The Local Government Minister is questioning why patched members of a gang were able to wear their regalia inside a council building when a ban is in force.
The Hawke’s Bay Regional Council faces backlash over a Facebook post featuring photos of patched gang members celebrating the decision in its council chambers to retain its Māori constituencies.
On Wednesday, in what was described as a “significant step towards ensuring Māori representation”, the council voted unanimously to keep its Māori wards. This means there will be a binding poll at the next local government elections in 2025.
But the Facebook post released by the council soon after featuring photos of patched gang members celebrating the decision has been met with frustration from Simeon Brown, who is surprised a current patch ban was not enforced at a meeting.
Members of the public also hit the comment section with concerns about the presence of gang members in the meeting.
Members of the public will be grateful that they will get to decide the issue in a secret ballot, rather than have the final decision made at a Council meeting with patched gang members in attendance to support one particular view.
The Hawke’s Bay Regional Council justified its decision in the Facebook comments.
“We acknowledge that seeing gang paraphernalia can be distressing to some people, and we appreciate your feedback on our post,” it said.
“Regional Council meetings are open to all members of the public and our post is a factual record of this meeting. We do not have the authority to exclude members of the public who are following our meeting rules.”
This is nonsense. If a dozen people tried to enter the meeting naked, the Council would not allow them to do so. The Council does have the authority to tell people that they must be dressed in accordance with the law, to enter. Bars do this every day.
David Farrar runs Curia Market Research, a specialist opinion polling and research agency, and the popular Kiwiblog where this article was sourced. He previously worked in the Parliament for eight years, serving two National Party Prime Ministers and three Opposition Leaders.
6 comments:
It's nice to see who our overlords will be under co-governance.
The minister should get rid of race based wards now. There will only be more of this nonsense if we have to wait another year.
David, keep up the great work. The far left rot is everywhere. Clearly this council has a certain agenda and democracy is not part of it. Ignoring the law is a 2 lingered salute to the good people.
Once again, here is a group of people, let's call them the Hawkes bay regional council who want to keep a race based agenda in place.
Let's keep up the pressure and hold these racists to account. Let's also remind them, who voted these racists in and lets not do it again.
Keep highlighting these people David, we need to know the truth.
Seems to me that when threatening audiences attend councillors should vote in permanent secrecy. if greta care was taken to keep secret, the terrifying cancellation threat would be much diminished.
I would like to know how many on the council voted to retain the wards because they were afraid.
Yes, the Minister should get shot of them but the public service staff who drafted the bill to reverse the situation denied the Country swift justice. It is appalling that Councils are choosing to maintain these wards that were brought in following Nanaia Mahuta's disgraceful trashing of democracy, which removed the right for ratepayers to demand a referendum. The Select Committee process failed to reverse the situation with the same speed that Labour brought in the change to legislation and that shows a weakness in the process. It is beyond comprehension that our Councils are being allowed to keep these wards until 2028, irrespective of the outcome of any referendum. This level of hysteresis is not something to be proud of on any level. That aside, because it is water under the bridge in this instance, it would be great to see some direct action by PM Luxon et al to ensure that the Councils are brought into line with the wishes of the current government and stop wasting our ratepayer funds on ridiculous, idealistic challenges to the government's authority. We put the coalition into power to redress the awful wrongs perpetrated by the previous Labour Government and while we see progress, it is rather like two steps forward and one back all the time.
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