Dam needed

I amwriting to give my views on the Waimea Dam. As owner of the market garden PYO at 185 in Hope, we will be directly affected if the dam does not go ahead, as will our employees and our customers.

Over the last 15 years we have developed our business into an intensively cropped market garden employing 25-30 staff during the peak summer season.

A hundred percent of the produce we grow is sold here in the Tasman region.

Without a reliable water supply our business will be forced to grow less and we will employ fewer staff.

While I understand the financial concerns of some, the Waimea dam is the most affordable option as it will include funding from central government, council and private investment from irrigators such as ourselves.

Horticultural businesses on the Waimea Plains employ thousands of people, contribute to the regional GDP, grow the economy and provide new jobs. Without this dam this will be reduced. The new Government will be sighing with relief they survived their first week of Parliament, but some basic mistakes mean they’ll hardly be popping the champagne.

There were moments in the sun – its decision to award Teina Pora an extra almost $1 million for his two decades of wrongful imprisonment and the introduction of legislation for paid parental leave were highlights.

But it was the failure to get the basics right that dominated headlines this week.

There would have been some stern words from Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to her senior ministers before she boarded her flight to Vietnam on Thursday – probably something along the lines of hold the fort while I’m away, don’t burn it down.

Rewind to Monday and Ardern rocked in surprisingly early to her weekly post-Cabinet press conference with Workplace Relations Minister Iain LeesGalloway in tow.

Ardern was eager to announce their plans to increase paid parental leave from 18 weeks to 22 weeks from July 1 next year and then up to 26 weeks by July 1, 2020.

Lees-Galloway just kind of stood there and nodded. Unlike former Prime Minister Bill English and John Key, who diverted the nuts and bolts questions to their respective ministers, Ardern is ensuring she’s across the finer points of every portfolio.

She did the same thing the week before with Trade Minister David Parker and the foreign buyers house ban.

Paid parental leave is an easy win for Labour – the policy had majority support in the last Parliament but the National-led government used its financial veto to get rid of it.

As part of the new Government’s 100-day plan it was a smart and positive way for Ardern to set the tone for the week ahead. But by Tuesday the wheels well and truly started to fall off.

What should have been a straight-forward, nothing-to-seehere formality – the election of Trevor Mallard as Speaker of the House – turned into a comedy of errors and a series of unbelievable photos in the House that ran front and centre across every media outlet in the country.

The only thing missing for those in the press gallery watching the shambles unfold was popcorn.

It had become apparent that something was brewing. Shadow Leader of the House Simon Bridges was looking shady, he was doing far too much consulting with his colleague Gerry Brownlee and chief whip Jami-Lee Ross.

And then it came. Labour’s Ruth Dyson stood to nominate Mallard and Bridges jumped to his feet for a point of order to question whether those MPs who weren’t in the House and hadn’t been sworn

Both Hipkins and Ardern maintain they knew they had the numbers to win, but would Hipkins really have gone into such panic mode if he was so sure?

The defence that Labour did a deal to avoid a vote on Mallard’s election as Speaker simply doesn’t wash. Ardern and Hipkins argued they wanted Mallard elected unopposed and a vote jeopardised that.

It’s just nuts to think the chaos that played out was better than having a vote. Chaos caused national headlines, a vote would have been a brief at worst.

And just in case anyone had forgotten about deputy Prime Minister Peters, he made his presence felt all the way from Vietnam.

On what was the new Government’s big day with the Commission Opening on Tuesday, Peters finally decided to serve legal papers on journalists, former Ministers and the head of the Ministry of Social Development over his superannuation leak.

The papers dated back to September 22, the day before the election, and that’s given National MP Judith Collins ammunition to question whether Peters was ever negotiating with them in good faith if he’d already decided to take legal action against several senior National MPs.

It was a hell of a week for the new Government and now Ardern is in Vietnam doing her best to get an improved trade deal across the line.

While she and Peters are doing that, Labour deputy leader Kelvin Davis is acting Prime Minister.

At least Davis can celebrate doing a good job of saying nothing. Ardern will be hoping the rest of her team can do the same until she gets back.