Coromandel: politics in paradise

By HELEN TUNNAH

The narrow coast road winds around the bays south of Coromandel to Te Kouma peninsula, where farmer Ian James is about to break the tranquillity by weaning calves.

"You'll hear them in a minute," he says, as he waits for all hell to break loose in the cattleyards behind the house.

His 450ha beef farm is no longer sustainable, so he and his wife, Miranda, want to turn the property into a recreational, educational and conservation park for all New Zealanders.

They have already planted 80ha in native bush, with more planned, and refuse to charge visiting boaties, ramblers and school groups.

The property has spectacular gulf views and a Government valuation of about $2 million. It could be worth more than $10 million, say developers who have overseas investors poised to buy, but James is resisting the money.

"I just think it's important to have somewhere like it used to be, for the birds and people to enjoy, that isn't all carved up with big houses or some Club Med-type thing."

Four years ago, they decided to permanently lease the land to the public for an annual fee, but the only takers were real estate agents. Local bodies and central Government could not agree on how to make the park happen - arguing about who should pay the lease, whose jurisdiction it was in, and whether a reserve was even wanted.

"We just thought people would think it was a good idea, and nobody did. People just kept asking, how much?" Miranda said.

The James' dilemma typifies the conflicts facing the Coromandel and its voters this election.

The region, which stretches from the farming and horticultural lands of Paeroa and Katikati to the mining hub of Waihi and north to the holiday towns of the bush-clad Coromandel peninsula, has to find a delicate balance between the need for jobs and development and conservation expectations.

Coromandel's Green MP, Jeanette Fitzsimons, says the James' plan throws up several problems. She believes the land is an extraordinary asset. However the lease proposal is complex, and the Government has told her recreation is not a priority for spending from the conservation budget.

"I think it would be a wonderful opportunity, but it will be quite hard to achieve."

The Green co-leader wrestled the electorate off National at the last election, her 246-vote majority ending decades of blue rule. A Herald-Digi poll predicts that she will win again this election.

The poll of 516 voters found Labour comfortably ahead of National on the party vote, 49 per cent to National's 33, with Fitzsimons holding a firm lead on the electorate vote. She has 37 per cent support, ahead of National's Sandra Goudie, with 22 per cent and Labour's Max Purnell, with 10. Eighteen per cent did not know whom they would vote for.

Coromandel was a key electorate three years ago, and will be this year. Fitzsimons campaigned hard, knowing an electorate win would mean the Greens did not need to rely on getting 5 per cent of the party vote to secure election to Parliament.

In the end, the Greens scraped to success on both counts - undermining National's claim then and now that a vote for Fitzsimons is a vote for other Greens like long-time activist Sue Bradford and cannabis sympathiser Nandor Tanczos.

This time the Greens are confident of comfortably beating the 5 per cent threshold, which ironically may harm Fitzsimons' electorate hopes if voters believe she is sure to get in through the party list.

Fitzsimons was boosted to her 1999 win by a core Green vote and help from the two main parties. National assisted her by cutting services at Thames Hospital and then issuing a "dirty tricks" postcard containing personal and misleading attacks on Green candidates.

Labour chipped in when leader Helen Clark said she would not "discourage" Labour voters' giving their electorate backing to Fitzsimons. In need of a coalition supporter to replace the disintegrating Alliance, she has done the same this year. That has effectively turned the electorate battle in Coromandel into a two-horse race - Fitzsimons against Goudie, a high-profile district councillor with a background in farm politics.

Goudie enjoys a strong reputation as a frank talker and a "doer", and is expected to bring back National voters whose disillusionment helped to oust former MP Murray McLean.

National promotes Goudie as "the red-head taking on the Greens", and at first glance her contrast with the sandal-wearing, tree-hugging cliche of a greenie could not be more obvious. For a start, she proudly drives a 1972 purple Ford Falcon V8 - a gas-guzzling relic. She is a dairy farmer; Fitzsimons is an academic turned organic farmer.

