The flooded Tutaekuri River at Taradale. Photo / Photography by Corena
The flooded Tutaekuri River at Taradale. Photo / Photography by Corena
OPINION: Napier needs more rogue politicians.
Deputy mayor Annette Brosnan boldly declared on Facebook on Friday ‘I’m sorry, I’m going rouge’.
She meant rogue, of course, and corrected this in a later post.
It’s difficult to understand what going rogue means, because all Brosnan did was make some salient points,in a social media post, about the lack of central government investment in Hawke’s Bay.
Brosnan said the post-Gabrielle situation the region found itself in, cut off from the rest of the country without electricity or key supplies, was linked to the Government.
She later added an edit, which was almost apologetic in explaining that she was not seeking to lay blame, but there was a conversation that needed to take place.
Rogue?
Perhaps the rogue element was saying something publicly without it being washed through multiple cycles of the Napier City Council’s (NCC) PR machine. It was fairly tame stuff. Ratepayers and taxpayers expect politicians to have an opinion on issues like this.
In general, Hawke’s Bay’s city and district councillors are a benign group of well-intentioned people who do little to rattle political cages or shake trees.
Napier deputy mayor Annette Brosnan. Photo / NZME
They may indeed work hard, advocating for ratepayers at grassroots level - but we expect more of them. The job description, as many councillors interpret it, is no longer fit for purpose.
And as for going rogue, well, they rarely have anything remotely controversial to say publicly. They court sycophantic comments in Facebook echo chambers and keep their heads down so as to not compromise their election chances.
If Brosnan had truly gone rogue, she would have questioned her own council’s inability to force outcomes through advocacy on the central government matters she raised.
She might also have considered whether the council’s stormwater system performance in the past week was linked to repairs and improvements made after the November 2020 flood, then highlighted how inadequate that performance was.
In her post, Brosnan made a couple of points about the ineptitude Cyclone Gabrielle had highlighted, being beyond the NCC’s control or sphere of influence.
How so? If Napier ratepayers can’t rely on their councillors to advocate on the city’s behalf to get action on transport or flood protection, then who can they rely on?
What is to stop Hastings or Napier councillors from putting pressure on Transpower to act on the concerns highlighted in 2020, about the riverside location of the substation that failed this week?
Hawke’s Bay needs more councillors like Brosnan to stand up and declare ‘I’m going rogue’, if only so voters can start to evaluate politicians based on having the guts to put their heads above the parapet, rather than vote for them because they look nice, are distant family friends or their kids/grandkids once shared a school or classroom with their own offspring.
Brosnan barely went rogue, but it’s a start. She’s one of the few local body politicians that has said anything remotely controversial on a topical subject since the last election.
For that, she gets my vote.
- Craig Cooper is a former editor of Hawke’s Bay Today. He writes a weekly column, Reverse Spin
