Here are the reasons for low voter turnout
It was stated (ODT 8.10.25) that only 17% of eligible Dunedin voters have participated in this year’s local body elections by the mail cut-off date. Is it any wonder that voters have abandoned this process en masse?
Everywhere we turn we, the ratepayers, have had to fight against council decisions that are bulldozed through despite popular sentiment to the contrary. All the while, people who genuinely deserve every possible consideration are largely sidelined (South Dunedin).
A band of group voters on council are pushing through expensive cycleways despite evidence that those currently in existence are underused. If I wanted my children to play, I would take them to a park or a beach not a concrete jungle. If I wanted to cycle somewhere in Dunedin, I would wish to enjoy more lanes through gardens and by water, not along State Highway 1.
Albany St changes loom again at the expense of business people whose livelihoods will suffer from all this expensive and unnecessary street clutter and loss of parking when all that is required is a few more speed humps, tiresome as they are.
Ratepayers feel terribly disenfranchised by the current system whereby people stand for council but clearly cannot stand ratepayers. Hence the low voter turnout.
Chronic neglect
Mayor Radich’s band aid hopes for South Dunedin (ODT 3.10.25) should be treated with scepticism. The area needs comprehensive and professionally designed flood solutions and stormwater justice (to quote my colleague, Julian Doorey).
The Soper family are just one of hundreds denied this. Sadly, the headlined term "Aiding flood resilience" merely complements the decade of spin that has emanated from City Hall since June 2015.
Serious solutions will cost serious money, but the money should have been spent in the last three council terms (2016-25). Instead, it has been prioritised elsewhere. Mr Radich, Mr MacLean (DCC climate and city growth general manager Scott MacLean) and the wider public should be reminded that those successive councils have spent next-to-nothing on improving South Dunedin’s lot, caused primarily by council’s chronic neglect of one of its poorest and least-represented suburbs.
[Neil Johnstone is a retired civil engineer and a member of the South Dunedin Stormwater Justice group.]
Poster peril
Three or four of the hopeful council candidates will have a very busy time this week clearing their poster images from George St and other prominent areas.
Voting finishes on Saturday and all advertising must be removed before then.
This could prove to be a most time consuming and difficult job, as these posters appear to be firmly stuck to posts, tiles and some even on empty shop windows.
There are always some uncaring groups of people who continue to stick their posters, or write on once pristine walls, but surely hopeful candidates would have thought carefully before allowing their images to be placed in unwanted areas and add to the mess.
In the future, people who deface other peoples’ areas should be fined and required to remove their mess.
Strategy should have been held for next council
The last Gore District Council meeting approved pursuing an Economic Development Strategy.
The urgency in which staff want this progressed to start on the "important" strategy is overridden by the importance of carrying over this item for the new council to consider post election.
There have been previous attempts at strategic plans and consulting on Gore’s future.
At the end of the day they become worthless when a Mataura Valley Milk or similar comes forward with concrete aligned development that uses our natural resources, provides employment so people come, stay and themselves contribute to social, cultural and sporting activities within.
A strategy doesn’t predict this stuff. GDC is not the Ministry of Social Development.
I believe the council lacks the vision to oversee economic development, and should instead declare the Gore district open for business.
It should stress how Gore has infrastructure, people with initiative and energy to make it happen.
By default, staff become the drivers of the economic development project and the whole exercise becomes a costly waste and they predictably come up with some vacuous narrative that is neither economic or development, but more of a social studies report.
Stand aside and let industry decide whether they invest locally.
There are many positive factors working for the Otago/Southland region presently and no strategy or wasteful ratepayer spending will influence the result.
The resolution should be overturned.
The Greens are achieving zero
Passion about an issue is generally a good thing, but the Greens have surely lost the plot in recent times.
For the leader of a political party to actively consort with those distributing the home address of a politician in order for their homes to be attacked by activists is not only a step too far, but it shows a disturbing lack of perspective.
One of the objectives of protest is to influence change: in the case of Gaza there is no discernible change in that area by supporting, however tacitly, the breaking of a window at a politician’s home. The same for the attention-seeking collection of individuals that staged a flotilla in the Mediterranean.
The Greens might achieve a great deal more by protesting and taking action on the appalling statistics around infanticide and school truancy, but I’m afraid that personal responsibility and accountability is not high on their agenda. It might be more successful than their current trajectory, which is achieving nothing.
Target Hamas
I am forced to the opinion that the Palestine protests are not about any empathy with the Palestinian people. They are aimed at the destruction of Israel. Why else would these protesters fail to call for Hamas to hand back the hostages or to lay down their arms?
The global orchestrated nature of the protest also suggests some organisation is behind it, rather than it being a natural response. Why else would logic be so absent from the argument?
It should be obvious to anyone that if Hamas remains in control then the war will continue because their proclaimed aim is to annihilate Israel and all Jews. Hamas sees a Palestinian state as a stepping stone to the destruction of Israel. Support for Palestine at this stage is simply support for Hamas. That the protestors do not understand that simple fact tells us that their real motive lies elsewhere.
Singapore will support a separate state only when it has an effective government that accepts Israel’s right to exist. Winston Peters was not alone in calling for that.
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