Whinge Away!

Posted on February 20, 2015 by Andrew Frame

I have noticed a disturbing trend emerging in Hawke’s Bay recently – no-one is allowed to complain. About anything.

If you do, you are a “Hater”, or a “Knocker”. Basically, it’s devolved into George W. Bush-esque “You’re either with us or against us” bullshit.

You don’t like the fact a giant container park has grown skywards, right next to Napier’s picturesque Estuary nature reserve? Then you don’t support new jobs being created!

Or If you think Lawrence Yule’s roles as Hastings mayor, amalgamation advocate and head of Local Government New Zealand might all conflict in some way? Or that using ratepayer money pay for promoting Hastings District Council’s pro-amalgamation (and inevitably Napier City Council’s anti-amalgamation) viewpoints could be considered as some level of graft or misappropriation of public funds, then you don’t support democracy, or making Hawke’s Bay a better place!

What a croc….

Sadly, the sentiment has been around for a while – it has even been ingrained in HB local body policy.

A Massey University researcher found Napier City Council’s code of conduct “stifles the free speech of councillors”.

Massey University’s Dr Catherine Strong analysed codes of conduct of all New Zealand’s city and district councils and found:

“Napier City Council was the only Hawke’s Bay council to include what she called “disturbing” wording preventing elected representatives’ talking to the media about anything negative within their council.

According to Napier City Council’s code of conduct, statements from councillors should not “make personal criticism of the proper conduct of the council or of other elected members, officers of the council or members of the public”.

Napier Mayor Bill Dalton said his council’s code of conduct was “”toughened up” over 10 years ago during a period when the council “almost became dysfunctional” due to infighting between councillors”.

“There were councillors on the council at that stage who spent more time attacking each other than they did working for the city. The whole idea was to be able to deal with that and in fact the voters of Napier dealt with it in the 2004 elections.” Following the elections “the problem went away”.

The councillors he is referring to were Dave Bosely and current “A Better Hawke’s Bay” / pro-amalgamation spokesperson, John Harrison.

I remember that time and the ongoing feud that carried on throughout local papers and around the city. At times it was very petty and not a particularly good look for the council, or either councillor, but it at least showed there was debate and differing opinions going on between our civic leaders.

“It certainly hasn’t been necessary since and in my eight years on council there has been absolutely no need for the code of conduct to even be looked at.” says Mayor Dalton.

That’s because Dalton’s predecessor Barbara Arnott and her CEO Neil Taylor appeared to have their feet firmly down on the throat of any form of dissent. As a result you heard virtually nothing from anyone except the mayor and CEO for years.

But the policy is still there and could very well have been part of one of the things NCC’s former economic development manager Ron Massey was dismissed for after he allegedly poo-pooed NCC’s failed Art Deco buses at a HB Tourism meeting.

But let’s be perfectly honest, WHO COULD BLAME HIM?? Pretty much every Napier ratepayer who had to pay for that sorry mess was critical of it, so why couldn’t some NCC staff be too?

By comparison, all of last term’s councillors voted for the cursed things (as far as I can tell), and were able to laugh off the large ratepayer-funded loss. Nobody criticised anyone else (keeping within code of conduct guidelines) and NO-ONE WAS MADE ACCOUNTABLE! What a win-win situation!

As Doctor Strong said of her results: “Most people elect their local councillors because they want some changes or they want them to look over what’s going on at the council and make sure it’s on the right path.”

If you see something is wrong it’s your right, your duty, to point it out – to make people aware of it and to fix it. Or, if you can’t, get it fixed.

There was a quote I read recently:

“This is your world – Shape it, or someone else will”

I say “Vox Populi”– Whinge away!

Napier and Hawke’s Bay deserve better!

12 Days of Kiwi Christmas Deliciousness (2014 Edition)

Posted on December 24, 2014 by Andrew Frame

For more years than I can now remember, my wife has been coming up with a special 12 day menu to celebrate the “Twelve Days of Christmas”.

She alternates each year between the traditional and the New Zealand version, otherwise known as “A Pukeko in a Ponga Tree”

Some of the dishes have direct references to the songs, others have used a fair chunk of artistic licence – I’ll do my best to explain as we go.

