Where are we going?

I sometime wonder about just what direction our city and region is heading, I know people who are really struggling to make ends meet, pay their every day bills like power, mortgage, rates or rent, transport and medical charges. I met a couple of pensioners who had to cancel a long planned and awaited trip to Australia to visit their grandchildren because of an unexpected dental bill; the bill was equal to their airfares. So I make a plea to the various councils in our region to think carefully about the increases they are about to impose on their rate payers. I know that for years the Horowhenua District Council has neglected to update its infrastructure and is now confronted with the huge cost of lifting itself into the twenty-first century. It has failed to get consent for many of its waste water operations over many years which have led to health problems. Councils’ have to now choose between the massive subsidies they fork out to Manfield Park Trust like organisations which in turn then default on their agreed plans to repay back the millions borrowed. The reality is that this weak kneed enforcement of financial control comes back to bite the backsides of thousands of good citizens who simply can not afford to pay for the economic mismanagement of council funded so-called charitable trusts.

Our citizens took a massive hit when GST was lifted and road user charges sky rocketed upward. One chap I know informed me that the cost of reregistering the family’s two cars was like buying a new one these days, he lives outside of the city and there is no public transport for him and his wife who works part-time.