Reflections on the old days of town and country politics

The recent death of former Pahiatua County Council chairman Pat Fouhy prompted a fossick through the files to catch a glimpse of what local government was like in the 1980s, toward the end of Fouhy’s reign.

Fouhy was one of the last men left standing in defiance of Local Government Commission chairman Sir Brian Elwood’s master plan for reorganisation of the nation’s network of little county, borough and city councils that was imposed in 1989.

He was a wholehearted supporter of Prod, People for the Restoration of Democracy, and a group of some 30 local authorities facing oblivion that were prepared to fight amalgamation on the scale Elwood and the Labour Government envisioned.

In particular, Fouhy wanted to see a Bush District established, janine.rankin@fairfaxmedia.co.nz

including Eketahuna and Pahiatua, independent of the proposed Dannevirke-based Tararua District Council including Woodville and the southern neighbours.

The rebels held on until the bitter end, the Bush team being the last refusing to play a part in transitional arrangements for the establishment of the commissionendorsed new authorities.

The reorganisation plan went through, enshrined in law by an order in council quite literally in the middle of the night, and was made legally binding an unchallengeable, reducing the number of local authorities in New Zealand from more than 500 to 94.

Pahiatua borough and county went unwillingly into the new Tararua District, along with Woodville borough and county.

One more time, it seemed like a good idea to dip into some of the history about what was going on in those little councils in the 1980s.

Here are some of the headlines and stories they were generating early on in the 1980s.

‘‘Pahiatua holds rate increase to 12.9 pc.’’

‘‘Rate increase held to 17pc at Woodville.’’

It is interesting the angle of these stories was on the concept of holding the rates down.

It sounds like something even bigger was seriously contemplated.

But while the double-figure rises might make today’s ratepayers gasp, in the context of what was about to happen to mortgage rates, like skyrocketing to more than 20 per cent, it was probably not so out-of-kilter with reality, and not necessarily a reflection on the inefficiency of small councils. Although that could have been a part of it. How about this? ‘‘Chairman gets rise.’’ Yep, Pat Fouhy’s honorarium was increased from $4000 to $5000 a year.

Council leadership was clearly a part-time role, about 90 per cent public service.

‘‘The Pahiatua County Council is joining the fight to keep the Pongaroa police station open.’’

Well, that was a fight worth having. Thirty-odd years later, the tiny town still has a police officer.

‘‘The Pahiatua Borough Council is adamant all advertising boards, goods and trolleys must stay off the footpaths on weekdays.’’

Clearly, the concepts of placemaking and activating public places had not been dreamed up yet.

‘‘The Woodville County Council has decided to contribute $24,000 to the town’s community centre building fund.’’

So the divide between town and country was narrowing. End Note: A confession about my younger self as a new reporter.

Subtitled: One of the greatest stories nearly never told.

Talking about the old days of the Pahiatua County Council recalled an embarrassing incident in which I missed a story lead.

The news did eventually break, but in the form of an outraged letter to the editor from the Plunket Society that took the then chief reporter by surprise, and earned the aforementioned young reporter a rebuke for not having picked up on the story sooner.

The clipping survives under the headline ‘‘Safety proposal shocks Plunket’’.

‘‘The Plunket Society is appalled at a suggestion from the Pahiatua County Council to keep children away from private swimming pools with electric fencing.

‘‘One of the councillors had tried electric fencing around his own pool and found it was effective in keeping out wandering children, as well as cats and dogs.’’

The councillor said electric fences were cheaper than conventional fences.

‘‘He said it was difficult to know all the time if neighbours’ children were near the pool – ‘but you hear them when they touch the fence’.’’

Plunket’s medical adviser David Geddis gave the county council a right telling off, called it irresponsible, and did question whether its suggestion was supposed to be taken seriously.

When in a hole, county clerk Bob Mcivor kept digging, insisting that the suggestion was genuine and sincere.

‘‘One thing Dr Geddis is overlooking is that we are a local authority looking after a rural area where the problems and the best solutions are different from those in towns.’’

It would be another piece of evidence that the past, also, is a different country. They do things differently there.

And my excuse for not writing the story when it first came up at a meeting I was covering?

I thought they were only joking.