So sit back and enjoy as I reveal what my true love made for me over the Twelve Days of Kiwi Christmas Deliciousness for 2014:

A Pukeko in a Ponga Tree

Penne Pasta with Carrot-top Pesto:
The heavy “P” count is an alliterative reference to the Pukeko, with the Carrot-Top Pesto representing the Ponga Tree’s foliage – as they look quite similar.

Two Kumara

Baked Kumara Wedges:
Self-explanatory, really 

Three Flax Ketes (“Kits”)

Aubergine Croquettes with Kohl Rabi and Cabbage Slaw:
This is kind of a “two-for-one” deal – the slaw pieces are like the flax that is woven to make the woven ketes / bags, while the croquettes, once crumbed and fried actually looked quite like them too!

Four Huhu Grubs

Coconut Crusted Prawns with Vermicelli Salad:
The prawns are very Huhu Grub- looking, and vermicelli looks like worms. The salad is the undergrowth they live in / feed off.

Five Big Fat Pigs!

Pork Burgers with Bacon, Apple and Fennel:
Big Fat Pigs make Big Fat Pork Burgers! The Bacon is an added bonus, while a feed of apples and fennel would keep your average Kuni-kuni quite happy.

Six Pois a Twirling

Bacon Wrapped Poisson with Home-grown Vegetables:
Poi(sson) was the obvious play on words, the bacon is wrapped around the bird, like the poi’s cover is wrapped around it.

Seven Eels a Swimming

Eggs Benedict Swimming in Hollandaise Sauce:
Eggs for “Eels” and they are swimming in Hollandaise, just as eels swim in creeks.

Eight Plants of Puha

Spinach, Potato, Asparagus and Pea Salad with Tarragon Mayo:
Pretty obvious once again – Puha is a green, leafy, wild vegetable, so we made a salad heavy on the greens and replaced Puha with slightly more mainstream spinach.

Nine Sacks of Pipis

Pomegranate Ice Cream:
The Pomegranates represent the pipis – they’re a similar shape and, like pipis in the low-tide sand, they need digging out!

Ten Juicy Fish Heads

Fish and Chips!
Each year we try to fit a takeaway into the 12 days, mainly to give us a break from cooking, so what could be more Kiwi Christmas to represent fish heads, than Fish and Chips! 

Eleven Haka Lessons

Steak with Roasted Beetroot, Broccoli and Carrots:
All good Haka-performing All Blacks know the importance of a good steak and vegetables in their diet. Like the steak, some rugby players are also quite “Beefy”.
We had intended to do a cauliflower puree (to represent the common rugby injury of “Cauliflower Ear”), but ended up doing broccoli instead.

Twelve Piupius Swinging

Squid Ink Pasta:
As the title indicates, Piupius sway – as do squid tentacles! The Squid ink Pasta also represents the different coloured flaxen strands that make up piupiu skirts.

We hope you’ve been inspired to try some of these, or your own version next Christmas.

From the Napier in Frame family to yours, we wish you a Merry Kiwi Christmas and a safe and happy New Year!

Dibble Dribble

Posted on December 22, 2014 by Andrew Frame

A rebuttal of my letter that appeared in the HB Today on Monday 15 AND Saturday 20 December 2014. Does that make it DOUBLE Dibble Dribble??!!

Apparently by questioning the logic behind the MTG Foundation members spending the price of an average house in Napier on a single piece of sculpture an MTG Foundation member named Peter Gascoigne claims I am helping in the “dumbing down of modern life”

Wow! I never thought I was that influential!

Unfortunately, rather than elaborate on just HOW I am assisting in the downfall of modern society, Mr Gascoigne proceeds with the tried and tested method of unsupported claims, snobbish stereotyping and completely ignores the fact I have said nothing about the look of the Dibble sculpture, rather focusing on how a quarter of a million dollars could have been better spent!

MTG’s shortcomings have been widely recognised and criticised over the past twelve months and a lot of the responsibility for those problems should rest with past and current members of the Napier City Council who oversaw its redevelopment.

