Opinion: Will tangata whenua decision make a better Hastings District Council?

Hastings District Council got tangata whenua consultation wrong with this Te Mata peak track. Have they got this week's tangata whenua decision right?

The first question (s) for any local government council that considers increasing tangata whenua presence at the table should be - why? Will all our ratepayers benefit?

Will we be a better council, and therefore a better district?

And if the answer is "yes', then how does the council achieve that?

Hastings District Council has opted to bring members of its Maori Joint Committee on to four standing committees; Community Development, Finance and Risk, Strategy Planning and Partnerships, and Works and Services.

Each member has full voting rights alongside those councillors who are democratically elected. So is this a crime against democracy? And a race crime at that?

Democracy has its flaws. It doesn't provide perfect representation for countries, or communities.

Winston Churchill is said to have observed that democracy was the worst form of government "except for all the others".

So what do you do when democracy lets you down, and you don't have the right elected input into decisions for a district like Hastings?

You do what the law allows you to do, and what Hastings District Council has done.

This is a council that has got it wrong in the past around consultation with iwi. The zig zag track on Te Mata Peak is an example.

The trick now, is to balance getting tangata whenua input right, without patronising overcompensation.

No one wants that. It won't benefit us all. It won't make Hastings a better district.

And this isn't a race issue - it is a cultural issue.

And the events of Christchurch a few Fridays ago have made us more tolerant of different cultures and less tolerant of those who form views based on race, or culture, or religion.

Perhaps that is why those who were against tangata whenua representation chose to voice their views from their keyboards and not show at yesterday's meeting. They became the silent minority.

Was this the right decision for HDC to make? Who knows, but it was a brave decision.

And rational people will judge its merits against the council's performance under the new system.