Pyrolysis support could hurt come election time

Stuart Smith is right (Express, November 30), and could I add a point or two. Firstly, we regard our bach as part of our home, just with that part in another location. Secondly, the country part has a higher QV than the town part, so which is the ‘‘bach’’? Thirdly, we could dodge the tax by selling both houses and while the proceeds would buy a passably upmarket property in Marlborough, they would not buy so much as a chicken coop in Auckland, so for us the ‘‘bach tax’’ becomes a making-the-most-of-living-in-a-cheaper-locality tax. How much sillier does it get? If anyone out there worries that our bureaucracy, the ‘‘giant machine operated by pygmies’’ (Balzac) has been slack over the drug-dealing kickboxer, relax. An item from last November’s news shows they can actually be very efficient. Little Caitlyn Davies, a blind and crippled South African, who with family had been living in Geraldine for the previous two years, was kicked out of Godzone because her condition would have been ‘‘a burden’’ on us taxpayers. I wrote literally begging Ian Lees-galloway to step in, with zero result as far as I know. OK, I admit I’m not an advocate for taking in refugees but this case cried out for mercy. The Czech man will be costing us $100,000 per year for his accommodation in the health farm, and I try not to think of the donations we’ll be making to the law industry as he is helped through the labyrinth of appeals before, if ever, he is sent back whence he came. Thanks Jonathan Coleman and the bureaucrats for letting him in in the first place. Back to Caitlyn Davies; this is, I think, the only occasion when I have been bitterly ashamed for our country. We are – were – better than this. lodged for a plant on the same site near Bluegums Landfill, for which submissions closed on November 20.

The difference with this application is that the consent would allow a smaller-scale operation and exclude Cca-treated timber to prevent the release of arsenic.

It seems like the Marlborough District Council’s view is that there is a process to go through to get this facility built – not that there is a question about whether it will be built at all.

But there’s a political side to this issue, as we’ll likely see next year.

Boulevard Park on Taylor residents purchased their sections from the council, which developed the land.

Now these ratepayers feel understandably aggrieved by the council’s support of the pyrolysis plant by giving the undertaking that they’ll supply the material that will be burned, so we’ve been told, upwind from their homes. The plant would also be located on council land.

I have been approached by a number of constituents about this issue and asked for advice on what to do next. That advice is, with local body elections coming up, talk to your councillors.

Question them on whether they support the plant and in what form, what they would do about the issue if it progressed further, and then cast your vote accordingly at election time.

This really is a case of making your vote count.