Political heat on to roll Rimmington
The political heat has been cranked up even further just days out from formal moves to roll Waikato Regional Council chairperson Russ Rimmington.
In a highly unusual move, two Hamilton city councillors – acting privately – have been given permission to speak at next week’s meeting to discuss his fate. And members of the Groundswell rural lobby group opposed to Three Waters reforms – at the heart of the Rimmington saga – are being encouraged to go to the hui to support him and other councillors who uphold ‘‘good democratic process’’.
Hamilton’s deputy mayor Geoff Taylor said yesterday he was ‘‘standing up for a mate’’ in going to the meeting and that he didn’t like to see people ‘‘bullied’’. He felt it would be a ‘‘pretty awful look’’ to remove Rimmington this close to the looming local body elections in October.
Hamilton councillor Mark Bunting said his main concern was also about how how close the elections were and that it would be a bad look publicly to dump Rimmington now.
Monday’s meeting is because eight of 14 regional councillors are seeking to have Rimmington removed as chairperson. Their move follows a troubled period for Rimmington’s leadership in the wake of his comments at an online forum on Three Waters reforms last year.
At the forum, he talked of ‘‘the Mā ori’’ gaining control of water and that farmers and horticulturalists could be at their ‘‘beck and call’’. The move to unseat him comes despite the fact he issued a public apology for his comments and has since been involved in Treaty of Waitangi training.
Taylor, who’s seeking to unseat mayor Paula Southgate this year, said: ‘‘Mainly I’m going because I support Russ having the right for free speech and I don’t like to see people cut down for presenting their point of view.’’ He also said that ‘‘I don’t like to see people bullied and taken down because they have a point of view – and there’s far too much of that goes on these days’’.
Taylor said the issues Rimmington was raising should be ‘‘out for conversation’’.
On what he would say to those who may think Rimmington crossed a line and offended Maori, Taylor said: ‘‘I would say get over it . . . because there’s rough and tumble in politics.
People are allowed to present views and people are allowed to be offended – doesn’t mean someone’s head has to be cut off.’’
He hadn’t co-ordinated his apperance with Rimmington. ‘‘I’m standing up for a mate . . . that’s what mates should do.’’
Bunting said his submission would have nothing to do with Three Waters, nor would he be focused on supporting Rimmington personally.
‘‘Rolling a leader at this point in the term doesn’t serve anyone well when it comes to trying to get people to vote in an election.’’
He said Hamilton city councillors had ‘‘worked really hard on getting on with each other and working in an adult and grown-up way’’.
‘‘And I just think at this time, leading into an election, all you’re going to do is make whoever’s doing this . . . feel a little bit better.’’ It would send out ‘‘a most discouraging message’’ to the public, Bunting said.
Lee Smith, a Groundswell official in Waikato, said she was concerned that Rimmington was being punished for speaking his mind over Three Waters.
She suggested that ‘‘anytime someone disagrees with the Three Waters proposal, in both its original and now altered state, they are deemed as racist’’. However, she said she was a descendant of Pā kewa who signed the Treaty of Waitangi and ‘‘the race card used is old and tired’’.
The eight councillors seeking Rimmington’s removal are Fred Lichtwark, Andrew MacPherson, Denis Tegg, Angela Strange, Stu Kneebone, Jennifer Nickel, Tipa Mahuta and Kataraina Hodge.