"The Government was working on curbing local government..."
I wonder whether this was something said by the subject of the article, Federated Farmers national president Don Nicolson, who is quoted elsewhere in the article, saying that he "wanted to fix local government" and that "local government has sold itself as doing a grand job.."
It sounds very much as though Nicolson would like to see a repeat of the undemocratic actions taken by the Government against the Canterbury Regional Council down here in Southland and across the rest of the country as well.
Is this the case? Do Federated Farmers oppose local government by democratically elected local people?
Robert Guyton
20 Thames Street
Riverton
032348249
Federated farmers national president Don Nicolson replied:
I think this creates an opportunity for us to get a good debate going about the future of local government.
Is local government perfection?
Very few people would say yes. The temporary governance arrangements for Environment Canterbury are a result of political dysfunction. I hope that if Environment Southland or any council was racked by political infighting , then the Government would step in. Politicians have to be accountable for their actions.
I make no apologies for the excellent work Federated Farmers does to shape local government.
We are informed by our hardworking professional staff who tell us when councils stray off the path.
We need to because in the past 13 years local government has put up rates at nearly three times the rate of inflation.
Provincial New Zealand and more specifically farmers are being farmed for their rates out of all proportion to what they consume.
Conventional wisdom has rates as being a farmer-only issue. Our Colmar Brunton poll found that urban New Zealand is equally hacked off by how much they pay.
Only when there's a clear relationship between the funding and the type, quality and quantity of service, will rational decision making come at the council table.
Then and only the, may the current paltry electoral turnouts translate into real democracy.
4 comments:
When Don Nicholson finally realises that putting all our eggs in the dirty dairy bucket is a bad thing and that the dairy industry is not paying for water and not paying for environmental desecration and destruction and that is they did pay for some or all of it we would be back to farming sheep and crops. These other forms of agriculture would then look as attractive as they really are.
By '..stray off the path' he means '..stray off Fedoverrated Farmers path'
quiet - shhhh, Don'll hear you and begin to understand and that's going to be a painfull experience for him!
Those other forms of food production you mention have been squashed into irrelevence by the dollar-producing milking cows but as you indicate, that will all change but what will the farm environment look like by then?
Bioneer! Ha!
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