A small group of members of the local branch of the Green Party of Aotearoa organised a questionnaire for candidates standing for Local Government in our region. The intention was to help voters be more informed about the candidates and where they sit on some important local issues. Three of the questions fall broadly into the environmental category and two have a community/social focus. Please find Nick Ratcliffe’s brief responses below.
1. Water metering: A number of councils around NZ are installing water meters on properties connected to a council supply as a way of encouraging water conservation. Please indicate your level of support for this initiative in Hawke’s
Bay?
Neutral. I don’t oppose metering as a means to locating leakage and other wastage, but there is a raft of measures we can implement to use our water more wisely before we have to talk about charging by usage. Water bottlers currently pay no royalties. I’ve also seen growers irrigating in the midday sun, when it’s 34C in the shade. Irrigate at night. Let’s look again at seasonally recharging the aquifer from the Ngaruroro. We’re missing a lot of tricks at the moment
2. Climate change: If elected, how much importance will you give this issue?
Very important. Saving money and saving the planet doesn’t have to be a choice –
it’s often the same thing. e.g. We don’t need to be increasing Petrol lawnmowing
budgets. We don’t need to be mowing at all after 6 weeks without rain. We can also build adaptation, mitigation, and biodiversity into our urban landscape with better design, more porous surfaces, more appropriate choices of street trees etc.
3. Local/community democracy: How important is it to you that the Council you
are standing for ensures all voices within its different communities are
included in decision making?
Very important. One of my main policy platforms is to advocate for Citizens’
Assemblies. Each CA will directly engage 40-100 members of our community to
participate in our democracy, and at half the cost of a single Councillor. Better
democracy, and better value for ratepayers.
4. Māori Wards: How strong is your support for your council to continue to have
Māori wards?
Very strong. As this nation’s first people, tangata whenua have to be guaranteed
representation at the Council table, as they are in Parliament. I hope to live to see
the day when we don’t need Māori Wards to guarantee that representation but sadly that day has still not arrived. Māori Wards are the bare minimum that our colonial democracy can offer Māori to meet the Crown’s obligations under this nation’s founding documents.
5. A. Urban development and food security: What is your level of concern about
the use of productive Hawke’s Bay land for housing?
High level of concern.
6. B. What alternative options are possible for developing adequate supplies of
healthy secure housing in our region?
First, urban densification, utilising the space we have in town, empty sections, rear sections, building upwards not outwards, apartments above shops etc. Densification also lends itself better to public and active transport options. Second, if we are going to build out of town, build along existing infrastructure and on degraded hill country, not on the fertile, flood-prone, alluvial soils that have made Heretaunga the food basket of the past 1000 years.
