Mike Butler: Uproar at airport’s new Maori name

Hawke’s Bay residents were hostile to the news, on Monday, that their airport would be known as the Ahuriri Airport Hawke’s Bay to satisfy a request from treaty settlement claimants Mana Ahuriri.

The name-change (the latest in a series that includes Whanganui, Te Wai Pounamu, Te Ika a Maui, Aoraki Mount Cook and Taranaki Mount Egmont) prompted comments on the Hawke’s Bay Today newspaper website like “why change the name? If it aint broke, don’t fix it” and “Again, NZ panders to a minority group of radicals.

Mike Butler: 63 percent oppose amalgamation

A Consumerlink poll shows that Hawke’s Bay voters are 63 percent against amalgamating the five councils in the region. Over the past week Consumerlink asked 985 voters whether they would vote for or against a proposal for a Hawke's Bay Council to cover Napier city, Wairoa, Hastings, and Central Hawke's Bay, which would take over the responsibilities of the Hawke's Bay Regional Council, and have five local boards and a Maori board, with headquarters in Napier.

To reflect the proportion of voters in each district, 473 responses were sought from Hastings as 47.3 percent of the total population of the region, 426 from Napier, 58 from Wairoa and 42 from Central Hawke’s Bay.