Bill Dalton

The new commissioner of the Hawkes Bay District Health Board – Sir John Anderson – has stated that he intends turning around the finances of the board within two years.

I can only presume this fellow is highly competent because the Labour Government seems to appoint him wherever they have got problems – perhaps they should appoint him Prime Minister!

But despite his competency he is not a miracle worker. He has said he has confidence in Chief Executive Chris Clarke, and it is good someone does, and Clarke has already signalled that the Napier Health Centre in Wellesley Road is under threat. With his great confidence in Clarke and his incredible workload, I can only assume that Sir John will be delegating a lot of decision making to Clarke. That, for every Napier resident, is frightening.

Sir John has called on local community leaders to get behind the board. Well sorry, Sir John but we were behind our democratically elected board and your egotistical patron sacked them. Much has been made of the financial management of the board. I challenge Cunliffe to publish a list of all DHB’s throughout the country and show their financial performance against budget. I would suggest those figures would show that the Hawkes Bay District Health Board was doing pretty well against its fellow DHBs in a sector where so much of the health spend has been diverted to administration.

Sir John has stated “In the short time I have been here, I have found a very capable and competent organisation. So despite some of the difficulties that have been well aired, this organisation is very sound.”

This Organisation is very sound. Sorry I thought Cunliffe sacked our DHB because they were incompetent – they lacked integrity and yet Sir John finds the organisation to be capable, competent and sound.

You tell me who lacks integrity in this whole affair.

Some have complained about the local bodys spending ratepayers’ money on a judicial review of Cunliffe’s actions – for my dollar the 60 or 70 cents per head that may take is an investment, not a cost.

There is no doubt that democracy as we know it is under serious threat here in New Zealand.

Over recent years we have been given the choice to vote on three significant matters – all of which have a direct affect on our lives.

We could vote for members of our District Health Board so that provision of health services had some local flavour. And what’s happened? A corrupt government sacked our locally and democratically elected members and has replaced them with a commissioner. Everyone knows, that commissioner has that many other jobs – some government appointed – that he will be a figurehead in Hawkes Bay only. Despite his undoubted talents he will be a puppet whose strings are pulled in Wellington.

We could vote for up to 12 people to represent us on our local Napier City Council. Some boof-headed bureaucrats in Wellington forced a ridiculous partial ward system on us and we can now only vote for 7 or 8. This half-baked system is already causing tension in council and it simply has to go. As I have said so often – you can drive from one side of Napier to the other in 10 minutes, we are one big ward. Wards, or even worse, a partial ward system is simply devisive in such a compact electorate.

We could vote for the political party we wanted to run the country and have some idea what sort of government we could get.

Under MMP we could end up with one of the major parties getting more than 50 per cent of the party vote and yet have a government that doesn’t include that party and is controlled by the Maori Party. In fact that is what the polls are suggesting right now.

I wonder if the poor misguided sods who voted for MMP ever thought they would end up with a government which is controlled by a party whose candidates are selected on a racial basis.

I bet they did not.

Peter Dunne of the United Future Party is calling for a referendum in 2010 to determine our future voting system.

I for one will be supporting that call and continuing to show how stupid the MMP system is in such a tiny country.

During the last local body election campaign, some candidates tried to make a big thing about dolphins.

Frankly it was a diversion. Dolphins are not an option for Napier’s Marineland at this stage.

Neither is leaving Napier’s Marineland as it is, an option at this stage. Despite the efforts of a dedicated, hard working and enthusiastic staff, Napier’s Marineland is a disgrace. It is a glaring example of a council owned asset that has not had a maintenance budget to allow the facilities to be kept up to scratch.

There are now only two options for Marineland. One is to put a bulldozer through the lot and turn the site into a garden.

The other, is to spend sufficient funds to convert the basic infrastructure of Marineland to an attraction that Napier can be proud of – perhaps some other kind of Marine Park.

I am firmly in the do it up and do it properly camp.

The problem is that public opinion has been side tracked by the dolphins/no dolphins debate. Forget about dolphins. Marineland has large tanks and pools that can be put to other uses. It has the pumping systems – the drainage systems – the grandstand – the shop – sure it all needs a major smarten up but the basic infrastructure is there.

The problem is – it all looks like an industrial plant. It is simply not an attraction in the true sense of the word.

Marineland sits on one of the prime sites in Napier. On the Marine Parade – easy walking from the CBD – just down the road from the i-site, on the way to the aquarium. Properly developed, Marineland could once again be, not only a tourism facility that we could be proud of, but one that contributes to the city’s coffers as well.

Look at the Municipal theatre – once an embarrassment suffering from years of deferred maintenance. Ten years ago the decision was made to rebuild the theatre and now it is a major component in the city’s arts scene. Napier is now also firmly on the touring show calendar and we get to enjoy the sort of shows that used to by-pass the city.

The people of Napier got behind the re-development of their theatre and they are going to have to get behind Marineland, if it is going to be transformed into a facility we can be proud of.

I for one think the re-development of Marineland is a project worth getting behind.

The hot topic of debate during the weekend has been the Hawkes Bay DHB debacle and frankly, so it should have been.

It is my view that much of the discussion is totally misguided. Time and time again I am hearing both sides of the argument regarding the competency of the board and frankly we – the humble taxpayers – are not in possession of sufficient facts to enter that argument.

The discussion should be centred aroutchend the high handed, arrogant actions of an appallingly egotistical Minister of Health.

Did he act in a reasonable and informed manner – of course he did not. His actions thrust a dagger into the very heart of democracy.

How dare this fellow Cunliffe, call into question the integrity of our elected DHB members. How would you feel if you had been newly elected in October – had attended only one board meeting – and were then sacked by the Minister on the basis of a lack of integrity.

Surely if Cunliffe had a problem with the way the Hawkes Bay DHB was discharging its duties, the reasonable thing to do would have been to summon Kevin Atkinson to the Beehive and discuss the problem. No such meeting was ever arranged – in fact it is my understanding the two have never met and Cunliffe never returned repeated calls from Atkinson.

It is clear the trio of Labour Government patsies in this saga, have had ample access to the Minister. If Clarke, Lind and Hausmann can be heard, why not Kevin Atkinson and the board.

And speaking of Hausmann – the report on his apparent conflict of interest is a real can of worms.

Clearly Hausmann and his mates at the Health Ministry did not like the draft report because they have taken legal action to prevent the publication of that draft. The fact that the DHB sought legal action to delay the publication of the final report suggests the board members were unhappy with changes to the draft. What are the changes to the draft – who made them and why were they made. Surely, in the interests of transparency, both the draft and the final report should be published.

One thing is for sure – Mr Cunliffe’s action – supported by his Prime Minister – is another hammer blow to Labours election chances in November.