Ewan McGregor: Parochialism kills regional vision

Ewan McGregor

What if ... ?

With the fragmented governance structure we have in Hawke's Bay, the resolution of issues of a regional nature (other than those falling within the range of regional council responsibility) is always likely to be a divisive and painful process.

Calls for inter-council co-operation are understandable, but parochial politics mitigates against the creation of a regional vision and the subsequent policy-making and planning that is needed to effect its realisation. History provides ample evidence of this.

The most obvious examples were the siting of two fundamental community facilities, the modern airport, in the 1960s, and, more recently, the regional hospital. In neither case was the decision made by the local councils.

In the first mentioned, it was by Government, in the second, by the Hawke's Bay Hospital Board, driven by economics, as well as better health services that one hospital made possible.

In both cases the decision was contested by parochial interests responding to the perception of community grievance, causing delays and lingering ill-feeling.

In the event the original decisions stood, and have proved to be the correct ones.

A hospital is a precious facility and no community likes losing it. (Let's not forget that CHB lost its hospital too, but accepted the case of a single one, more travel notwithstanding.) But that argument was pointless. There was no way a regional hospital could be sited on such a confined location atop the Napier Hill, with grossly inadequate available parking and the inability to land a helicopter, which today is a fundamental facility that has all but neutralised remoteness as a factor in trauma ambulancing.)

It is worth contemplating how the hospital debate, which damaged Napier-Hastings relationships for years, would have planned out had the 1989 local government restructuring included a single council for Hawke's Bay, such as is now the proposition before us.

Here's how a Hawke's Bay District Council, had it existed, would have voted on an inevitable resolution to support the Health Board's decision. I make no assumption as to how the mayor would have voted.

For:

Hastings Councillors - 6

Wairoa, which supported the Hastings site due to the helicopter factor - 2

Ngaruroro (Same as above) - 2

CHB (same as above, plus closer location - 2

Against:

Napier - 6

Carried 12-6 (13-6 or 12-7 depending on the mayor's vote.)

It is true that Napier was outvoted, though almost certainly the result on such a vote with the airport location would have been its mirror image. But in both cases the greater good of the wider Bay community would have been the result, as history has proved it to be. And that, surely, is the essence of a unitary authority for this region.

Like all tables, there are differences, robustly argued, around that of any council.

But once a vote is taken and policy thus democratically established it is beholden on all councillors, through the obligation of collective responsibility and in accordance with their oath of office, to work for its successful implementation. In the hypothetical case cited above, elected officers thenceforth could focus their energies on winning causes rather than a lost one.

-Ewan McGregor is a former deputy chairman of the Hawke's Bay Regional Council and long-time supporter of one council for Hawke's Bay.

-Business and civic leaders, organisers, experts in their field and interest groups can contribute opinions. The views expressed here are the writer's personal opinion, and not the newspaper's. Email: editor@hbtoday.co.nz.