Tony Jeffery: Flawed model needs to be rejected

Tony Jeffery

It is welcome relief to both the supporters of retaining local council accountability and community service delivery, and the uber council campaigners, that the Local Government Commission (LGC) has finally released its final governance proposal for our region.

Our region's diverse communities will shortly be able to vote on how they secure their future community wellbeing.

It remains disappointing that the Government chose to remove the right of each affected community to make their own decision. That right has been replaced by a subjective term "demonstrable community support". The LGC is required to determine there is demonstrable community support in each of the areas covered by their proposal. Without that support they could not issue a final proposal. The LGC now refuses to release the result of its pivotal 2000 resident phone survey.

By refusing to release the results of the survey it begs the question: What does the LGC consider to be demonstrable support? We all know a recently privately funded survey, undertaken by an associate company of the one used by the LGC, showed more than 90 per cent of those in Wairoa were against amalgamation.

I have long abandoned any hope of a transparent and neutral process from a LGC chaired by a close associate of the only local government leader in our region in favour of amalgamation.

It was no surprise to me that the LGC decided to test the government's central control agenda in only one of the three regions where the current local government reorganisation applications were lodged.

To have three proposals tested and fail at the polls would have been a humiliating "game over" for those seeking to take the local out of local government.

What is now of importance above all else is how interested citizens envisage their social, cultural and economic future.

If they believe that the Auckland experience with one leader (Mayor Brown) enjoying unprecedented power, total average rate and user pays charges double that of any council in our region, a 20 per cent increase in staff numbers, and local boards bemoaning their lack of self determination in prioritising the requirements of their communities, has been an outstanding success, then they will embrace the bigger is better doctrine.

If people believe that the area from Wairoa to Waipukurau is too geographically diverse to support four strong and resilient communities from one large central controlled power base they will reject the proposal as a completely wrong model for our region.

Once this flawed model has been rejected, I have no doubt that those of us with a genuine long-term interest in Hawke's Bay will keep working hard to improve the towns, cities and the region they love.

-Tony Jeffery is a Napier City councillor.

-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. -Viewpoints on the amalgamation debate can be submitted for consideration and will be used as long as no council resources, money, time or expertise are used in their preparation. This is a requirement of the Local Government Act 2002.