But there is a touch of the hippy about Goudie, too. She came to the Coromandel when she hitch-hiked to the alternative lifestyle mecca of Colville for a long weekend. Someone suggested she stay, so she did. She got a job on a farm and married a fifth-generation local.

At the Colville co-operative store, one National-voting customer has nothing but praise for Goudie, to the horror of Claudia Tattersfield, who is minding the organics section underneath the GE Free stickers.

Last election Tattersfield voted for Fitzsimons, and for Labour. She will definitely vote for Fitzsimons again, but is not sure who will get her party vote.

"I like the fact the Greens keep them honest. The problem for me in New Zealand is the greedies are at the top."

She may switch her party vote to Green because "I can't see Labour not getting in", and adds that she also likes new Alliance leader Laila Harre.

Down the coast at Coromandel, publican Dennis Irwin believes the lifestylers and big numbers of people retiring to the peninsula are one of the problems facing the electorate.

"Too many people don't have to earn their money in the community."

Irwin is a National voter, and no fan of red-tape barriers to development. He said he and others spent $1 million and eight years trying to get a new marina for Coromandel, before giving up in the face of opposition.

The Department of Conservation is not exactly loved by local business people, mainly because its large tracts of Crown land are not rateable, meaning local councils cannot raise enough money to improve services also used by DoC, such as roads.

Irwin and wife Ngaire saved Coromandel's bottom pub from demolition, rebuilt it and now have a thriving business dependent on custom from recreational fishing.

He is uneasy about National support for more marine reserves, possibly in the Hauraki Gulf or Firth of Thames, and completely unhappy about a Green aim of turning 20 per cent of coastlines into marine reserves.

"There's more fish out there than you can poke a stick at," he says of the Hauraki Gulf. "If a man can't go out there and fish, I think I'd pack up and move to Aussie like all the other Kiwis."

His fear is shared downstream by Paeroa Maori Willie Taylor and Mark Paul, as they knife open freshly gathered mussels from Waikawau Bay. They illustrate the difficulty the Greens may have in marrying their environmental policies with the Treaty of Waitangi.

"Oh heck, I think they're going away from their main issue. They should be worrying about the bush," Taylor said of the Greens' sea policy.

He gave both votes to Green last election, but will not if there is a risk to shellfish gathering.

"It's not much good if you can't come and get kai."

Paul said politicians should bother themselves with providing better health and education services. Downgrading of Thames Hospital was a continuing problem for the community.

The hospital was a key factor in National losing Coromandel three years ago. Some services have been saved, but it is still under review and decisions on its final shape are expected this year, possibly during the election campaign.

Outspoken Thames GP John Monro is a self-declared political cynic after watching former Prime Minister Jenny Shipley pledge the retention of services at the town, only for them to be lost a year later. He wants acute surgical services restored at Thames, which looks after 42,000 people and thousands more during holidays.

He does not accept that we cannot afford country hospitals, saying rural New Zealand, not Auckland, is the lifeblood of the economy.

"Auckland is a parasitic growth on the rest of New Zealand. The New Zealand economy depends on the rural sector. If there's a little bit of subsidy for rural communities, then that's no more than the rural communities have been doing for Auckland and Wellington for years."

Throughout the Coromandel, access to healthcare remains a concern, with Waikato and Auckland hospitals, hours away on bad roads.

Fitzsimons argues that she is in a better position than Goudie to fight for services at the hospital, because as an MP and party leader supporting the Labour-led Government, she is in a position to make things happen.

Labour's Purnell argues that National will struggle to regain seats it lost last time, because it remains cut off from its grassroots support, having "disappeared into the glass towers of Auckland".

Goudie knows National voters were disillusioned last election and says the party needed a wake-up call.

She believes all New Zealanders are concerned about the environment, but they also need jobs and want an end to bureaucracy that stifles progress.

Ian James would welcome a speedy reduction in the red-tape and a commonsense solution for his farm park proposal.

He has battled ill-health for 18 months, and the family fear they have limited time to realise their dream. If Ian's health fails, they will have to sell and the developers will swoop.

"If I fall over," he says simply, "the whole thing will fall over."