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Posts Tagged ‘Upper Hutt’

“Axe the Tax” bus hits the Mainland

Posted by Chris Hipkins on March 8th, 2010

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Yesterday the big red Axe the Tax bus was in Wellington. I joined the crew in Timberlea, Upper Hutt where we handed out red balloons to the kids and were warmly received by the parents too. Later in the afternoon the bus was parked outside parliament where quite a few people stopped to chat on their way to the Phoenix game.

This week the bus hit’s the mainland. I’ll be on board from Tuesday to Thursday. The Axe the Tax campaign is online too, here’s a quick summary of where to find everything:

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Filed under: Cost of Living, GST, Tax, Uncategorized
19 Comments

Police merger about-face

Posted by Chris Hipkins on July 7th, 2009

I was very pleased to learn this afternoon that the police have abandoned plans to merge the Upper Hutt and Lower Hutt police districts. This came as a bolt out of the blue (if you’ll excuse the pun) when it was revealed by way of a leak to the Upper Hutt Leader earlier this year. It seemed completely at odds with the government’s pre-election rhetoric about focussing on frontline policing.

Over the course of the past few months I’ve been helping to organise a petition opposing the proposed merger. Over 8,000 people signed it. We then had to endure quite a lot of buck passing about who should receive the petition. Judith Collins refused to have anything to do with it as it was an operational matter (doesn’t seemed to bother her when it comes to telling the police what to do in South Auckland) while the Police Commissioner refused to accept it because he said it was a political matter. Finally the Commissioner agreed to receive it. Despite the buck passing it had the desired effect.

Peter Dunne and Rodney Hide should take note of the strong public opposition to the proposed police merger. It got people pretty angry and yet I think it would pale in comparison to the response they’ll get if they try to force the merger of the two Hutt Valley local authorities (or force a Super City on the whole Wellington region). Dunne has said he wants a Wellington Super City by the local body elections next year while Hide has said he thinks the Auckland model should be rolled out around the country. They are both ministers in the Key govt. In the absence of anyone contradicting them, we can only assume that’s govt policy!

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Filed under: democracy, local government, national
12 Comments

Super City: Is Wellington Next?

Posted by Chris Hipkins on June 8th, 2009

Over the weekend I have been out and about with volunteers delivering a constituent survey to every household in the electorate. As I’ve been pounding the pavements I’ve run into quite a few people who are keen to chat. One of the common questions I’ve been getting in Upper Hutt is “Are we next?”

The Auckland Super City amalgamation certainly has a few people worried. If they try to ram similar reforms through in other parts of the country we could lose our local councils without local people ever having a chance to have their say. That concern is only heightened by Rodney Hide’s declaration last week that he wants to see the Super City model “replicated around the country“.

The National/Act government has no mandate for widespread local government reform, although given the cavalier attitude they have taken towards democracy in ramming through the Auckland super city legislation, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if they decided to do the same in other parts of the country. People clearly have reason to be worried.

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Filed under: democracy, local government, national
16 Comments