Toowoomba mayor Paul Antonio visits sister city of Whanganui

Toowoomba Regional Council mayor Paul Antonio is no stranger to Whanganui. Photo / Bevan Conley

Long-serving Toowoomba mayor Paul Antonio is visiting Whanganui with a message for its councillors - fight for what’s best for the people.

The two provincial centres have been sister cities since 1983.

Amalgamation and centralisation of local government entities had been issues discussed with Whanganui mayor Andrew Tripe, and councils needed to be wary of them, Antonio said.

“Fight like Kilkenny cats and make sure you get what you want to get.

“If you have a big organisation you begin to centralise for efficiency. My hometown (council) used to have four graders, a heap of trucks and employed 70 people.

“Now, some people travel out from Toowoomba to work. That’s not what local government should give to a community.”

Previously, Antonio was the mayor of his hometown of Millmerran, one of eight shires that joined together to form the Toowoomba Regional Council in 2008 after a Local Government Reform Commission report and recommendation.

He was deputy mayor when it was formed and won the top job in 2012.

A major issue currently facing local councils in New Zealand is the government’s 3 Waters reform, which aims to amalgamate the water services of 67 councils into four regional water entities.

He did not agree with centralised schemes.

“My advice is to resist it. Work with a group of councils that have a common interest.

“Local government is about making sure it gets the best for its people, and essentially it (centralisation) is about a lack of respect.”

Antonio said the relationship between Toowoomba and Whanganui had been “excellent” over the past 40 years.

“We’ve always received a very special welcome here in Whanganui, whether it’s with a council delegation or privately,” he said.

“There is an all-level partnership between Australia and New Zealand. We might argue about rugby and cricket but there is a strong cultural bond between us.

“I’m here to make absolutely sure that we can identify spaces to work together in. We have some pretty exciting things happening, especially with the likes of the Olympic Games (Brisbane 2032), and I think there is potential for some of the teams who are coming for that to have a bit of a look at our sister city as well.”

Toowoomba was hit by severe flooding in January 2011 and then- Whanganui District Councillor, the late Ray Stevens, lead a fundraising campaign to help the stricken city.

“What we (Toowoomba) have done is build detention basins, which hold the water up and discharge it at a rate that will just fill the creek.

“We won a number of state and national awards as a result of the effort we put in and the study that we did.”

Antonio said there had been talks about Toowoomba donating to the Whanganui Mayoral Relief Fund for those affected by Cyclone Gabrielle.

He will not be seeking re-election next time around as his “state of maturity” had caught up with him.

His family has a long-running farming operation in the region.

“My son has offered me a job as a first-year jackaroo with no recognition of prior learning. That’s down the bottom of the ladder in farming,” Antonio said.

“I just advised him to have look at the share(holder) register, it might help him a bit when making those kinds of decisions.”

Whanganui’s other sister cities are Nagaizumi-cho in Japan and Lijiang in China.