Editorial: Let's have a regional debate

We were having a discussion in the office this week about Napier and Hastings.
Why, I asked, did some residents of the fair city of Napier think that they would be responsible for the higher debt level of the equally fair city of Hastings if we were somehow merged?
Couldn't we just ring-fence the debt where it originally resided and get on with building a better region?
Everyone seemed to agree that would be simple enough to achieve.
The word "amalgamation", it seems, is enough to make some people run for the hills. Given the history of this issue, the "A" word will likely always be with us, an unfortunate label tied to a debate which is really about leadership and vision.
Napier MP Chris Tremain has shown vision by encouraging the debate.
In yesterday's Hawke's Bay Today he dismissed the argument that Napier would somehow be saddled with Hastings' debt as "scaremongering" and "ridiculous".
I have never heard Mr Tremain say that Napier and Hastings should be amalgamated into one city.
What he has said is that some form of merged governance is necessary to properly implement a plan to develop the region.
"Without it we will continue to be hamstrung by parochial politics," he says.
And he is correct.
This leadership debate needs to be wide open, not shut down by cries of doom or refusal to investigate different options for our future.
The economic indicators for Hawke's Bay have been bad for some years now and our plight is not going to be solved by doing the same things tomorrow as we did yesterday.
On the positive side, in the past 12 months there have been strong indications that key thinkers in the Bay are prepared to create their own momentum for the region. We have seen it happen in tourism with the creation of Hawke's Bay Tourism and the signals are that we will also see it in economic development.
That is encouraging because doing nothing is not an option - or at least it shouldn't be.
Hawke's Bay, it seems, has many leaders, but, when it comes to regional development, not enough leadership.