Nickie Muir: Time now for referendum on centre

Friedrick Hundertwasser - Austrian artist, architect and environmentalist.

I'd have liked to have met Mr Hundertwasser. His nude speeches in the 60s about the right to have a third skin would have been so groovy.

If I'd been in my 20s when he was doing his thing, I'd have drunk the Kool Aid. (Note to reader: some of the flat make-overs I did in my 20s I would really like to apologise to my landlords for but I can't. That's because if they discovered my identity they'd justifiably kill me. In my defence that nude portrait of a woman and the "loosening of lines" with a chisel on that 1950s heartwood rimu door were not my idea.)

Among other things, Hundertwasser was an interesting painter with some good ideas - but I'm not sure he was a great architect.

Nor am I convinced yet that his work was about the kind of shifts in perception and identity. The "seeing our faces in our places" work that will help make Whangarei the kind of community that is intrinsically a good host.

Will it, attract and engage the people who live here as much as the one-night trade of tourism?

Will it help unify this community or heal some of the history? Will it really create not consume cash?

The Hundermeister has clocked up kilometres of column space and editorial time yet, given the divisiveness of the project, there is still much uncertainty about viable alternatives. There's a slight histrionic Thatcherite feel of "There is NO alternative" about the tenor of the argument.

For 30 years, however, there has been one. One that does not require ratepayer money. One that is backed by Te Papa and could therefore be part of a larger storing and displaying of some of Te Papa's treasures in New Zealand's seismically safest art capital, Whangarei. A project that could be part of a larger, cultural conversation with community.

Yet in asking many people over the past few months what they know about the Hihiaua Art Centre, how it could be funded or what it would mean, I have met almost no one who knows anything about it. It seems unlikely that Whangarei will get two arts centres - or even one in the next 20 years unless there is a convincing argument for it. If there are indeed benefits in delayed gratification regardless of what the Hundertwasser project has already cost, isn't it better to have something that most people want and that's going to work than something a slim majority managed to push through?

There are about as many councillors now who feel the people want the Hundertwasser as those who believe that boat has sailed and the project should be buried. In her mayoral campaign, Sheryl Mai said that "no plan will work unless there is genuine consensus". She's probably right. Now seems a good time for a referendum.

The wording, and what is offered is critical. No more mysteriously malleable silent majorities. We show up and vote and like the consequences even if our preference doesn't make it. Council listens. It's messy and democratic.