But surely anyone with such a large stake in MTG as their own foundation would be doing anything they could to assist in curing theses ills and ensuring as many of the region’s artistic works from their collection are properly looked after and are seen by as many people as possible – ensuring a higher patronage and a more successful future for the MTG. A quarter of a million dollars would certainly go some way to helping that.

The MTG Foundation and its members may have “no desire” or obligation to help contribute to the storage and display aspects of the facility meant to house the foundation’s own treasurers, but that doesn’t mean they can’t or shouldn’t. That’s not “dumbing down” anything – that’s being sensible!

As for saying my “comments seem part of the crusade to make art galleries and museums attractive to people who don’t want to go there” – Mr Gascoigne couldn’t be further from the truth.

I want EVERYONE in Hawke’s Bay to go to their Museum, art Gallery and Theatre. Because the stories, treasures and history they contain are not just yours or mine, Peter, but EVERYONE’S! From the smallest child to the oldest pensioner; From Maori Taonga to high-end conceptual art snobbery – these are the treasures of Hawke’s Bay and everyone deserves to see them!

His parting shot takes the cake, though:

“Best of all, there is no ludicrously high admission fee to see (the kowhai sculpture)”

Of course! Why bother paying to actually go into Napier’s MTG (in doing so seeing, supporting and raising money for the complex and the HB Museums Trust’s extensive collections), when you can see just one single piece donated by “thrilled” MTG Foundation members for free across the road?

Now that is a “stunning piece” of logic indeed!

Just Not Cricket

Posted on December 11, 2014 by Andrew Frame

“What, Ho?” HELL NO!

Sometimes an advertisement or press release comes along that shows just what can be done by someone who has almost no idea about what they’re doing.

I found just such a piece last week when I read an advertising blurb for “The Legends of Cricket Art Deco Match”

With the Cricket World Cup coming to Napier in March, local events revolving around the tournament and cricket in general are a great way to get people involved.

It’s just such a shame that whoever came up with this concept dropped the ball.

An “Art Deco” themed (of course! There is nothing else to Napier after all, is there?) celebrity cricket match is to be played at Hastings’ exclusive Clifton County Cricket Club in late February, a week before Napier’s matches start.

“The Legends of Cricket Art Deco Cricket Match will be a Twenty-Twenty game of gentle spectator cricket.

We’re taking cricket back to basics; to before it became all flashy. The legends of Cricket Match is about good, honest cricket.”

Um, no.

“Twenty-Twenty”, more commonly known as“T20” (it gets its name from each team’s batting innings lasting a maximum of twenty overs) is a “flashy” as cricket gets.

It’s quick, it can be a bit crass to purists, who call it “Hit and Giggle” and it’s BIG money in India, where the Indian Premiere League has made T20 one of the richest (and some would say the dodgiest) parts of the game.

So the event’s promoter gets a “golden duck” on their first delivery.

Onto the next ball: I have been playing club cricket in Hawke’s Bay virtually every summer Saturday for around ten years now and while I have heard of Clifton County Cricket Club, I have never seen them play, or played against them. This is because the club appears to be the only one in Hawke’s Bay to play only who they want, when they want.

I don’t consider that to be a fair representation of Hawke’s Bay’s cricketing community to be portrayed to visiting international cricket fans and media.

Just as the Cricket World Cup is a global event with teams from all over the world, club cricket in Hawke’s Bay is just as diverse. In my grade alone I’ve played with and against people from all walks of life – 12 year olds to pensioners, men and women – We have New Zealanders, Australians, English, Indians, Sri Lankans, Pakistanis, Welsh, Canadians and Cook Islanders. The other week we even faced a guy from Thailand – somewhere I was unaware even knew of the game!

Every week we get our draw from Hawke’s Bay Cricket and that weekend we all represent our clubs and teams against whomever our opponent is that game. There is no picking and choosing.

Off stump is uprooted – two wickets from two deliveries. Our bowler goes back to their mark and begins their run-up for the hat-trick:

“This is a piece of lush Hawke’s Bay turf surrounded by undulating hillside and with views out to the glistening South Pacific, this is the stuff cricket lovers can only dream of.”

One of the reasons the grounds are so “lush” is because:

“All proceeds will go to the New Zealand Department of Conservation initiatives within Clifton County Cricket Club, aimed at creating habitat and eco-systems to reintroduce native flora and fauna.”

