hawkesbaycouncilwatch

The feds are tearing their hair out.

The head of federated farmers must be wondering what on earth has happened on the political scene with National snubbing the primary sector left right and centre. To make matters worse the Nats are in bed with the Maori Party in  a way that could never have been contemplated pre election.

Left wing commentator Colin James is cheering the Nats on and putting the boot into the Feds by suggesting in his Press column that it is right for the Nats to ignore the farming sector and that we are all doomed if we don’t follow an ETS that will cripple the country.

It is Do Nicholson that is right.The Nats have lost their way after one year unless they are playing some new game that we haven’t yet figured out.

Hastings District Council seems intent on having a logo to promote their own pocket in Hawkes Bay.A logo to separate them from the state of Napier.

But.This ongoing fascination with a brand is costing ratepayers a fortune.

What irks many ratepayers is the apparent strong desire by the council to ignore the well established brand that was tried and proven and is relivant  today  “the fruitbowl of New Zealand”.

It is a name that has stuck and Hastings should make the most of it.

At the september meeting of the Hastings District Council the Sports Park Trust was asked to come back in October with justification for wanting to bring forward expenditure on the next stage..

Forward to the October meeting and what happened ??

Nothing. No explanation. Extraordinary!!!

It explains why the Mayor should not be chair of the trust as well as Mayor.

There are certainly more people questioning the decision to make Auckland a Super City.

This great desire to kill local democracy will not be stopped and when one listens to some of those involved in making it happen alarm bells ring.

On Laidlaws show a story included comments from a Mr Askwith, a pommie import from what appears to be the local government sector in the UK.

Comments he made such as Invercargill farmers don’t realise that Auckland  is so important to them and that the Mayor of this super city should be able to veto anything, are really quite scary. He also stated that they will replace seven muppets (mayors) for one, was a condescending and insulting comment.

Go back to the UK Mr Askwith. We don’t need you here.

The National government continues to disappoint.

The people of this country, us kiwis, clearly indicated they wanted a chance to get rid of MMP and felt that the National election victory would mean a definate chance to move on this promised referendum.

What fools. Treated like naughty children again we are offered a referendum in 2011 with yet another in 2014 to confirm an option.

This is not what the people wanted. When will they take note???

The HB Regional Council is going down a path to disaster.

Meerkat has heard of secret meetings and later this week ratepayers are to discover the council is about to launch a bombshell .

More to come.

With the ridiculous situation where Maori TV pitched taxpayers money at buying rights to broadcast World Cup rugby , we learn that they are funded to the tune of $35m per annum.

This is an outrageous situation and could be better directed to other areas of funding.For Mr Sharples to grab another $3m on top of that is shocking.

$35m is going down the gurgler and we have a country who carries on and ignores this type of wastage. What can they do about it?

Something is going to give and the longer it takes the worse it will be .

The Regional Council made public today the register of contaminated sites that had been kept behind closed doors until a reporter with some unknown motive , pursued the council until it was forced to release the details.

It is highly likely the council had good reason to retain this information and what was interesting today was the immediate response from several other councils who also have similar registers.

Some are refusing to release the details and seem prepared to hang in there until someone sees sense or we see further interference by the media.

One council is making the info available but it has to be paid for and agreement signed before releasing the details.

At times one wonders just what some people hope to achieve by causing unnecessary grief  among the public who by and large do not have a good understanding of why a site may be contaminated and the details relative to different sites.

The word contamination conjures up negative vibes but it does not mean all and sundry are going to succumb to ill health if exposed to these sites.

We watch with interest to see if the government takes note of this dangerous and delicate development.

The secretary of the only serious body in New zealand  that is challenging climate change, Mr terry Dunleavy, has asked the PM to sack Nick Smith, Minister of the Environment.

To read the full story go to scoop.co.nz

Hastings ratepayers have been saved from expenditure on some crazy idea to make Hastings the wine capital of New Zealand.

We did not need to pay to become the wine capital of New Zealand and there is enough expenditure on promoting this area especially its wines , as it is.

The fact that Christchurch has somehow become the wine capital is a worry in itself. What has Christchurch done to deserve this? Where is their wine produced?

Hawkes Bay is the wine capital .End of story.