Why the city should wait

This year was looking reasonably positive for Invercargill and Southland, writes Tim Shadbolt this week.

The rain arrived in the nick of time to save us from a drought, preparations were under way for the world film premiere of Two Little Boys, and Louis Crimp donated $2 million to our new stadium, which will be completed at some stage this year.

Compared with the continued earthquakes in Christchurch, along with a Christchurch City Council meltdown over the chief executive's pay rise, the floods in Fiji, Australia and Nelson, or the debt crisis in Dunedin, we really had little to complain about.

The falling of the euro is a bit of a worry, because it will have a negative impact on the value of our exports, but there's little we can do to solve that problem.

The most gutsy challenge we will face this year is what action we will take in relation to the earthquake-prone buildings in our city.

So far all we have done is send building inspectors around the city for a visual inspection. They have identified 200 buildings with cracks, loose bricks or general neglect and then sent the owners a letter suggesting they should get an engineer's report.

This newspaper is trying to obtain a copy of that list. Fair enough. The guiding principle of most newspapers is that "the public has a right to know".

While the Invercargill City Council also believes in transparency and open government, we are loath to release information that is obviously superficial, if not downright misleading.

Imagine if Invercargill did have an earthquake and people fled from the 200 buildings the council had identified on its list and took shelter in buildings that were not on the council's list, because cosmetically they looked fine, but, in fact, were death traps.

Senior council staff believe our best strategy is to take no action until the Royal Commission Hearings in Christchurch are complete in early April.

This will inevitably lead to Government legislation and then we will undertake the reconstruction of our city.

I know that sitting on your hands and doing nothing seems like a pathetic response and, generally speaking, I believe that when this city has a problem, the council should get stuck in and try to fix it at the earliest opportunity.

On this occasion, however, I support the staff. At present, there are just too many unknowns. We don't know what the findings of the Royal Commission will be, we don't know what the response of the Government will be and we don't know how the insurance companies will react.

I know we like to think we are the masters of our own destiny, but when it comes to earthquakes, volcanoes, floods or tsunamis we have to work in co-operation with the major players.

I did consider attending the Keep the Coal in the Hole festival to debate an alternative point of view, but Newslink (Thursday, January 19) made it quite clear that this festival was not about debate, discussion, or listening to alternative points of view, but was a series of "workshops and non-violent strategies to try to jeopardise Solid Energy's multimillion-dollar coal development plans".

I believe we need multimillion-dollar developments in our region to stop our population decline. Loss of people means school closures and fewer health services because of population-based Government funding.

I also believe the greatest threat to our environment is the growth of Auckland and not economic development in the region.

One of Auckland's most recent residents is, of course, Kim Dotcom, who lives in a $24 million mansion and has 18 cars worth $4.9m. Despite all that wealth, the New Zealand taxpayer is paying for his food and lodgings at Her Majesty's "free boarding house".

Bill Gates was prosecuted three times for unfair trading, but at least he didn't bring all his cars to Auckland. I believe the carbon released by one rush hour in Auckland would cause more environmental damage than all the coal in Mataura combined.

Dotcom's lifestyle may seem bizarre, but it's less outrageous than having one-third of our population crammed into one city so that every rush hour they face virtual gridlock.

I would like to see a forum where all points of view are welcome.

» Tim Shadbolt is the mayor of Invercargill.

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