Hastings' ad starts merger campaign

Hastings Mayor Lawrence Yule

Hastings District Council has kicked off what promises to be a ratepayer-funded tit-for-tat advertising campaign on the amalgamation issue.

The council's full page ad in yesterday's Hawke's Bay Today says next year's vote on whether to merge the region's five councils will be "the biggest decision in the history of Hawke's Bay".

The ad set out the council's stance that amalgamation will benefit the province and flagged a new council-hosted website, hbtogether.co.nz, which sets out the arguments in more detail.

Hastings Mayor Lawrence Yule said the council had budgeted $35,000 in its annual plan to promote its pro-amalgamation message and councillors decided at a recent workshop to kick off the campaign this month.

"It's really just about giving information to our ratepayers.

"[We're] saying these are the issues, this is our view, and setting out the process," Mr Yule said.

Early next year the Local Government Commission intends to run a survey of about 2000 Hawke's Bay residents to gauge support for its proposal to create a single Hawke's Bay Council.

If the commission determines there is demonstrable support for the idea, its proposal will become the subject of a binding poll of all residents in the region later in 2015.

Napier Mayor Bill Dalton, whose council is opposed to the proposal, said the Hastings council's advertisement was "just the first shot in what will be an ongoing campaign from various sources".

Mr Dalton said Napier City Council, along with other organisations opposed to amalgamation, would fund their own campaign.

The council had not discussed how much it would contribute, Mr Dalton said.

While in a perfect world councils would not spend ratepayer money pushing their respective views on amalgamation, his council's view was that given Hastings had "thrown down the gauntlet" and was funding a campaign, it was "beholden on Napier City Council to put our contrary view," Mr Dalton said.

"We have absolutely no option."

The Hastings campaign does not have the support of all the district's councillors, with one, Wayne Bradshaw, yesterday describing it as a means to "push personal agendas" by those who supported amalgamation.

Mr Bradshaw was out of town when his fellow councillors gave the campaign the green light at an informal workshop on December 5.

He said the campaign was about "driving a lot of councillors' personal views".

"If they want to put them, that's fine, let them put their hands in their pockets, not the ratepayers' pocket."

Mr Bradshaw said the inevitable counter-campaigns that would follow from Hawke's Bay's other councils was "one-upmanship which as a region we could do without".