The Heretaunga plains were a swamp. The Rivers changed course regularly and flooded often. In the great flood of 1898, one of my ancestors was rescued by rowboat from second storey of the family home in Clive and ferried to higher ground. Just one of many inundations.
Starting in the 1880's ,the Hawkes Bay Rivers Board ,followed in 1941 by the HB Catchment Board , followed in 1989 by the HB Regional Council, tamed the rivers, built the stop banks ,drained the swamps and created some of the most fertile and productive land on the planet .Simultaneously ,the port was developed despite controversy over whether it should be within the Ahuriri estuary or out at sea protected by a breakwater.
Nature settled that one in 1931 and today the prosperity of Hawkes Bay relies heavily on the port and the plains .
And who paid for it all? Until refrigeration in 1882, wool was our only major earner. It was the mainstay of the province until the wool market fell out of bed some twenty years ago.
Today's prosperity is the direct result of sheep grazed from the Manawatu to the Mohaka, from the mountains to the sea. All those Sheep farmers paid a Harbour Board rate to pay for the port .They paid River Board rates to pay for drains and stop banks and pumps.
They paid Council rates to pay for the roads and bridges to link them all up. In those days, Hastings was a railway station in the middle of a paddock and Napier was couple of tin sheds on a shingle spit .The wool cheques from a thousand farms transformed them from villages in the sticks to the major urban and industrial centres of today.
CHB made up roughly a third of the rateable value of the province. On an historical basis, the contribution the countryside made to the development of Hastings and Napier is many many times the $80 million ratepayers are being asked to contribute to the economic and environmental sustainability of the CHB via the RWSS and the dreaded dam.
I have never heard anyone in CHB begrudge the assistance given Napier or Hastings over five generations. My Great Grandfather served on the Hawke's Bay Rivers Board from 1881 until 1914. My Grandfather was a foundation member of the Catchment Board. I was on the Regional Council for six years. Never once through all the generations have I heard a single voice in CHB raised against contributing towards a vital port, two great cities and the highly productive Heretaunga plains. Everyone knows that we all benefit from working together and investing for the future.
Well, that's what everyone thought before the dam. When CHB came asking for the same support that they have given their northern neighbours for the last century and a half, what was the reply?
Came the retort: "We're all right, Jack .We're doing fine. We don't like your dam and we're not paying for it. Your scheme sucks. You can go to hell" That was the blunt message for three years and it was reinforced on October the 8th this year as Napier joined Hastings to roundly reject the thought of helping one of the communities that had sustained and nurtured them for well over a hundred years .
The citizens of CHB wouldn't go so far as to categorise those north of Te Aute as selfish short sighted blinkered freeloading ungrateful bludgers. They believe their neighbours will soon see what CHB has known for generations. Progress depends on shared goals, sharing resources and long term investments that don't necessarily make a profit in the first five minutes.
Build profitable ports and pastures to benefit everyone. Dismiss the self-serving greedy hysterical few. The Northerners are having a cup of tea while they consider choosing between engaging forward or reverse. Meanwhile they ransack the building in search of non-existent secret documents that support their case for non-intervention.
The Wool Farmers of CHB and elsewhere chose to move forward together over a hundred years ago.
The dispassionate observer cannot help but conclude that all concerned should come to their senses and do the same.
- Tim Gilbertson is a farmer, former mayor of Central Hawke's Bay and former Hawke's Bay regional councillor. His column will appear every fortnight on a Saturday. All opinions are his and not those of Hawke's Bay Today.
