Editorial, Tuesday November 10, 2015

Peter Jackson, editor, The Northland Age

Yoo hoo! We're here!

IF WE cast our minds back we will remember the National Party fighting, if that's the right word, a by-election in Northland. Not its best campaign of all time, and it didn't do its candidate many favours, despite the very real prospect of losing what for the previous half-century had been a safe seat, thus eroding its barely comfortable majority in the House.

Those who regarded National's offer to double-lane 10 one-way bridges in return for continued loyalty as a crass bribe were probably right, given that 10 quickly dwindled to four, and nothing seems to be happening even with those that officially remain on the radar. Certainly National's sense of urgency in terms of proving that its heart was in serving this electorate to the best of its ability didn't survive the counting of the votes that delivered the seat to Winston Peters.

Northland's new MP has done a good job in the ensuing months. He won't achieve much, because he's in opposition and National doesn't need his support. And National won't be keen to give us anything lest Winston gets the credit. For all that it is difficult not to believe that National has learned nothing from its by-election defeat, not only in terms of Northland but provincial electorates around the country.

Mr Peters, who is being given more ammunition than he knows what to do with, was on the money again last week when he bemoaned the fact that the $14 million contract to rebuild Northland College would be going to a bidder outside Kaikohe. The tender hadn't been let as of late last week, but the big local contender had got no further than lodging an expression of interest. The main contract was expected to go to Whangarei or Auckland.

The same thing happened in Kaitaia when Te Kura Kaupapa Maori o Pukemiro was built. The main contractor did an excellent job, and there was work for local firms as sub-contractors, but a Kaitaia bidder, eminently qualified to take the lead role, missed out.

Associate Education Minister Nikki Kaye has not unreasonably pointed out that she didn't get involved in individual procurement contracts. The villain is her ministry, which once again is following a process that gifts an opposition MP a golden opportunity to point out the difference between what the government says and what the government does.

The government talks a good game, and stoutly rejects claims that it isn't interested in the regions. Indeed, its recently-released 2015 regional economic activity report takes a very positive view of Northland's future, pointing to "significant growth opportunities" in dairy, forestry, horticulture, aquaculture and tourism. All good stuff, but Northland has had potential for as long as anyone can remember. Trouble is, it has never found it easy to turn that potential into investment, jobs and income.

There are some fairly obvious reasons for that, chiefly infrastructure, particularly transport. Even exporting products like timber in their least-processed form can be difficult and expensive in a region with roads that many continue to describe as Third World, and will likely remain so given the inability of local government to maintain let alone improve them, while rail remains an unattainable dream. Poor roads do, ironically, offer an incentive for processing within the region, although that takes investment.

Meanwhile Economic Development Minister Stephen Joyce says the government will continue working with Northland's business and community leaders to build on the region's strengths and attract new investment to grow jobs and incomes. A new web tool and mobile app, he says, will make it easier for councils, business groups and others around the country to compare and contrast the economic futures of different regions and explore in depth how economic growth can be achieved.

Just how a web tool and a mobile app will make it easier to start adding value to some of the stuff we produce in Northland rather than flogging it off in its raw form isn't immediately clear, but even if digital technology is the key to an economic revolution it is difficult to escape the conclusion that when it comes to the regions the government is all talk and no action.

Ensuring that government contracts go to local businesses, assuming they are competitive and able to do the work, would seem to be a very simple way of boosting a small town's economy, not to say rather more immediate than waiting for potential investors to reach the conclusion that Northland is an untapped goldmine that they can exploit.

There has been no mention in statements emanating from the economic activity report of the Far North's problems with infrastructure, and the extent to which those problems, and local government's financial inability to address them, will hinder potential economic growth.

And while Mr Joyce assures us that web tools and mobile apps are coming to the rescue, we have been reminded yet again, this time by Conservation Minister Maggie Barry, that while the government might talk about lifting Northland out of the economic doldrums it really doesn't understand the realities here. Ms Barry made that obvious when she poo-pooed Mr Peters' suggestion that the region's vast pool of unemployed could be put to useful work dealing to the possums that are destroying its native forests.

Mr Peters suggested that a variation in an existing Work and Income policy, Enhanced Task Force Green, could provide meaningful work for some of the unemployed, all that was required of the Minister being a willingness to work with Northland to devise a "simple solution" to several issues.

Ms Barry's response was that if the unemployed, who could choose how they spent their time, wanted to go out and trap possums she would be "very, very pleased to hear it." But if Mr Peters was suggesting that Northland's pest problem would be resolved by "letting a few people who are out of work go out and do some trapping" he was delusional. It was not possible to do that.

Really? Given that the Minister went on to explain that Enhanced Task Force Green could cover the cost of wages for workers and supervisors, the purchase of safety gear, the hire of equipment and transport, and start-up grants for local authorities to assist with administration costs, one would have thought it was eminently possible. There might be a problem in that councils are no longer geared to run the equivalent of the once very successful Project Employment Programme (PEP) schemes, but to glibly dismiss Mr Peters' suggestion as impossible speaks volumes about the Minister's understanding of the challenges this region faces and her enthusiasm for helping us address them.

We're with Winston. Northland's long-term financial future hinges upon finding meaningful work for the unemployed, and as Mr Peters keeps saying, there is plenty of work to be done. In this case the government could make a desperately needed contribution to saving what remains of our priceless natural heritage. One might have expected the Minister of Conservation to give some thought to that, given that she is presiding over what many say is an unprecedented collapse in habitat that is driving ever more native species towards extinction.

That, Ms Barry, is your bag. That is what should be keeping you awake at night.

And if you can't see a win-win such as Mr Peters is suggesting then perhaps you should be honest with us and say that when it comes to Northland you really don't care.