So rather than raising money for helping develop young Hawke’s Bay cricketers, or improving grounds, pitches and nets for Hawke’s Bay cricketers in general, you’re helping raise money for landscaping CCCC’s own grounds. How nice.

They have even had help form an unusual source – Napier City Council.

Napier mayor Bill Dalton and the Napier City Council have been very supportive of the Clifton club recently – despite it being located firmly in Hastings District Council territory (whatever you do, don’t mention Amalgamation!). Council staff assisting CCCC in preparing their pitch and outfield and Mayor Bill penned a letter of support.

The only council-based correspondence Napier cricket clubs with junior and senior competitions, development and community involvement get, by comparison, is their annual, ever-increasing ground fees bill.

When Napier City Council put forward their plan to redevelop their Park Island Sports Grounds a few years ago, our cricket club which is located at the park, made suggestions including having our own clay pitch within the club grounds. We even offered to maintain it ourselves. We’re still waiting for a reply.

Middle stump topples, the bails go flying – A hat-trick! Three wickets from three consecutive balls!

Double standards and snobbish overtones abound in this proposed event.

It’s. Just. Not. Cricket!

So here’s my counter-proposal:

Have a PUBLIC GAME. Host it somewhere central – Napier’s Nelson Park, or Hastings’ Cornwall Park – or even have one game at each ground over the fortnight the Cricket World Cup is being hosted in Hawke’s Bay.

The game will be Napier vs Hastings – the mayors of each city on opposing teams (as usual) with local club players, identities, maybe even some kiwi “celebs”, international sports stars and visiting World Cup players to make up the ranks.

Have interchangeable players / fielders with those on the side-lines (mostly the keen kids) able to “tag-in” to play for a few overs.

Bring the family, bring a picnic!

Gold coin entry / donations go to developing Hawke’s Bay Cricket initiatives for all clubs, or another local charity like the Cancer Society.

THAT is what a charity cricket match in Hawke’s Bay should be!

The ball sails over the fielders, over the boundary and out of the grounds – a massive six – What a shot! The crowd goes wild!

Hawke’s Bay and Cricket deserves better!

Way to go, Mo!

Posted on December 8, 2014 by Andrew Frame

The evolution of my 2014 Mo

As I wrote back at the start of last month, I once again took part in “Movember” this year.

For four weeks my upper lip and jowls became an adoptive home to a huge, hairy caterpillar, a façade of facial fungus.

And while my mo mutated, I did my best to raise a bit of mo-ney for the Movember Foundation.

While it was a bit of a slow start, I finished with a furry flourish of florins and this year I managed to raise a total of $311 – smashing my previous record of $234 in 2012!

So I have a few people to thank:

Peter and Mary Nixon from my cricket club who donated $10

My old schoolmate Karrie Stephens form Black and White who donated $10

My Christchurch cousin Leisa Thomas who donated a whopping $100

Our wonderful mortgage broker (and carrot cake baker) Judy Steiner from Mortgagelink Hawke’s Bay for her $20

The staff at NOW’s head office who did a quick whip-around and raised $16

Lyn Bailey form the HB Project for her $20 to put me over the $300 mark

And finally, my workmates, who donated a massive $135 in a whip-around on the last working day of Movember.

Thank you all for your support and donations in making this my most moneyed Movember!

A Giant Christmas Bauble for MTG

Posted on December 8, 2014 by Andrew Frame

Napier’s MTG has a new neighbour, a 4 meter tall bronze and gold kowhai blossom (Right)

Is it just me, or does the MTG saga just keep getting stranger and stranger?

I’ve just read that the museum’s own foundation has now donated a giant bronze and gold kowhai sculpture to the Hawke’s Bay Museums Trust and it will be displayed opposite the museum on Tennyson Street.

Now, I’m no art expert, but a four meter tall sculpture made of bronze with 24 carat gold petals (we’ll see how long they last in Hawke’s Bay’s current economic climate) must surely have cost the MTG Foundation thousands and thousands of dollars. Never mind the added cost of its’ base’s construction and ongoing charges for its permanent lighting care of the Napier City Council.

