Viewpoint – Keeping a finger on the pulse

The final day of winter went nuclear in Warkworth, and not just the wild weather, but with my colleague Shane Jones hosting a public meeting at the Warkworth Town Hall.

His speech received a hearty response from the crowd with appeal on topics including growling at Watercare for pouring poo into our river, potential nuclear energy, no more climate cultism, anti-growth ideology and woke-ism.

Earlier in the day in my role as Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Oceans and Fisheries, I joined Minister Jones at the offices of Ngāti Manuhiri in the old courthouse on Elizabeth Street to meet with local oyster farmers. It was an important opportunity for the Minister to meet the farmers face-to-face and hear directly about the impacts that the years of sewage spills into the Mahurangi Harbour has had, and will continue to have, until Watercare’s infrastructure upgrades are completed.

While we will continue to push Watercare to do right by the farmers, an expedited works timeline is critical. The resilience and grace of the farmers in the face of the ongoing disruption to their businesses and resulting impacts on their families must be applauded. New Zealand First understands the value aquaculture plays, not only in growing our economy, but the local jobs and economic benefits it brings to the community.

As the Media and Communications Under-Secretary, I have also been advocating for our local community.

Recently, I was advised that the Matakana Fire Station, home of the Matakana Volunteer Fire Brigade, has been struggling with cell phone coverage. The planned cell tower build to remedy this issue has not gone ahead as quickly as hoped. Working with the team at the Telecommunications Forum, and with One NZ chief executive Jason Paris, we were able to propose a quick solution to solve the cell coverage problem. While Fire and Emergency New Zealand has taken a different route, I’d like to thank everyone involved in finding alternative solutions.

I was disappointed to hear that Auckland Council will no longer use local community media to advertise their various public notices. This will directly affect the Mahurangi and Hibiscus Matters, our free local community newspapers, which will result in a reduction of advertising revenue for them, at a time when every dollar is needed to keep these hyper-local newspapers operating.

When community papers close, there is the real threat of news deserts forming with a lack of access to credible, quality local news and information, particularly concerning issues vital to community life and democracy.

Although we are inside the council boundary and have access to other media, to lose our local voice, our local stories, we would be all the poorer for it. I have raised this issue with the Minister and the chief executive of the ministry is taking this up directly with Phil Wilson, chief executive of council.

Recently I met with the Mayor of Blenheim and discussed this issue. Nadine Taylor was in the process of consolidating her council’s media spend but will now continue investing in her local community newspapers. Let’s hope council can do the same.