Fred Frederikse: Keep decision making local

Fred Frederikse

The last quarter century has been characterised by Horizons choosing to ignore the outcomes of its own consultation processes. IN 1990, when Geoffrey Palmer released a draft of the proposed Resource Management Act (RMA) for public feedback, I was one of nine people from Whanganui to respond with a submission.

I had just completed an environmental planning paper towards the degree in geography that I was chipping away at extramurally and had spent a year reading various points of view on the planning process and how it related to the way we manage our environment.

My response was that environmental decision-making should default to the local authority � that was where the environmental impact would be felt, I reasoned. So, therefore, the local authority should be responsible (for better or worse) for their environment.

Needless to say, Sir Geoffrey didn't listen and in 1991 the RMA was passed into law.

Some districts chose to combine regional and local responsibilities and become unitary authorities but Whanganui decided to combine with Manawatu and form a regional council.

My regional council rates started at a modest $20 but rapidly escalated to over $200 per year. This year Horizons will collect over $5 million from Whanganui district ratepayers.

After 25 years of the RMA and the regional councils, there is merit in reviewing their performance. After a period of setting up house, the Manawatu/Whanganui Regional Council rebranded itself as Horizons and set about carrying out its core business � validating extractive capitalism.

Theoretically charged with protecting the environment, these days Horizons is more interested in driving economic growth and in our region the councillors have mostly been land agents, property developers and farmers.

The last quarter-century has been characterised by Horizons choosing to ignore the outcomes of its own consultation processes.

The majority of local submissions were against the lower Whanganui Flood Protection Scheme proceeding but Horizons bulldozed ahead, backed by a concerted public relations campaign. Last year Horizons voted the funds for "Accelerate 25", the National Government's economic development programme, before it remembered to carry out a consultation process.

The creation of regional councils has resulted in doubling up of planning bureaucracy as well as a fragmentation of services -- it is the Whanganui District Council fixing the flooding in Heads Rd, not Horizons.

What did Horizons contribute to the Whanganui's sewage treatment saga apart from threatening legal action and suggesting we spray perfume into the air? Horizons' position is that they were not responsible for the design or the implementation; they were just responsible to make sure we are.

So why do we need them? Five million dollars would go a long way toward funding the Whanganui District Council sewage scheme.

In this year's elections for the two Whanganui seats on Horizons, we have two seat-warmers standing from the "Rates Restraint" team (bound to win with a slogan like that). In the other corner are two committed and qualified Greens.

Will it make any difference if we elect Green councillors? I'll leave the last word to the Green Party's Dr Rachel Keedwell, a sitting Horizons councillor, who says: "At times during this term, I felt I had achieved little more than developing a large callus from banging my head on a brick wall ..." (Te Awa, August 2016).

�When Fred Frederikse is not building, he is a self-directed student of geography and traveller. In his spare time he is co-chair of the Whanganui Musicians' Club.