Honing in on infrastructure issues
Age: 53 Occupation: businessman Martial status: married
1. What sets you apart from the other mayoral candidates?
An appreciation that the way infrastructure is managed is leading to a loss of community autonomy over assets. And that a failure to openly discuss stresses in managing infrastructure is limiting our community to inefficient, ineffective and expensive methods that continue to drain our community’s finances. One example is how we manage wastewater. Planning is under way to renew a facility for a small town that on certain days, emits millions of litres of contaminated water. The proposal is to spend millions of dollars to pump this many kilometres and treat it, without discussing with our community why we have such vast volumes of contaminated water. 2. What are your personal views on the Three Waters reforms?
This is a brazen attempt to remove vital infrastructure from community control and ‘‘rent’’ it back to us. Central government politicians, Department of Internal Affairs bureaucrats, LGNZ and elite Maori have conspired to make our communities poorer by using the water infrastructure to massively increase associated debt levels and bill us for it. What’s worse is the proposed water infrastructure is massively energy intensive when energy costs are rising.
3. What is the biggest challenge facing Southland in the next five years and what impact would your leadership have on this?
The attempt to remove water infrastructure from community control and massively increase the cost to our communities is a big issue. As mayor, I would work hard to ensure this infrastructure isn’t removed from community control. This would include joining almost half of New Zealand’s councils in a protest group (C4LD) designed to pressure the Government to this effect. However, the water infrastructure does need to be managed more effectively. This is a conversation that, as mayor, I will be initiating.
4. What do you believe the problems are with the existing Local Government Act and how would you fix it?
I see a lack of action at local government level to deal with vital infrastructure in a way that is efficient and produces good environmental outcomes as a key issue. A conversation needs to happen with the community around how roads, water and wastewater are managed. It is clear the current trajectory of management will have our council heavily indebted in a few years. We will have energy intensive and polluting methods of dealing with human waste, stormwater, drinking water and roading infrastructure plus heavy debts. I’m not sure the Local Government Act is a hindrance in this respect, rather that there is a lack of understanding and action at the local government level.
5. What impact is the workforce having on council budgets?
Council workforce has a big impact on local government expenses. But the workforce is a key aspect of how local government work gets done. Another key aspect is by way of large, outside corporate contracts. Supporting these is not a financially healthy way for our community to manage its workload. This issue would form part of a discussion I would bring to the mayoralty around how we manage infrastructure. If community infrastructure issues are to be managed by locals, then the conversation need to start happening.