Ballot wording under wraps until poll

Anti-amalgamation campaigner Mike Butler

The exact wording of the question being asked in the region's amalgamation poll will not be revealed until voters begin receiving their ballot packs in a little over two weeks time, the electoral officer says.

Hawke's Bay electors are about to vote on whether they support a Local Government Commission proposal to merge the region's five councils into a single unitary authority. Amalgamation will go ahead if the majority of votes cast across the region are in favour of the proposal.

Anti-amalgamation campaigner Mike Butler said the wording of the question on the ballot paper was important and needed to include details of the proposal so voters were clear about what they were deciding on.

Mr Butler wanted the question to refer to the existing council areas proposed for amalgamation, the creation of local boards, a regional planning committee, Maori board and natural resources board as part of the proposed governance structure, and that the super council would be headquartered in Napier.

That level of detail would be preferable to a ballot paper where electors were simply asked to indicate whether they were for or against "the proposal for a single Hawke's Bay council," Mr Butler said.

The man in charge of running the poll, electoral officer Warwick Lampp, said he had consulted the Local Government Commission and taken legal advice as part of the process of formulating the wording on the ballot paper.

Details were still being finalised and he did not intend releasing the wording before August 24, the day delivery of voting packs was due to start across the region. His responsibilities included deciding on the appropriate wording, in consultation with whoever he deemed appropriate, Mr Lampp said. "We will come up with wording that is neutral and best describes the proposal and makes it as easy as possible for people to know what they're voting on," he said.

Rebecca Turner, chairman of pro-amalgamation group A Better Hawke's Bay, said she was confident the final wording would fairly and simply reflect the proposal. "The most important thing is people exercise their vote ..."

Delivery of voting packs will be completed by August 29 and electors will have until noon on September 15 to return their voting papers. Mr Lampp intends to announce a preliminary result of the poll that same day.

Vandals hit billboards

Vandals have spray-painted A Better Hawke's Bay's pro-amalgamation billboards in attacks the group's chairman Rebecca Turner says are "disappointing, but part and parcel of a campaign process, especially one as polarising as this one is".

Ms Turner said the vandalism was minor considering the group had more than 400 hoardings in the region.

Labour MP Stuart Nash, who has put up more than 100 anti-amalgamation billboards, said they they had been subject to only minor vandalism.

During last year's general election campaign, some of Mr Nash's signs were defaced.