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Beware of divide and rule
These ‘commissioners’ appointed by the National ‘government’ to appease their paymasters in the banking sector are manipulating the media to undermine the good work being done by our democratic watchdog organisation (the Mangawhai Residents and Ratepayers Association) and to divide and rule the good people of the Kaipara district.
Never mind that three successive Ministers of Local Government refused to enforce the sections in the Local Government Act that compel councils to consult with ratepayers when significant increases in spending are proposed ($23m to $58m is very significant.)
The end game is to turn Northland into a Unitary Authority and to privatise (i.e. buy up) all the utilities. The means to achieve this is by saddling our communities with unbearable debt. This is the political game our ‘elected representatives’ are playing with our precious democracy.
The judicial review being called by the Mangawhai Residents and Ratepayers Association will substantiate the culpability of the ministry of local government as the agency of the Crown charged with administering the Local Government and Rating Acts: Section 121 of the Local Government Act which states that ‘the Crown shall not be liable for debts accrued by councils’ can only apply where due process has been followed.
It wasn't, so it doesn't! It is the minister(s) of local government's deliberate refusal to enforce the LGA that has put us into this situation so the liability is theirs.
The Kaipara commissioners’ threat that it will cost us ratepayers a further $500,000 to defend the indefensible is just another desperate manipulation which shows their contempt for the due processes that were hard fought and enshrined in law to defend us from such predations.
These people must think we are fools.
Alan Preston
Mangawhai
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Correcting the spin
The pleasant photos of John Robertson that accompany his articles do not automatically make them true. Specifically, he has repeated in your paper the lie that the MRRA, and me in particular, want the district to be bankrupted.
We have asked him time and again to show us that the district is not bankrupt. If your newspaper was only meeting 10 percent of its interest charges each year out of current income, as is the case with the KDC, you would very soon be getting a visit from the bailiffs. But the KDC commissioners have their own views about what solvency is and they will not share them with the rest of us.
What I did say, when Mr Robertson asked me point blank if I wanted to bankrupt the council, was that I would much rather see the council go bankrupt than see half of the poor people who live here bankrupted by the council’s actions.
I get phone calls and emails almost every day from people at their wits end as to how they are going to continue living here with the rates and charges that get dumped on them by this council. And they all know that the commissioners have not even begun to hump the debt onto the ratepayers yet, because they are waiting until they have the protection of their terrible local bill before they do so.
And one final point: Before the MRRA (whose executive is elected) took legal action, which we did only after we had exhausted every other option we could think of, we consulted our members and sought voluntary contributions to assist with the cost. Why don’t the unelected commissioners ask the ratepayers for permission before they defend the indefensible? What are they scared of?
Bruce Rogan
Mangawhai |
