Amalgamation conflict

Published June 2014

Local MP Chris Tremain's apparent suggestion that Hawke's Bay will be better off if hundreds of skilled and well paid Hastings council jobs are transferred to Napier seems more like shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic than a plan to improve our performance. Obviously he believes Hastings should play no part in the future under one council despite most of the  growth,  in population, industry and employment happening within the Hastings District Council. Such a move could be catastrophic for Hastings retailers.

As the former Minister of Local Government I would have expected Chris to be able to provide very specific details on the savings and how they will be used, details of past problems caused by our multiple councils, and exactly what opportunities we have missed in the past, because of our divided councils.  

Also his slagging opposition to the objections by three of the areas four Mayors accusing them of patch protection seems somewhat contradictory since he was a party to his governments rejection of all suggestions for reform of the MMP system, including the elimination of coat tailing. Surely one of the best examples of patch protection seen in recent times. 

Whilst many of us share concerns about our multiple council structure, the disunity currently evident within the HBRC suggests that one council may be no more unified than several. Each of our four territorial councils appear surprisingly unified within themselves if often not in agreement with each other, but if the divisions within the Regional Council were to spread into a single unitary council, the situation might be very much worse. 

It is unrealistic to blame every aspect of our poor performance on local government and the supposed differences between our councils. Perhaps some of the problem is the effectiveness of our representation within central government.