Editorial: The Government's EIT takeover plan - where is the anger?

This was a time for the leaders of Hawke's Bay to stand together and condemn EIT's loss of autonomy, but they didn't. Photo / Paul Taylor

Where is the anger, Hawke's Bay?

Ever since I moved here a year ago, all I have been told, week in, week out, about the Eastern Institute of Technology is that it is a dead-set regional success story.

Great management, great campus, great teachers, all combining to lure more students than ever before to our very own piece of Taradise, is what we're constantly told.

So when Chris Hipkins put a blowtorch through all that last week by proposing a centralised mega-tech, sparks should have flown.

Local jobs are up in the air. What happens to cash reserves and donations to EIT is up in the air.

EIT's very place in the community - where they are huge sponsors and supporters of all things Hawke's Bay - is now up in the air.

Instead, EIT management and regional leaders went softly, softly with the announcement.

They cautioned this, praised that, explained what parts they liked about it.

Then the next day all five mayors had the gall to suggest Hawke's Bay should embrace losing its regional autonomy over EIT, and petition the Government for what surely at best would be a 10 per cent chance of having the new mega-tech's headquarters based here.

This is Wellington we are talking about. Handing the power to them should be a last resort for the region, not something meekly given in the hope of being given an ice cream for doing it.

Tukituki MP Lawrence Yule, to his credit, has been sparking up from the start. He was right all along with his petition to "Save EIT".

But his criticisms of Hipkins' decision have to be taken with a grain of salt, given his politics.

This was the time for the other leaders of this region to stand up, not just Yule.

Invercargill mayor Tim Shadbolt has shown them the way.

Shadbolt said he was in "absolute disbelief they could do such a terrible thing to our city" and said legal action would be taken against the decision to centralise the Southern Institute of Technology.

"They have really ripped the heart out of Invercargill with this announcement."

SIT chief executive Penny Simmonds also fired up, saying she was blindsided by Thursday's announcement.

She said staff were "gobsmacked" and that the institute would fight.

Give 'em hell, I say.

EIT staff, who undoubtedly are feeling exactly the same, need to hear that sort of passion from you.

Because they're not hearing it from the people who supposedly represent them.