Robin Gwynn: 'Local' is the key to governance

Robin Gwynn

The other day, I found myself driving back from Palmerston North. Somewhere in the countryside - about halfway from Norsewood to Takapau, or so it seemed - I came across a pro-amalgamation billboard. It set me thinking, as I drove home over the next hour or so, about the question of identity.

The billboard proprietor wanted me to believe that somehow it made sense to incorporate his location (inland, open country, sparse population, agricultural economic base) and mine (maritime, urban, concentrated population, an economic base rooted in tourism and transport) as one unit of local government. As I drove the 21km to Waipukurau, I wondered why anyone should think such a thing. Did it make any sort of sense? I'd answered that in the negative by the time I reached Waipawa, a mere 7km further along the road.

The only sensible logic for amalgamating such distinct and totally contrasting communities would imply the sort of traffic jams associated with Auckland, but nothing of the kind exists in Hawke's Bay, and the Heretaunga Plains plan for our traffic was agreed years ago conjointly by all our local authorities, and is proceeding smoothly, according to plan.

The whole of Hawke's Bay was the unit of the old Hawke's Bay province, established in the Victorian era when our total population amounted to a few thousand and we did not house two of the country's 10 largest cities. But why now should anyone want to return us to the Victorian age? Provincial government was abolished and local councils set up because the provincial system was too unwieldy and remote from the needs of the growing communities.

Why would we want to go back to that? I may enjoy the quaintness of gas lighting or penny-farthing bicycles, but I don't want them reinstated. Putting the clock back a century and more hardly seems the way forward to a vibrant future.

Perhaps, because over the next 43km I was driving towards Hastings, I mused whether it was all a matter of misplaced Hastings imperialism. My mind went back to an evening nearly a decade ago, early in my brief time as a Napier City councillor, when my colleagues and I were summoned to a meeting to discuss with Mayor Lawrence Yule and a financier, the possible development of a regional sports park.

I have always had sporting interests, and attended with enthusiasm to share any worthwhile thoughts I and others might have. But alas, there was no discussion, none at all. Instead we were told what would happen, and how much we would contribute. Hardly the right way to plan anything "regional", I noted at the time.

For the last part of my journey, the 22km from Hastings to Napier, my thoughts revolved around the two most important questions in the whole amalgamation debate. What is the essence of local government? And, for me personally, what is the foundation of my own identity?

The key word in local government is "local". If all one needs is a common set of planning rules to apply uniformly everywhere, then that can be provided by the national government of the whole country. Doubtless the reason no such set of fixed rules exists is that it doesn't actually make sense to have the same requirements for, say, a new building in the Takapau plains and another in the middle of an historic city centre.

What local government provides is our ability as citizens to fashion our own communities, within the national legal framework, as we want them to be. That is a real and tangible value worth fighting for, and there is evidence to show that people realise full well how important is their right to be heard and to contribute.

In my own ward, before the last local body election, more than 150 people turned out at a meeting called simply to hear the three candidates for the one ward place at stake. And since all our communities - Central Hawke's Bay, Hastings, Napier and Wairoa - are very distinct, it is why I expect that any attempt to force amalgamation on us will suffer an ignominious defeat should it come to a poll.

An hour and getting on for 100km had passed; I was home. And I could still have driven on for a further 116km to Wairoa, pondering why for me, personally, my sense of identity is rooted in Napier first, and in the broader and more amorphous Hawke's Bay only second. It is our sense of identity which, should it come to a vote, ought to be the fundamental basis of the decision-making of each one of us.

My thanks to the billboard owner for helping me see with greater clarity why the proposed amalgamation would be a bizarre step backwards, and a mistake for everyone in the Bay.

-Robin Gwynn is a former Napier city councillor and author of The Denial of Democracy, (Cosmos Publications, Napier, 1998).

-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