Rick Barker: A matter of change

Rick Barker

CHANGE is fundamental to life, evolution is adapting to a changing environment. Change drives business, making once superior technologies obsolete, Kodak and polaroid cameras have long gone.

In fact, every facet of human activity is subject to change, nothing stays still. Every business knows they must change and adapt or become a footnote in history. Without change there can be no improvement.

Yet many of us are resistant to change, we have become comfortable. This is part of the life cycle. The young look for the new and exciting with no fear of failure, seeing this as just part of the learning experience. Yet as we get older we are reluctant to take risks, preferring the safety of what we know. Change is seen as threatening, something to be feared.

The amalgamation debate is a demonstration of this. The debate has two camps; the affirmative seeking change and the negative resisting it. The negative raise all sorts of fears, reminding me of the ghost train rides at the fairground.

In the amalgamation debate the spooks are: loss of identity, debt, job losses, a tyrannical bureaucracy and loss of democracy. The only thing I haven't heard is plagues of locusts. Is any of this true? Will towns like Waipukurau and Wairoa really lose their identity with a change in local government? Not at all. Will the people suddenly lose their identity? Of course not. Will we still have a democracy? Yes, everyone will still get a vote.

All councils were subject to amalgamation in the 1980s. Napier still remained Napier and if amalgamation happens again, it will still be the tourist gem of Hawke's Bay. That is what we all want.

What the negative team doesn't address is the cost and consequences of doing nothing. It's a fact that Hawke's Bay has languished for decades at the worst end of every statistic. The cost of having four mayors and a regional council chair, five chief executives and five of everything. All of this costs you the ratepayer an extra $10 million a year calculated by independent experts. The $10 million is an uncomfortable fact for the negative team.

The negative team also overlooks the consequences of having five bureaucracies and five different decisions on everything. Retailers have different requirements in each council area for signs, for advertising. A food retailer who lost their lease in Hastings wanted to transfer their business to Napier. A simple matter, you would have thought, but the Napier Council would not accept any of the paperwork for her business from the Hastings Council.

Everything had to be done from scratch. More cost. Builders are required to have a different set of consents for each council. This adds cost and for no good reason.

The differences are only required by each council because if there were no differences, there would be no reason to have multiple councils. These differences add cost and complexity to running businesses in Hawke's Bay. These differences are maintained at a cost to the ratepayer of $10 million per annum.

Let's turn the issue around. If we had $10 million to spare would we spend it on more bureaucracy, making life more challenging and costly for business, or would we spend it on making our environment better and creating opportunities?

The future is where the weight of the argument rests. Sadly our young people are leaving the province and not returning as there are no opportunities for them. This is a loss in every sense. We cannot change international markets or the exchange rate and many other critical aspects of the world around us, but we can change how we organise ourselves in our region and how we project ourselves to the world.

We are a beautiful place with outstanding weather and natural features but, to the world, we are a small population with a fractured, costly and complex local government sector with multiple rules and voices. With amalgamation we have the opportunity to simplify and streamline speaking with a united clear voice. We can also reduce the costs to rate payers by $10 million or redirect this to worthwhile investments.

If in the future our young people return and ask us how we voted on amalgamation and the opportunities it offers, what will we say? We voted against change as we were comfortable with what we had? The reply will probably be, "I know why I left."

If the answer is yes, we voted for change, took the opportunities, reinvested the savings and this is what we have achieved, they will probably say: "Good, it's time to come home."

Yes, amalgamation is about change, it's about seeking improvements, adapting to the present and preparing for the future. Voting yes to amalgamation is voting positively.
¦Rick Barker is a Hawke's Bay Regional Councillor and a former Labour Cabinet Minister.

¦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.