chance

Kathie Furlong

Have you voted yet? My informal polling tells me that those who are sure, on both sides of the amalgamation issue, have already voted. But what of the others? Are you undecided? Are you confused? Do you think it's a done deal and your vote doesn't matter?

No matter what your point of view, your vote is vitally important. Unless a majority of the citizens of Hawke's Bay express their wishes through voting, the Super City issue will be a divisive cloud hanging over Hawke's Bay for another generation. Although there are about 158,000 citizens of Hawke's Bay, there are only 111,000 voters.

If only half this number votes, the future of Hawke's Bay will have been decided by 51 per cent of 55,500 voters. Therefore, only about 28,300 people will have determined whether we have a Super Council or each community retains its own council. Is that what you want? Wouldn't it be better if there was a much larger number of electors deciding our future so that the losing side could say "we tried, but the voters have had their democratic say". Wouldn't that help us to get on and make the best of the outcome without holding a grudge?

Do you know what you are voting for? This is not like the usual local body election where you elect the people to sit around the council table. That happens in October 2016.

Right now, you are voting for a structure. It could be for the proposed Hawke's Bay-wide council which will have one mayor, 18 councillors, elected local boards in each community (that's Wairoa, Napier, Hastings urban and Hastings rural, and Central Hawkes Bay), and three boards for regional planning, Maori, and primary production with both elected and appointed members. The new council will be based in Napier for at least five years, with service centres in each of the above communities. The regional council will be absorbed into this new structure.

Or you could be voting for the retention of the system we now have: a mayor and a council in each of our communities with Maori advisory committees relevant to each community, and in Hastings' case, a rural community board. The regional council would continue its separate environmental role.

I believe that you are also voting for democracy ... the right of each community to decide by vote what their future governance structure will be.

In the past, for amalgamation of councils to succeed, each community had to say they wanted to be part of a new bigger council, or amalgamation would not go ahead. With a change to local government legislation, now the vote is taken over the whole affected area.

In this new scenario, smaller communities can be swallowed up by the larger voting power of the larger communities, effectively discounting their votes and their wishes. Is this fair or democratic?

Supporters of amalgamation say that bigger is better, that one council to rule us all is the way to go. They believe that there will be economies of scale, that one mayor will have a stronger voice in the corridors of power than the voices of the four Hawke's Bay communities, that our children will have a brighter future, that one plan and one set of rules will be the catalyst for economic progress and growth.

Opponents of amalgamation also want these advantages for Hawke's Bay. They just believe these things can be achieved by retaining the structure we have and working together.

You might not think that the structure we have is perfect, but is the new structure being proposed any better? Is it worth dismantling in favour of an untried structure which takes the decision-making further from our communities and into the hands of unelected boards who are not accountable to the electors? Is that what you want?

Leadership is what's needed; not just from one person ... the new mayor of the super council ... but from all leaders of our communities. The mayors, the councillors, the professional leaders and the business leaders, the members of Parliament, the leaders of the health sector and the educators ... they all need to pull together for the future of Hawke's Bay.

And that's where you come in, dear voters. The future is in your hands. Show community spirit. Show responsibility. Show leadership.

Make sure you vote!

-Kathie Furlong is a former Deputy Mayor of Napier.

-Views expressed here are the writer's opinion and not the newspaper's. Email: editor@hbtoday.co.nz

-Viewpoints on the 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.