It’s easy to forget, when you’re sitting at home, moaning about potential rate increases, criticising the way the City is developing, that most of our elected board members and councillors are dedicated to their jobs on our behalf, and work very hard.
I’ve been critical of tree loss, the refusal, so far, to ban the use of the carcinogenic glyphosate, loss of urban amenities during population intensification and other grizzles. So it was good timing to catch up with the Waitemat-a Ward Councillor, Pippa Coom, and get some perspectives from her.
Coom is warm, friendly, and easy to relate to. Council does not seem to have dimmed her enthusiasm for her important role. She is widely criticised by the anti-cycle lobby, and at 82 years I am not a candidate for cycling around Auckland’s difficult terrain either. However, the more people we can get out of cars and onto bikes, or into public transport, the better for our planet.
Overall, Pippa Coom feels the Council is running pretty well. She says Mayor Goff has adopted a bi-partisan approach to governing, and sought to eliminate party politics from council discussions; Mayor Goff appointed Desley Simpson to the finance role. I am on record calling for that approach, and I’m pleased some progress has been made. There will be philosophical differences between councillors on some issues, but as I’ve said before, ‘a footpath is a footpath is a footpath, and neither right nor left politically’.
Pippa Coom is co-chair of the Hauraki Gulf Forum, so I talked to her about the sad state of kai moana in the gulf. She agrees there must be more of the gulf placed in reserve. I told her I was impressed to read about the rahui put around one nautical mile around Waiheke, which Chlöe Swarbrick supported and engaged with. But I asked Pippa should we be leaving this urgent task to Maori alone. I told her about the rahui my partner and I supported at Matapouri, when the Mermaid Pools were being trashed.
Pippa Coom reassured me that both Central and Local government are on the Hauraki case. She sent me a copy of a letter which Mayor Goff had sent to the Minister for Oceans, David Parker, supporting very strongly the action by Ngati Paoa. All well and good, but as Chloe Swarbrick said, “The anchors of economic consideration weigh disproportionately heavy.”
Phil Goff’s letter went on... “While the current initiative by Ngati Paoa addresses an immediate desire to improve the status of four shellfish species (koura, scallop, paua, and mussels) there is a bigger picture to consider.”
Pippa Coom assured me the target of 30 percent of the gulf in marine sanctuaries is desirable.Let’s cut quotas to the bone, impose more sanctuaries like Goat Island, and give our plundered kai moana a chance to recuperate.
I asked Pippa about tree cover in the Waitemat-a Ward, and Auckland–wide. She believes our board will achieve its target of 30 percent coverage by 2050. That is pretty ambitious, especially when more trees are being pole-axed every day, including some by AT on local streets, and some unnecessarily by developers. I have been quoting Easter Island, as outlined in Jared Diamond’s classic book, ‘Collapse’, and I saw a letter to the Herald quote the book too. I asked Pippa Coom to remember that exotic trees, especially mature ones, are excellent carbon sinks. Let’s not have tree apartheid - natives are good, exotics are bad. That won’t do anything for de-colonisation.
Those of us who care, must follow the evolution of the new Acts of Parliament which will replace the Resource Management Act, or more environmental damage could well eventuate. I’m not confident in David Parker as Minister of the Environment; I hope I’m wrong.
I also discussed the selling of assets with Pippa, including small pieces of land. I suggested school buildings should get more use out of school hours. She agreed.
I told Pippa I supported a rates increase of 5 percent to cover Covid-19 losses, but I’m wary about a plethora of targeted rates. She assured me these do not go into the big pot; they are ring-fenced for the job they have been collected for.
Of course I pushed again for the banning of the carcinogenic glyphosate. “Sometimes politics is the art of the possible,” Pippa quite rightly pointed out.
There is much to be done to make Auckland anywhere near the world’s most livable city - Covid-19 hasn’t helped - nor has a top heavy bureaucracy, and too many consultants gobbling up millions. But this week I actually felt sorry for local politicians, especially board members. They get paid a pittance for hours of work, and most of us wouldn’t go near the job with a forty foot barge poll.
See elsewhere in this edition of Ponsonby News my articles on amenity values, with the Waitemata Board’s response, and a forewarning of a desire to push for citizen’s assemblies in Auckland.
We can improve democracy, but let’s use our politicians, not abuse them. (John Elliott)
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