It sometimes intrigues me how ministers and councillors make decisions, what logic they use. The latest curiosity is the rate adjustment in the Far North; a 163 per cent rate increase for forestry.
I can understand that retail council members in the Far North are finding things tough,but why crucify productive export earners?
I am a long-term forester. In early times I had a 25-acre block of radiate pine in Peria. In the end we withdrew, purely because of the Far North District Council's excessive rates.
I can't believe that now, all this time later, they are about to once again crucify the industry. What is the logic? With huge tracts of empty land, one would believe the cash-hungry council would welcome such enterprise.
Forests begin with minor road use in clearing and planting. Then it is left with minor attendance for some 30 years. There are no daily milk tankers, commuter traffic, no drainage or other council costs. No daily heavy transport to damage roads. At the end of the day, logging trucks can cause minor damage, but certainly not to equal the cost of continual daily heavy transport costs over 30 years of no use.
A mayor extolling the virtues of mining, but is prepared to sacrifice a tried and proven export earner. I am surely relieved to have left the Far North out of any future forestry development.