So does this mean the MTG Foundation would rather spend a sizable amount of their money on a giant, shiny bauble than using those same funds to ensure their own museum had enough suitable storage space, or was functional and attractive enough to locals and visitors to make them want to come back time and time again?

After all, what is the point of having a “MTG Foundation” – otherwise known as “The Hawke’s Bay Museums Foundation Charitable Trust” (so did they ‘donate’ this sculpture to themselves?) as collectors and protectors of the region’s treasures if there’s nowhere to properly store these works and when they are on display no one wants to go see them?

Perhaps a review of the foundation’s priorities is in order?

Ducking out to the Cricket

Posted on December 4, 2014 by Andrew Frame

“Quack, Quack!”

Well, I had an interesting night last Friday!

The “Georgie Pie Super Smash” was in town, with New Zealand’s domestic cricket teams fighting it out for T20 supremacy. As you know, I love cricket, so when the call went out for people to give a hand I readily volunteered. You probably even saw me there, but I doubt you would have recognised me.

Aside from the cricket, there were other events around the ground on the weekend – a bouncy castle, trade stalls on Saturday and Sunday and team mascots roaming the grounds.

I was one of them.

Well, more precisely, I was an impartial mascot – I was a giant duck! (careful on the spelling there, buddy…)

Whenever any batsman got out for zero runs or a “Duck” in cricket, it was my job to tramp out onto the field, pack a hissy fit and then dejectedly drag my bat back to my post on the boundary until the next duck happened.

There were three on the night I was dabbling as Daffy – which made me not only the tallest duck of the weekend, but also one of the busiest.

It almost didn’t happen, though. As the game was just getting under way an thunderstorm rolled over Napier pelting the ground in a mini down-pour and adding some special effects to proceedings as thunder rolled and lightning arced across the sky (cue nervous glances to the giant metal light towers surrounding the ground)

The ground announcer proceeded to play Prince’s “Purple Rain”, followed by Guns & Roses’ perfectly timed “November Rain”.

I love 90’s rock, so couldn’t resist waddling out to the field and launching into an epic “Ducky Hendrix” air guitar cover of Slash’s great guitar work on his bat to entertain the crowd… right up until “November Rain” was mercilessly cut short (somewhere around Saturday the 22nd) and faded into the next song, just as the biggest, best guitar solo of the song was about to kick in.

Duck’s head dropped disconsolately, his posture slouched and once again he trudged off the field dragging his bat.

Ducky Hendrix had left the building.

Hospital Site Napier’s – Not Tourists’!

Posted on November 27, 2014 by Andrew Frame

Below is my Letter to the Editor that appeared in the Hawke’s Bay Today this morning (Friday November 28 2014)

Napier’s Hospital site – once a place for everyone may soon become a place for only tourists and the well-off.

“The Art Deco Trust says plans for a residential development on Napier’s old hilltop hospital site have neglected a major tourism opportunity for the city”

Here we go again… “Tourism, tourism, tourism, blah, blah, blah” Give us a break and please give someone other than the ADT a chance to speak!

Napier’s hospital site has NOTHING to do with tourists and EVERYTHING to do with Napier residents.

Many of us were born there, some of us died there and a great many more were treated there over the many years it was in operation.

It has links to the literal and figurative heart of Napier and its residents. It is NOT yet another gaudy trap for visitors to “ooh” and “aaah” from and at.

Certain “local leaders” need to take a step back and stop trying to turn everything about our city into something to be sold to short-staying tourists and start focusing on Napier’s residents who live here 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year – THEY bring far more to our city than any day-tripping, “cruise in, cruise out over the summer months” tourist ever could, so stop sucking up to this moneyed meandering minority!

Speaking of moneyed minorities, it would have been nice to see any housing development on the hospital site as something reasonable and affordable for local families, rather than even more apartments (have all the ones built in Ahuriri years ago sold yet?) and their “lavish,” “luxury living” subdivision.

The current plan not only gives a “two fingered salute” to the memory of Napier’s healthcare system but also to all us mere mortals, living on the surrounding plains, being looked down upon on from the hill-top heights of luxury.

Home, Sweet (First) Home!

