16 June 2008
Food for thought!
Over the last few weeks community groups and ratepayers have had the opportunity to submit to District and Regional Council Draft Annual Plans.
This is one of our privileges and responsibilities that come from living in a democracy.
One of the interesting aspects of living in Northland is seeing District Councils and regional councils make submissions to each others annual plans.
In the lead up to the Annual Plan process this year the Far North mayor started the discussion on unitary authorities.
He is of the opinion that the Far North could manage its own affairs. This would mean taking the responsibilities and roles away from the Regional Council and bringing these under the Far North Council operations.
The Northland Chamber of Commerce is all for consolidation of services where we can see a clear direct benefit to us the ratepayer and initiatives that add value to the economy, community and infrastructure of the region ensuring rigorous scrutiny to ensure that the community and environment are protected.
We would like to open the debate up wider and suggest that the whole Northland Region look at operating as a unitary authority. We have a large geographical area but a resident population of only 153800. Why do we need Four separate local Government entities and two layers of Government for this?
Whenever we have bought this concept up in the past we have been very unpopular. Lets face it there are lots of patches to protect. The truth is however that both District Councils and the Regional Council operate under the Local Government Act 2002.
These are arguments for and against the restructuring of the whole Region to a unitary authority structure or a Super Council.
The advantages for a one Northland council would be:
Consolidation of resources – Infrastructure, Staffing and Physical localities
Co-ordinated Region wide focus on infrastructure and development
Potentially Less Politicians and bureacracy
The major disadvantage would be that people would perceive that a ‘super council’ would not represent them and their locale fairly.
Remember that we are saying that we should start the discussion. If the Status Quo is proven to be the most effective and efficient way of Governance than by all means stick with it!
What do you think?
Log on to our blog site at www.northchamber.blogspot.com and leave a comment
The Northland Chamber of Commerce is the networking, education, advocacy and marketing group for Northland business, and is part of a nationwide network of 30 and a world-wide movement of 21,000 chambers. Subscription to the free fortnightly chamber e-news can be arranged on info@northchamber.co.nz. Enquiries to 09-4384771 or www.northchamber.co.nz, www.kaiparachamber.co.nz and www.farnorthchamber.co.nz
You can have a say on this by going to the Northland Chamber of Commerce Feedback website on www.northchamber.blogspot.com
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2 comments:
Re Time for a National Park 16th July.
As a fisherman I would be totally opposed to your suggestion re the above.I have invested $20.000 in a boat to be able to enjoy my retirement years fishing in the Whangarei area where I have lived and supported local business since 1972.There are plenty of marine parks in the area now for those interested and I would; and I am sure the fishing community in general, are totally opposed to your suggestion. To limit the catch to a paltry five snapper with the cost of setting up a boat.purchasing equipment, bait and paying ridiculous prices for petrol is absurd. To suggest that these parks could be close to small settlements where customary rights would be preserved is showing a complete lack of consideration for those of us who are unable to use these rights. The benifits you mention are principly to put more money in the pockets of your members not to enhance the way of life that thousands of ordinary northlanders currently enjoy. Go find yourself another project.
The person who made the original proposal for a Marine Park from Cape Brett to Bream Head is one of the few people who are going to benefit financially from this proposal. the coastline from Cape Brett to Bream Head is approximately 104km long.72km is closed to general public access by farmers, maori, foreigners and small block owners, this leaves a total of 32km available to the public for fishing and recreational use. Of the available 32km, 22km is sand and the rest is rocky shoreline. Much of the 10km of rocky shoreline available to shore based fishermen is inaccessable to them because of the contour. Is there any need to have no take Marine Reserves when there is such a large amount of coastline that cannot be accessed by the general public? In the original proposal it was proposed to make 10% of the coastline as no take Marine Reserves in places of easy access to the public. They would probably not want sandy beaches. This will leave the shore based fishermen with very few places to fish. Not everybody has a boat and there are many people who prefer to fish of the rocks. The person who proposed this reserve operates a dive charter business mainly at the Poor Knights Islands. It would appear they want to have areas closed off to any shore based activities apart from diving. I can only assume that if it is too rough at the Poor Knights they want to have areas on the mainland where they can take divers. Not everyone wants to go diving. If these reserves eventuate then they should be no take and no dive zones. This would help to control poaching
Note All distances are approximate only and do not take into account the shoreline in harbours
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