Rebecca Turner: Future of region is not a game

Rebecca Turner

Monday's Talking Point from Napier Deputy Mayor Faye White was yet another irresponsible PR spin from the anti-amalgamation campaigners who treat the region's future as a game.

It's not a game.

Amalgamating Hawke's Bay is the circuit-breaker we need to turn this ailing region around. A co-ordinated, co-operative, collaborative approach to looking at how best to move this region forward -- a Regional Strategic Plan. And this is the only opportunity we're going to have for a generation or more. That's the crux of the matter.

We've all had enough of the squabbling -- that's the point. We've had enough of late-night blogging, and histrionics on social media. We've had enough of the personal attacks and the tit-for-tat. This is not a game.

Last week, a comprehensive, independent report was released by the Local Government Commission (LGC) that basically stated that the higher debt carried by the Hastings District Council and Central Hawke's Bay District Council is actually outweighed by the future infrastructure costs for Napier City Council and Wairoa District Council.

Pretty simple. The report shows that the first two have more debt because they've invested more already. The second two have savings and they'll need to spend them (and probably more) to get things up to scratch in years to come.

The LGC summed it up by saying their decision to ring-fence debt and financial assets until 2021 is based on the fact that "each council, and their ratepayers, is starting from a different position. There is an issue of fairness that must be recognised."

The way Napier City Council has reacted to the commission's assets and infrastructure report has been, at best, desperate.

The gnashing of teeth and claims of offence are a cover-up for the fact that NCC doesn't like what they're reading. For years the idea has been pushed that Hastings is the debt-ridden poor cousin, and now, when an independent report shows there's more to the picture, NCC cries foul and holds up their council-commissioned Waugh report from last year as evidence of their solid infrastructure base.

To say the Waugh report gave NCC a clean bill of health is simply not the truth. On page 22 of that report, it states, under NCC's current renewal funding methodologies, rates will need to increase substantially to meet the renewal needs. An alternate approach would be to use debt funding ... In either case, it is possible the cost of replacing existing assets will fall disproportionately on future ratepayers rather than today's ratepayers.

Faye White ended her Talking Point with the comment that "Effective leadership is defined by results."

Well, it's time we saw some decent results. If Hawke's Bay's leadership was on the right track, we wouldn't be languishing at the bottom of the national league tables. The sun might be shining, but things are not good enough.

I'm sure it's not lost on the readership that the treatment of this issue -- the to-and-fro disagreement, the personality politics, the different angles -- underscores the vital need for amalgamation in Hawke's Bay.

Now is the time to stop the game-playing and make the change that will see this region reach its potential, for the sake of generations to come.

* Rebecca Turner is chairman of A Better Hawke's Bay

* Business and civic leaders, organisers, experts in their field and interest groups can contribute opinions. The views expressed here are the writer's opinion and not the newspaper's. Email: editor@hbtoday.co.nz.