Fri, Sep 13, 2024
Letter: Easy to criticise, not so easy to offer alternatives
Dave Stewart
I WOULD like to thank the Whakatāne Action Group (WAG) for their response for my call to those offering a contrary agenda to our local council to provide details and costings.
I am disappointed but not surprised that WAG does not see itself as having to offer alternatives to the programmes they criticise because, as we all know, criticising someone or something is easy.
Alternatives are harder. And we do all acknowledge that there is a lot the council could do better.
As my opinion piece pointed out, banging on about something you don’t like without clearly laying out the alternative has led us to face a $440,000,000 bill as the alternative to the old Three Waters legislation.
I thank WAG for owning their support for this alternative.
While WAG may have confidence in the National-led coalition “close your eyes and open your mouth” approach to public policy, I do not share the same enthusiastic trust in politicians as they do.
I also welcome their public support for user pays and look forward to the debate about how that looks in their real-world low-rates user-pays utopia.
Of course, it’s a strange kind of debate WAG promotes – you do all the thinking, and they do all the vetoing.
Therein lies the problem. If you don’t stand for something, you stand for nothing.
I guess that’s the luxury of people who only believe in negativity – they don’t think they actually have to offer alternatives but if you then complain when the alternatives turn out worse, you can look a little bit silly.
WAG say they are applauding the prime minister for calling out “white elephant and nice-to-have spending, including Wellington’s $180 million conference centre”.
It has been pointed out by those with better qualifications than the PM, or myself, that the conference centre was not designed to “make a profit” but to attract people to Wellington and does exactly the job intended and successfully, but those facts don’t suit the contrarian narrative so let’s try to ignore them shall we.
And of course, the PM does need distractions to his Government’s $550 million ferry cancelling white elephant and those pesky sick people dying in waiting rooms where his health minister cut $1.7 billion using a non-existent organisational chart to justify it.
Life itself it seems is now too expensive and a “nice to have” for some.
Apparently, WAG does offer “a draft financial management plan to slash spending and reduce borrowings over the next six years by at least $135 million – all for the public good.”
That would include their plan to simply ignore all those who responded to the long-term plan submissions in support of updated and usable facilities at The Rex Morpeth Hub redevelopment.
I too used to think this was the easy option until I went to a WAG meeting to learn a bit about their anti-council kaupapa.
Also at that meeting was Mawera Karetai, a well-respected and learned friend of this community.
As she spoke of the meaningful multi-use facilities that the Rex Morpeth Hub redevelopment offered the town, she challenged my views, so I followed it up with her later where I learned, among other things, she has a master’s degree in environmental management.
Sadly, at this meeting she was treated quite rudely by a member of WAG collective who stood up and spoke over her.
Sadly, the chair let this rudeness happen.
I formed the opinion that, for now at least, WAG doesn’t welcome contrary viewpoints, they just offer them.
The Rex Morpeth Hub redevelopment was also strongly supported by many other sports and recreational groups who made submissions to the Long Term Plan, although again, these views don’t align with the WAG narrative, so WAG chooses to ignore the voice of these folk.
I wonder where WAG and their fellow contrarians in other centres will be when Aotearoa’s sports people return home and parade their prizes from the recent Olympics and Paralympics in Paris.
Will they be in the crowd, with the majority of us, celebrating them or will they stay home and whinge about the money that was spent back in the day to provide them with sports and recreational facilities so they could go on to beat the world, or record a personal best, or simply overcome a crippling handicap?
All of the facilities that we use now, from the War Memorial Hall, the BMX tracks, the skateparks, to the Warren Cole Walk and Cycleway had people telling us these were a waste of money.