The time is right to move Parliament to Palmerston North
Wellington is in disarray. Their water supply is as leaky as a cabinet meeting. Their roads are narrow and windy, and not suitable for public transport.
Much of the housing stock sits tenuously on the side of slippery hills, and the whole place sits on an active fault line.
There are only two roads out of the place, and one can be easily closed with snow or a minor traffic accident. The airport is just about as dubious as the weather and can’t take anything bigger than a small passenger jet.
On most days it takes longer to get from the central city to the airport than it does to fly to Dunedin.
If you had a blank canvas and you wanted to choose a city somewhere to house your seat of government, you absolutely positively would not choose Wellington.
According to its city council website, Wellington became New Zealand’s capital in 1865. The decision to house our parliament there was made by a panel of Australian-based commissioners “due to its favourable geography, sheltered harbour and central location”.
They’d obviously never been to Wellington. The politicians and bureaucrats down there don’t get out much. They are stuck in their offices and coffee shops because of the angry weather and difficulty in leaving the place. Consequently, they are completely out of touch with the rest of the country.
They are getting us to change the way we manage our water, but can’t manage their own. They want the rest of the country to improve their traffic management, but they can’t sort out their own.
And proofing buildings for future earthquakes, for them, just requires increasing taxes and rates when for many small towns, the same requirements will send business and residents broke.
Politicians need to be able to easily get out of their offices so that they are not out of touch. They need to mix with people representative of all of NZ, not just fellow politicians and those paid solely by the tax take.
They need to be able to fill their own car, ride a bicycle on a narrow road while passed by a milk tanker, go to the recently robbed corner store, and cop an earful from the local council worker who’s sick of filling in potholes.
Nearly a decade ago there was some discussion about de-centralising government departments just in case there was a really big shake in Wellington. Back then the impact of Christchurch was still raw.
In this very masthead, in 2017, Palmerston North mayor Grant Smith suggested that if functions should be decentralised, Palmerston North “was well-placed to take over defence”. That sounds sensible to me. The only tank I’ve seen in Wellington is one leaking water.
Some recent news articles have attempted to gee up the downcast Wellingtonians, who in a moment of self-reflection, have finally realised what a shambles the infrastructure there is in.
I learnt from my sporting competition days, that if your opponent is struggling, that’s the time to “put the boot in”.
Well, Wellington is struggling at the moment and so I reckon it’s time Palmy stole the Capital moniker from them.
It’d be an offer too good to refuse. They get rid of the politicians, and we’d get ‘’Let’s Get Palmy Moving’’. Because as one of my customers pointed out to me recently, we have two Tony’s Tyre Services whereas Wellington only has one.
Now don’t get me wrong; I like Wellington. Thrice a year, when they are endowed with a beautiful clear windless day, it’s the best city on the North Island south of Levin. And I have to admit, the coffee in Wellington is nearly as good as in Palmerston North. Oh, and the museum down there, Te Papa, is worth a visit too.
From Palmerston North you can get out of town any direction you want, and in terms of defence, our region is only missing the navy. With our windmills, the Rugby Museum, and free parking on Sundays, Palmy is clearly the superior place to locate NZ Parliament.
Anyway, we already have the Capital Connection and a whole precinct across the river with plenty of empty rooms.
Steve Stannard is a small-business owner in Palmerston North and former professor of exercise physiology at Massey University. He writes a regular column for Manawatū Standard.