Lou Klinkhamer.
At the time of the 2014 general election here in Havelock North we were all feeling very positive and we were looking forward to a new primary school being built on the Arataki Camp site.
We also had a Member of Parliament who was a Cabinet minister and was looking after our local needs.
What have we got in 2016? Our local primary school site has been whipped out from under us and given to a group who represents around 5 per cent of the Havelock North population. Absolutely no one knew it was going to happen and we are still waiting to hear the answers as to why it happened. Is this the new way with politics: just do it because we can like TPPA? The people don't matter anymore.
Why wasn't a perfectly good alternative site at Mangateretere used? It has five empty classrooms and around 20 Maori children currently attending. Perhaps our local Member of Parliament could at least answer that question now that he has noticed we have a problem. Our local Member of Parliament is no longer in Cabinet and he is no longer looking after local needs. He claims via his February 2016 newsletter he is working behind the scenes in the best interests of the local community. This issue first came to notice back in April 2015.
HB Today carried out an online poll in November and 82 per cent of the 1000 who responded voted against the site being used for a kura and were for a local primary school as promised by the MOE. It is February 2016 before we hear from him. Far too little, too late, I would say. The warning bells have been ringing for a long time and you haven't been listening. When you reply to this please answer the issue and refrain from your usual style of attacking the person. Craig, as our elected Member of Parliament, why won't you stand up to the Minister of Education on behalf of your electorate and the people who voted for you and tell her publicly that the Arataki Motor Camp site is not the correct site for a new kura and that it is needed for a new local primary school?
We have Minister of Education Hekia Parata who moves from crisis to crisis and is allowed just to do, as she likes. No one currently makes her accountable. Up in Whangaruru she spent $4.8 million building a total immersion kura only to close it down. On Monday it was announced that three charter schools who failed to reach performance targets were each given a $60,000 bonus to add to their surplus, while on the other hand many state schools are struggling or are in debt. This minister is a law on to herself. At Lincoln Primary School on the outskirts of Christchurch severe overcrowding at the beginning of 2016 has seen new entrant classes all being moved to a local hall because minister Parata has once again failed to respond to local demands and knowledge. The way things are currently going this is exactly what will happen in Havelock North. Why can Hekia Parata not see sense and build the new primary school as promised for the residents of the Arataki/Brookvale area who have spent millions on building there in anticipation of a new primary school being there for their children to attend? After Horiana Robin's comments it makes me wonder if at the end of the day Parata is using this as part of a much bigger agenda in grabbing whatever land becomes available as another Maori land claim. If it is then we all need to be deeply concerned.
- Lou Klinkhamer is a retired businessman who has been in business in Hastings for many years.
- Views expressed here are the writer's opinion and not the newspaper's. Email: editor@hbtoday.co.nz