Rotorua high schoolers give their views on lowering the voting age to 16.
The Rotorua Daily Post is looking back at the stories of 2023. Here’s what made headlines in July
July 3
A daughter says no-shows by in-home carers mean her 75-year-old mother, who has dementia and is incontinent, could spend up to 24 hours in a soiled diaper unless she drops everything to help.
Bridget Davey, who also has a fulltime job and two children, says the situation has left her “burnt out” and believing she is unable to leave town, as well as having to consider moving her mother into a care facility.
The Rotorua woman’s mother was eligible for 14 hours per week of publicly funded in-home care to help her shower, get changed and take medication.
Bridget Davey's mother receives in-home care provided by Visionwest. Photo / Andrew Warner
July 4
A former Rotorua Lakes deputy mayor and avid mountain biker has taken aim at vandals and thieves who destroyed a Mountain Bike Rotorua pick-up point and stole shade sails, chains, and an unusable cellbooster unit.
Despite the damage costing more than $10,000 to the business, the owner is still positive, saying there will always be “bad eggs”, but Rotorua was getting “better and better”.
Mountain Bike Rotorua co-owner Tak Mutu said he got a call from a member of the public to say the shuttle pick-up point, at the corner of Pipeline and Hill Rds in the forest off Waipa Mill Bypass Rd, had been destroyed.
Alleged arson and vandalism in Whakarewarea Forest. Photo / Supplied
July 5
Up to 40 small apartments could be built for public housing on Kāinga Ora-owned land in central Rotorua.
The Government housing arm says it has a conditional contract with a developer for redeveloping the Victoria St section. It comes as 897 applicants wait for public housing in the city.
Kāinga Ora said in a media release it had 500 public and supported housing homes in Rotorua at construction, feasibility or planning stages.
It said public housing was planned for a 3300sq m site at 40 Victoria St. Initial plans for the site, opposite Harvey Norman, were being progressed by the developer, who would design and build these for Kāinga Ora.
There is a “mass exodus” of people leaving the residential building industry and some businesses have lost up to 80 per cent of their work, says the boss of a leading company.
The news comes as a building association across the Tasman says Australia “needs to attract around half a million workers” in the next four years.
Classic Group director Peter Cooney said the downturn was hitting the New Zealand construction industry hard, and it tended to be a boom-to-bust industry.
The “yes” group has the backing of one of New Zealand’s youngest district councillors, Fisher Wang was 19, working at McDonald’s and not long out of high school when he was first elected to Rotorua Lakes District Council in 2019.
Some teenagers, however, say lowering the voting age from 18 to 16 would be a bad idea.
