Mayoral candidates 'Good record in period of sanity and stability' – Mr Hay

Press, 5 October 1977, Page 32

Mayoral candidates 'Good record in period of sanity and stability' - Mr Hay

Other Mayoral candidates can criticise all they want, but the Mayor of Christchurch (Mr Hamish Hay) does not mind standing on the record of his council — he thinks it is a good one considering the financial troubles it inherited. Those troubles stemmed partly from the past Labour council, and partly from a Government unwilling to give much help to local body projects outside pensioner housing and urban renewal. “I think we have had a period of stability and sanity in local government," Mr Hay said. “That has been brought about by a hard-working team that has been prepared to get on with the job.

“One achievement of the present City Council has to be that it has gotten rid of the divisiveness and acrimony of • the past council.”

He had the impression that there was not a high degree of interest in the election campaign. There was the customary low turnout of people attending meetings, and few letters to the newspapers apart from those written by the candidates. “I think this indicates a general state of satisfaction with our general administration,” Mr Hay said. If there were widespread controversy, there would be more visible signs of it. “To an extent, I suppose it is shrewd electioneering to give the impression that Christchurch is highly dissatisfied,” he said. “The main source of it is the terrible weather we have had lately. But even Mr Clark (the Labour Mayoral candidate) can’t correct this, though he might give that impression at times.”

Mr Hay said experience was an important factor in the election of a mayor, no matter how much the other candidates tried to downplay it. He had been a councillor for 15 years before seeking the mayoralty three years ago, had been chairman of the Town Hall Board since its start and had served as

Christchurch An.s Festival chairman for nine years.

“Mr Clark can talk about leadership, but I can point to my record,” he said.

During the present council, there had been a “harmonious effort to implement policies,” he added, “and certainly not one with a strong political motivation. 1 am not essentially a political person.”

He had been accessible to all the people, and had not hesitated to go out into the community to see them at work and play. Overseas, he had been expected to be the city’s ambassador, and enjoyed that part of the job. At home, an important role of the Mayor was to represent the city well at public functions.

He had to be the city’s main public relations officer, as well as the complaints officer. He had worked long hours, and was not frightened of hard work.

Although Citizens’ Association and Labour Party policies might have seemed to be similar in the past, there were “significant indications in the Labour policy that show a changing emphasis in their philosophy for Christchurch.” That was partly an indication of the influence of more radical party members. For example, they wanted the council to get strongly involved in trading enterprises normally run by private interests.

“They want the council to take over too much in our lives,” Mr Hay said. “The Labour people are obviously hatching up something that smacks to me of pretty rank socialist philosophy.” For example, they were intent on the idea proposed this term of loading rating on residences of over $50,000 in value, as well as the new loading on businesses. “I would like to see more assistance from central Government so that our finances could be based more on the ability to pay.” he said. “But I view with some concern the stated desire to impose an extra levy on higher value houses.”

Rates were already unfair enough in their reliance strictly on property values. Many residential ratepayers had spent years improving their properties, and watched their values soar simply because of inflation. They would be concerned about a higher differential rating levy being placed on them. “It is one thing imposing a differential on businesses with tax deductibility.” Mr Hay said. “And let us never forget the significant number of ratepayers who get relief through rai.es rebates. That recognises their income position." Even without Labour councillors pushing the issue, "some element of differential rating undoubtedly would have come in,” he said. “But if they had had their way, it would have been a more severe form.” There was room each year to review the rating formula to see if it was fair enough, but if the trend towards allowing rates deductions on income tax continued, there might be less need for changing the formula. The present tax rebate of $25 was too low, and the council should keep pressing for a higher one. In terms of increasing community participation in local government, Mr Hay said, he would like to see more non-elected residents on committees where the'- could offer specialist advice.

“There is something to be said for that,” he said. “It happens a lot in America.” There could also be more use of residents’ associations, but his council and officers had always been available to go out to the neighbourhoods and explain policies or projects which would affect them. But he was wary of setting up community councils which would ultimately make their own decisions.

“I am all for an adequate liaison with established organisations, and we have an obligation to discuss things that would affect them,” he said. “But at the same time, the City Council is elected every three years to govern the affairs of the city. If we went too far towards Labour’s idea, we would never make any decisions, because we would keep going back to community councils not elected by the people to make decisions. But by all means, there must be art adequate dialogue.” He would not be against the idea of providing some council funds that would help residents’ associations do their work, but he said the initiative to set up representative groups should not come from the council. It should come from the community. “I would like to feel that more residents’ organisations would actually come to council meetings,” he added “But you cannot force them.”

