They did not ask for it, and they don’t want it: the public of Hawke’s Bay has voted 66% against amalgamation.
The immediate conclusion is that amalgamation across the country is dead.
Everything has been stacked in favour of amalgamation since the National Government thought to force it on the public.
It wrote a law that meant one crazed citizen could invite the Local Government Commission to investigate amalgamating a region, but it would require a petition and then referendum of hundreds of thousands of people to stop it.
It wrote a law that meant the Local Government Commission said it was obliged to seek amalgamation, rather than any other option for efficient and effective service.
The Local Government Commission was stacked with, and still is, people who clearly prefer amalgamation.
The elite set up a network of mates to advocate for amalgamation, taking out expensive adverts in newspapers, billboards and pamphlets.
And yet, 80% of the Wellington region was set to vote against amalgamation before the proposal was dropped.
And yet, 66% of Hawke’s Bay said no.
And consider this; 40% of the Hawke’s Bay public were so unmotivated by the idea that they didn’t vote – making a mockery of claims that amalgamation was answering a deep problem experienced by citizens.
Yes, amalgamation has been decisively crushed despite every chance the Government gave it.
Almost no one will be stupid enough, apart from the Commission, to raise the idea in any other region in New Zealand.
