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John Coles, Mayor of Waimate (2004-2013)
BEWARE OF MAYORS WHO HAVE BEEN OVERFED ON BIG IDEAS
This is a cautionary tale of what can go wrong when people in shallow ponds see themselves as big fish.
Here is a story about a small east coast rural community and how things have turned to custard. No, not Central Hawkes Bay although we do have some similarities.
I’m talking about Waimate in the South Island, about halfway between Christchurch and Dunedin with a population of around 3,600, roughly half that of CHB.
Waimate’s claim to fame is old buildings, a concrete white horse on a hillside overlooking the town and surrounding farmland, wild wallabies (an invasive species) some wineries, lots of dairy cows, and home ground for Groundswell.
A new unwanted claim to fame is that a large part of their domestic water supply is totally poisoned with nitrates, with nitrate levels exceeding the Drinking Water Standards ‘Maximum Acceptable Value’ (MAV). Waimate Council has installed water tanks to ensure safe drinking water is available, and has warned affected residents that the usual method of boiling water doesn't remove nitrates.
We in CHB don’t have a big white horse but we did have a big yellow duck, no wallabies but some hares and wannabes.
We also have a nitrate problem and are heading down the same road as Waimate unless we wake up.
In 2009 the Waimate mayor, John Coles, was one of ten mayors (mostly rural) who signed a letter sent to the then-National Government calling for Canterbury’s Regional Council (“Environment Canterbury” (ECan)) to be sacked.
This what Russell Norman had to say at the time:
The very pro-intensive farming - get more irrigation - bugger the environment - National Government was quick to pull the trigger on Ecan once the mayors had played their part to get the ball rolling. The democratically elected councillors were sacked and Government puppet commissioners appointed under the leadership of hatchet-woman Margaret Bazley.
Here was a woman quite happy to get her hands dirty. One of her more infamous legacies was her time as Secretary of Transport; when she started there were 4,500 peopled employed, when she left only 50 were still standing.
Margaret Bazley
Under this unelected puppet-Council intensive dairy marched onwards, now much less impeded by environmental roadblocks.
One role Bazley took up after being successful in her mission in Canterbury was in trying to get the Wairarapa Dam off the ground. Here she failed, much to Labour MP Kieran McAnulty’s disappointment.
The upshot of National rolling Ecan was that the mayor of Waimate got his wish of more cows, and this has come back to bite his community on it's arse.
Our CHB District Council mayor, Alex Walker, is presently moving the pieces on the chessboard to facilitate industrial agriculture's desire to resurrect the failed Ruataniwha Dam. The dam fell over in 2017 following a Supreme Court ruling Court that is was unlawful to remove the conservation status of 22 ha. of DOC land needed to flood the Makaroro valley and build the dam.
Walker is a member of Tukituki Water Security Project, a recently established group with the sole purpose of resurrecting the Ruataniwha dam;
Under her watch council are attempting to include in the CHB District Plan recognition of the economic significance of water storage in the Mākāroro valley (no mention of its environmental significance);
Walker was also at the forefront of a move in 2019 to allocate $250,000.00 of ratepayers’ money to the group promoting the dam. When that proposal was shot down by ratepayers, the $250K was set aside for “water security” and is now being drip fed to various initiatives associated with the dam.
Alex Walker, Central Hawkes Bay Mayor
These moves completely ignore that the solution to local water and pollution issues is to better manage our existing water resource, not spend public money on more infrastructure.
If our Mayor’s roadmap is successful we can be even more like Waimate.
Apologists for intensive dairy like to say “look at the great things this industry contributes to the economy”
Waimate born past-Labour PM, Big Norman Kirk, once said “there 4 things that matter to people: they have to have somewhere to live, they have to have food to eat, they have to have clothing to wear and they have to have something to hope for”
I look around me and see that for too many people in Aotearoa New Zealand many of Big Norm’s four basics of life are now no more than a dream. All I see is a lack of economic benefit and the destruction of our environment, and hope becomes harder when mayors are overfed on big ideas.
Gren Christie
Founding member, Wise Water Use
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