War of wards
REGION: Don Brash, controversial spokesman for lobby group Hobson’s Pledge, is to visit Manawatu¯ to whip up opposition to Ma¯ori council wards.
Don Brash, controversial spokesman for lobby group Hobson’s Pledge, is to visit Manawatu¯ on Wednesday to rally support for petitions that seek to overturn local council decisions on Ma¯ ori wards.
Both the Palmerston North City Council and Manawatu¯ District Council voted last year in favour of Ma¯ ori wards.
Hobson’s Pledge is a lobby group dedicated to removing what it sees as legislative favouritism for Ma¯ ori.
Unattributed pamphlets inviting Manawatu¯ District and city residents to sign a petition demanding a binding poll on Ma¯ ori wards had been circulated to voters through letterboxes and rural mail boxes.
Brash said Hobson’s Pledge was financing the petition.
‘‘A number of locals are unhappy about what has happened and we are keen to support them and call for a poll on the issue,’’ he said.
In Palmerston North, the council voted in favour of a Ma¯ori ward, even though two thirds of the submissions were against it.
In Feilding, consultation on establishing a ward took place between the council and local marae, six of them voting in favour, four against and two abstaining. In November, six councillors voted for wards, with four against.
Brash said he would be spending the morning in Feilding and the afternoon in Palmerston North. It was up to local petition organisers, Manawatu¯ District councillor Andrew Quarrie, who voted against the ward proposal, and Don Esslemont, in Palmerston North, how they made use of him.
However, the yellow petition pamphlets, separately worded for both local authority regions, didn’t carry any acknowledgement of Hobson’s Pledge.
‘‘I don’t know why [the petitions] don’t refer to us. We weren’t trying to hide the fact that we were funding it,’’ Brash said.
‘‘We didn’t want the issue clouded by someone from outside. It has got to be something local ratepayers express their views on.’’
When asked why the local petitions were not attributed to Hobson’s Pledge, Esslemont said ‘‘it never crossed my mind’’.
‘‘We never asked [ourselves] the question whether we should put anything on it.’’
As well as the anonymity, there was some confusion about the delivery of the petition pamphlets. Some city suburbs missed out, while some Feilding residents reported that Palmerston North pamphlets ended up in their letterboxes.
Esslemont said he had only been made aware of the problem on Thursday and was talking about it with the distributors.