Amalgamation hearings prompt angry media exchange

September 30th, 2011
[by David Armstrong]

A scrap has broken out through the media over the past two days over criticisms by the Tasman District Council of the Local Government Commission (LGC) as it holds hearings on LGC's draft amalgamation plan.

The hearings, held in Nelson on Wednesday and Motueka yesterday, allowed those of the 395 who made submissions to the LGC to speak to the commissioners about their opinions. TDC made its submission on Wednesday morning through Mayor Richard Kempthorne and Deputy Mayor Tim King.

A press release delivered during that meeting, began: "The Local Government Commission's draft amalgamation plan provides little clarity or certainty to the questions being raised by a large number of submitters was the central message delivered by the Tasman District Council today. ... The Chairman, Basil Morrison, specifically pointed to the issues of representation, identity and cost, all of which are core to the arguments for and against amalgamation and we agree that these are the areas requiring clarity and certainty."

In a second press release after the hearing, Mayor Kempthorne was quoted as saying, "The amalgamation debate has been riddled with anecdotes and historical rumour regarding 'lost opportunities'. ... I have yet of hear any lost opportunity because we have two Councils representing two different areas with often distinct and unique aspirations and needs."

The next morning, Nelson Mayor Aldo Miccio issued his own statement to the media that he was "saddened that some elected members at TDC have had to stoop to criticising such independent experts as LGC who clearly state and describe the cost savings, the opportunity costs of not having a union, and the benefits to the region of a union, so what motivates this perceived attack on the commissioners? These anti-union TDC elected members are just sounding more and more desperate in the face of independent analysis disagreeing with them."

Soon after, TDC issued another press release beginning: "The Tasman District Council did not intend to portray the Local Government Commission as having a predetermined view of the outcome of the current amalgamation proposal as may have been inferred in a recent statement regarding the current hearings process.

"In a recent statement the Tasman District Council ascribed three grounds on which the Commission will be making its decision on the current amalgamation proposal - representation, identity and who is going to pay. Mayor Richard Kempthorne apologised for the inference."

Richard Kempthorne added: "I accept that while we see these as the core issues for many submitters the Chair of the Commission Basil Morrison was reflecting on his reading of the submissions received - it was not a map of how the Commission would be making their determination and we certainly apologise for that inference. ... It is not our intention to infer these reflections are the sole decision-making criteria for the Commission."

This morning Aldo Miccio emailed the following statement (edited for punctuation): "I have just seen TDC retraction, and some may say that it confirms that the TDC spin doctors and/or propaganda from TDC can not be wholly trusted and that it has gone on for the last 2 years and it's great that they have now been asked to retract there constant inaccuracies. Some may also say that this needs to be known by the wider community that the constant inaccuracies and propaganda bias misleading information from TDC must stop. The people must be informed by the independent specialist as their information is factual and not biased."

The hearings in Motueka, attended in part by this writer, allowed the three commissioners to listen to a variety of submitters on both sides of the fence. Those for amalgamation talked mainly of the logic of seeing the natural geographic area as one district, and the failure of TDC since the 1989 amalgamation to work cooperatively with community boards and provide them with delegated authorities. All, however, requested that LGC look harder at writing firmer guidelines around what delegated powers community boards should have and how they could be enforced.

Those against amalgamation spoke mainly of historic failures of centralisation and amalgamation around the world, of the perceived lessening of rural influence in an amalgamated council, their expectation that rates will inevitably rise because of the amalgamation, and their bitter disappointment that ratepayers were not being offered any third options such as returning to localised borough councils.

Most people spoke of negative results from the creation of the TDC in 1989, but from there it was a matter of optimism or pessimism about whether another amalgamation would fix or worsen the current situation. Some though it was better to stay with the devil you know, while others thought that things can only get better.

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