Also, such organisations could sometimes be “just little training grounds for localy body aspirants, and not truly representative of a community.” Mr Hay said his council had been accused of placing ar, emphasis ort balancing the books, “but a city has got to live within its income. The troubles we inherited were because the previous council had not balanced their books. Fortunately, we managed to get through the difficulties."

But the present council bad also “had a very liberal attitude to its priorities,” he added. It had spent far more than anyone expected on social welfare activities, and on libraries and reserves.

“Maybe we have not spent as much as many people would have liked on road maintenance,” he said, but figures substantiated that a lot of money had beer? spent. The same amount of pliysical work could not be done because of steady inflation, and some jobs had included important reconstruction. such as in Madras Street, because of swampy conditions. But carriageway maintenance and sealing of streets had increased by 65 per cent during the term, footpath maintenance and sealing was up by 84 per cent, and street cleaning was up by 56 per cent.

The council had pressed hard for more National Roads Board money, but it had also shown its willingness to do something about the streets without outside help by spending more than $300,000 without subsidies.

Rates and charges had gone up suddenly at first because the Citizens council had to correct unrea-listically-low rises during the Labour term. “We realise that rates have gone up substantially,” Mr Hay said. “But we had to catch up in the first year. In the year before we took office, the Labour council had a 5500.000 sale of sections election bribe to keep election year rates

from going up realistically.” There was no more land for the Citizens to sell, even if they had wanted to, but their philosophy was that such sales were not sound financial management.

“That put 10 per cent on our rates in the first year without any other factor, and inflation alone would have added another 10 per cent,” he said. The previous council had also failed to review charges regularly, making the first rise a big one. They were now reviewed each year. The "user pays” principle for some facilities was only realistic, since it eased the burden of paying for those facilities for ratepayers who might not use them. The present council faced some uncertainty over the financing of the Centennial Park sports stadium, but still hoped to pay for the bulk of it through sale of properties which were no longer needed. Those negotiations were proceeding. “We did say we would use, if necessary, some reserves contributions,” Mr Hay said. “But until we complete those negotiations, we will not know how much has to be called on. Don’t forget, much of Q.E. II Park was financed that way. In another part of the city, the council had corrected another Labour financial mistake by converting the former Kirklands housing proposal in Bexley to an employment zone.

“I think it will be a very desirable development,” he said. “It could be like the one in Wairakei Road. I think everyone has done a good job out there.

“I think it is a function of the council to stimulate industrial and commercial development of a city, to ensure there are jobs for people.”

As far as rubbish recycling was conerned, perhaps planners of the metropolitan landfill and transfer stations had not made it clear that recycling was implicit in the scheme.

There was enough flexibility in the system to allow for recycling of materials when it proved feasible, and would not be a major added cost to ratepayers. Critics of the new landfill were saying that traditional dumping of rubbish was only throwing things away without coming up with anything useful in return.

That was not true, Mr Hay said. Many recreation areas in the city had originally been rubbish tips, such as Spreydon’s Centennial Park and Hansens Park in Opawa, which will be developed. When it was closed, the Bexley tip would be converted into a golf course, with additional recreational areas.

Eventually, the new landfill west of Waimairi Beach would be used partly for recreation, and partly for forestry. “The whole rubbish operation will cost us a lot more than in the past,” Mr Hay said. “They (Labour candidates) really do not know the facts, and are very glib about the financial implications — as they are in many aspects of their policy.” Labour candidates had a tendency not to - pay close enough attention to costs, “but somebody has to pay for it,” he said. “It is folly to think they are going to get a lot of handouts from the Government." The present council had tried to get more help from that direction, but the Government so far had only been realistic in financing of pensioner housing and some urban renewal projects.

“Successive Govern* merits have been approached, but it is a long, uphill battle.” Mr Hay said. Local governments should at least be getting a share of taxation to help them out of financial difficulties. He did not agree that other parties could have done any better in their lobbying for more help. “They would have done worse," he said. “We have strongly represented our views to the Government, both through direct and indirect approaches. Various Ministers are very familiar with our needs. “I think we have been quite notable for our willingness to criticise the present Government. That just shows how independent we are.”

Other parties also had to face reality on library costs. While Labour was calling for free popular reading, which would add about $67,000 more to rates, they were ignoring higher library costs which would be faced with a new building.

“Our library bills will go up substantially compared to the present,” Mr

Hay said. “That is just a fact of life.”

Personally, he would like to see an agreement that all metropolitan local authorities would share in the costs of a central library.

Mr Hay said he was pleased about the recent agreement on a marae site for the city, and the council would do its best to help the Maoris gain subsidies for it.

The previous council had “made a few polite noises” about a site, but then offered one the Maoris did not want.