Posted on November 25, 2014 by Andrew Frame

Six months ago, to the day, my wife, baby and I moved into our first home.

“Mrs In Frame” and I had been renting for around ten years and while we had some of the nicest landlords you could hope for, the houses we lived in just never felt like “a home” to me. I always had a nagging thought in the back of my mind telling me “This house isn’t YOURS”.

Last year my work folded up the superannuation programme they had been running for as long as I had been working there, resulting in a handsome little pay-out of the savings I had accumulated over the past decade. We knew exactly what we were going to do with it – buy our own home!

Our aspirations were modest. We didn’t want a massive 12 bedroom mansion with integral garage, dishwasher and swimming pool, as some people would have you believe first home buyers expect.

All we wanted was a solid, warm and dry, preferably 2-3 bedroom home, hopefully with a garage and a bit of a yard.

So we started looking around – gauging the market, seeing what we could afford versus what we wanted and figured we would be looking to spend around $250,000 for “our house”.

With around $30,000 as a deposit safely stashed away and a secure, long-term income just shy of the national average, we went along to our bank and asked about the chances of getting a mortgage.

Their answer was a straight “No”.

“Loan to Value Ratios” (LVRs), aimed at slowing the Auckland housing bubble, had been in place for a few months by then. Instead of slowing Auckland’s “surreal estate” market, they had merely quashed the dreams of many young first home buyers, like us, across the country where housing prices are far more realistic.

Banks were deterred from accepting deposits of less than 20 percent (meaning we would have needed to amass another $20,000 from somewhere – hardly likely in Hawke’s Bay’s current economic climate).

We were told, however, there might still be a way to get a loan and our first home – by going through a mortgage broker.

We were recommended by our personal banker and a couple real estate agents to talk to a lady called Judy Steiner at Mortgagelink Hawke’s Bay.

The process of mortgage brokering seemed a bit too complex for me – I’ve always been more of an English exponent than a Maths whizz, so things fuzzed out a bit quickly in my limited area of knowledge. But from what I discerned mortgage brokers appear to have an almost magical knowledge of the inner workings of banks and the home loan trade.

While restrictive, it was still possible to get a loan under the LVR level – you just had to know when. Each bank appeared to have an allotment of under-LVR mortgages they could grant – two on this Monday, three on that Wednesday – that sort of thing. I guess if you applied on Tuesday you were just shit out of luck. I may have that all completely wrong, though, as by then we had a four month old daughter and my attention span was becoming a thing of the past.

So we met with Judy, she went through our financial situation, discussed what we wanted and the rest was an unbelievably quick and easy, stress-free piece of (carrot) cake!

Judy herself actually makes a carrot cake for you as a celebration for acquiring a loan / home etc. They’re DELICIOUS and an awesome personal touch!

We ended up with a home loan from our own bank – despite the initial rejection when we tried to go it alone – allowing us to look for a home priced up to our $250,000 ballpark value.

We were due to start seriously looking at open homes the day my Dad died. My wife and in-laws ended up taking me out to look at houses anyway, just to get me out of the house and get my mind off things.

One thing I noticed while looking at open homes was that for every young couple looking for their first home, there were around two to three sets of “Baby-boomers” looking to buy the same house as another investment property for their portfolio.

How many houses do you need??

We only wanted one.

Very fortunately we found it at the first open home we went to, which also happened to be just around the corner from our rental of 8 years.

It was a compact, two bedroom, stucco house with a garage, yard, roses and citrus trees – it was all I wanted and it was just like the home I grew up in.

More importantly, it FELT like home.

With the help of Judy, our newly acquired lawyers and the property’s real estate agent, Renate, we were able to make an offer and it was accepted!

To the uninitiated, the following few weeks were quite stressful. With legal paperwork to go through, checks to do, finances to be finalised, it was all a bit of a blur, especially having to tie up Dad’s things at the same time. But we got there in the end.

Six months later and it feels even more like our home. When I mow the lawns, it’s OUR lawns I’m mowing. We eat oranges from OUR tree and smell OUR roses. We recently dug up a 20 square meter vegetable garden, as my wife loves growing her own veges – we are living off OUR own land.

