PASS THE AMMUNITION

PASS THE AMMUNITION

Over the last weekend in September, there was a slip on Pawarenga road.  Locals immediately put in waratahs and warning tape, then called Far North District Council who came and added some cones and signs.  

Since then elections for the new Council have been held, but nothing has been done to repair the road which is now down to a single narrow lane.  As the slip continues to move, it’ll be interesting to see whether FNDC repairs the road before the next weather event knocks it out completely.

In the meantime we have a new Council.  So far, post-election comments have been polite (at least in public), and largely along the lines of, “Congratulations to the winners, commiserations to the losers, praise the Lord, and pass the ammunition.” 

In short, it seems not a lot is expected to change, particularly for youth and Māori.      

Although they were turned off by Wayne Brown’s naked self-interest regards mining, and embarrassing blurts regards most everything else, many Māori aren’t exactly lit up over John Carter either. 

“A pleasant WIMP (white, ignorant, male politician) replaces an unpleasant one – big deal,” posted someone on facebook, where commentary is not polite at all.  She hasn’t forgotten Carter’s 1995 impersonation on talkback radio of a supposedly workshy Māori called Hon-ay, and nor will he have. 

Another fact he won’t be unaware of is that, though half of this council is made up of returning councilors, none of them have strong resonance with or for Māori; Mate Radich included.  And of the five new incoming councilors, only Willow Jean Prime is connected in that sense.  Why this is so is an analysis for another day. 

I hope that the new Mayor and Council will be more amenable than the previous council to recognising and listening to hapū mana whenua regards te ao taiao and te oranga tangata.  I hope they’ll value our views and directions.  And I hope they’ll put as much into communities like Pawarenga as they do into those like Kerikeri. 

Because the fact that there’s a new FNDC about to emerge isn’t as important to Pawarenga as the fact that no iteration of FNDC, (old or new), has fixed their road yet.  So don’t ask them for post-election commentary; it may be unprintable. 

However, just as they did with Brown in 2007, most will give Carter a ‘newbies’ chance; in the first month anyway.  If nothing’s changed after that, it’ll be less “Praise the Lord,” and more “Pass the ammunition.”