Country Living – North Rodney battle cry

By Julie Cotton

I find merit in that old fashioned phrase “speak now or forever hold your peace”, so here it goes. The situation with the Supa City for rural communities has now become untenable. We are now approaching five years in, and the reasons why this nightmare was foisted upon us are becoming clearly visible. Auckland city, faced with years of glamorous overspending, aging infrastructure and a massive immigration explosion, needed money. The government wiped the floor with our democratic wishes not to be included, and this money-hungry “dead duck” was foisted upon us, dragging our cheque books along kicking and screaming!

The proposed Unitary Plan is a nightmare and the hearings process farcical. Our farms and land are now wrapped up in that much regulation and we are drowning in the cost of it all. A million more people in Auckland need somewhere to go on the weekends and rural communities are the new fairground attractions! There seems to be an underlying belief by Auckland Council that our land is now for the enjoyment of others. On the contrary “bucko’s”, our land is here to provide food and clothing for our whanau and help contribute to the financial wellbeing of our communities. Since when did we have a “guilty before innocent” mentality? Why is it my job to prove why I do not need regulation and cost placed upon my land? Surely it is Council’s job to prove why I should have it. For goodness sake, how are we supposed to compete with the might of Council’s powerful lawyers and consultants?

The “preferred contractor” dictatorship is crippling local business. Whilst I believe there are savings to be had in central Auckland, that’s where the benefits start and finish! Our communities are bearing the brunt and the cost of this dumb system (one only needs to look at the cost of the Wellsford and Warkworth toilet upgrades to get a handle on the situation). Our communities have very little in the way of decent infrastructure. Our money needs to stay in our communities, not “sail south”. A user pays system is the only way to go or an infrastructure tax levied on new immigrants so this huge burden is not carried by existing ratepayers.

It is impossible to successfully govern our communities from an air-conditioned office on Queen Street, with no real attachment or intrinsic understanding of how our communities work. Northern Rodney needs its own unitary council. Somehow we need to break-away from this “Supa City juggernaut” for our communities to prosper. The Northern Action Group (NAG) movement has done all the hard work for us, and a recent High Court decision paves the way for Northern Rodney to “break-away”.

So in the year of the Anzac, for the sake of our communities and to paraphase Margaret Thatcher, I say, “let’s get behind the NAG movement and arm the troops”. Let’s go into battle to save our communities, their uniqueness and for their ongoing prosperity. Northern Rodney needs a hero … who will that be?