We have things to fix, alter and renovate. We removed part of the houses deck, but reused the timber to give the remaining deck walls so we can fence off the back yard. I’m not overly capable when it comes to woodwork and the like, so while my father-in-law did most of the work, I happily helped out as a hammer-hand – applying and removing nails as and when required.

My building input may have been minimal, but to me it was wonderful. I can happily say in years to come “I did that!” – It solidifies our connection to the house by making it even more so OUR HOME.

Our home, sweet (first) home!

Regional NZ Deserves More Economic Love!

Posted on November 24, 2014 by Andrew Frame

I’m tired of regional New Zealand being the country’s economic whipping-boy. Why must business in New Zealand still be SO main-centre focused??

With the rise of E-commerce and so much business now being internet-based, why does it still “need” to be based in the likes of Auckland?

It exacerbates Auckland’s never-ending high demand / high price problems which the nation is reminded of on a weekly basis in the news. While regional cities, like my own home town of Napier, have been struggling to attract skilled workers and businesses in recent years.

The regions have also had to bear the brunt of things like nation-wide “Loan to Value Ratios” (LVRs) which, while aimed at slowing the Auckland housing bubble, have instead quashed the dreams of many young first home buyers across the country, where housing prices are far more realistic.

So why aren’t places like Hawke’s Bay being given serious consideration?

• The average (full-sized, with a yard) house price in Hawke’s Bay is somewhere around $350,000 – $500,000 – a third to a quarter of those in Auckland.

• We have the infrastructure including UFB network access, to easily operate a national / international level “E-business” from Hawke’s Bay, as well as the port, airport and cenral location for easy logistical access.

• With its smaller population (more room, less congestion) and wonderful natural features encouraging healthier, outdoor pastimes, Hawke’s Bay has a relaxed lifestyle second to none!

Yet where is all the commercial and business development focus? After years of technological, social and commercial development 90 percent of it is STILL on fit-to-bursting, ridiculously-overpriced Auckland.

Like Smaug the Dragon, New Zealand’s dreaded old “Nothing south of the Bombay Hills” mentality is rearing its ugly head once again.

It doesn’t stop there though. For all the promise of call centre jobs being created in Hawke’s Bay, some of Australasia’s richest banking businesses must STILL outsource call centre jobs to India!

20 jobs that could have been based in provincial NZ, giving the local economy a boost are outsourced for “greater cost efficiency” at a company that pays its CEO more than anyone else in the country – THIS is the sort of corporate idiocy that is harming New Zealand!

If that isn’t bad enough, some companies that look to move to regional New Zealand want or expect subsidies for doing so!

Subsidies??!!

The real estate in Hawke’s Bay is around ONE QUARTER THE PRICE OF THAT IN AUCKLAND! By simply moving here, they could more than halve their operating costs – yet they want EXTRA money for it??!!

Give me a break!

While we move in almost completely different political modes of thinking, I saw the Taxpayer Union published a report recently called “Monopoly Money” on corporate welfare in New Zealand.

For a country where “Beneficiary Bashing” is practically a national sport amongst some sectors of the community, it would be a massively unfair of us to ignore the fact that many big New Zealand businesses with huge, healthy profits are also receiving government hand-outs, but on a far more massive scale than any DPB, or Unemployment Benefit recipient ever has.

Big businesses are essentially receiving a benefit to help cover the extra costs of operating in bigger cities like Auckland. While regional centres, lacking the presence of same big businesses, are in the economic doldrums with perfectly capable workers on unemployment benefits because the jobs just aren’t available.

But according to New Zealand’s very own Finance Minister, Bill English, that’s just fine.

When Mr English met Hawke’s Bay Chamber of Commerce members at a swanky restaurant in Ahuriri last week he was quoted as saying Hawke’s Bay’s seasonal low-wage economy “isn’t going to change in a hurry, so let’s get good at it.”

What a pathetic cop-out!

Hawke’s Bay, and ALL regions of New Zealand deserve better!

Napier In Frame

Tag Archives: Napier

A Giant Christmas Bauble for MTG

Ducking out to the Cricket

Hospital Site Napier’s – Not Tourists’!

Home, Sweet (First) Home!