While there is no direct connection between the amalgamation issue here in Hawke's Bay and things going on in other countries, it is clear that ordinary people are fed up with the bureaucratic excesses of an elite who have grabbed all the power and simply don't want to listen to any views other than their own.
Last year the proposed merger of Hawke's Bay's five councils into one council was rejected by voters with a massive two-to-one majority. Many saw the proposal as an elitist dream heavily promoted by a small group of influential and mostly wealthy individuals, most of whom kept their heads down despite pouring huge amounts of money into a very expensive campaign. The few who did declare their support - including the Mayor of Hastings, former MP Rick Barker and iwi leader Ngahiwi Tomoana - were seen as trying to advance their own personal power-seeking agendas. Similar outcomes were likely in both Northland and Wellington, where the Local Government Commission abandoned its proposals.
On June 23, Britons will be going to the polls to decide if they wish to remain a member of the European Union, an event now commonly known as Brexit.
Between 1961 and 1973, Britain made four separate applications to join the European common market trading bloc, only 20 miles distant at its closest point and now with 500 million people, but views have changed. While still a trading bloc, the EU has become an immense Brussels-based political organisation intent on controlling every possible aspect of European lives. The common European currency required individual countries to dump their own currencies and surrender their monetary policy to EU technocrats.
Britain declined to join and probably feels totally vindicated when observing the austerity demands imposed on Greece, Spain and other members during and following the global financial crisis.
