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My Policies

Hawke’s Bay needs strong environmental bottom-lines to protect it for future generations, support for residents to respond to climate change, and certainty for primary producers so they can continue to innovate and generate the returns that underpin our community.

Read on below to find out where I stand on climate action, clean streams, water security, regional parks, economic development, cost control and support for environment volunteers.

Climate Action

Climate Action needs to be our top priority. We need to prioritise actions that improve our climate resilience whilst maintaining and improving our community’s living standards.

  • Better local living: better recreational access to streams and rivers, more cycling, better public transport

  • Healthy homes: support for solar installation and energy efficiency

  • Future-proofing Hawke’s Bay’s water supplies through efficient water use and best-practice water infrastructure (including storage)

  • Flood control to 1 in 500 year standard, continuing the current programme of stopbank improvements

  • Support for targeted reafforestation - the ‘right tree in the right place’

  • Biodiversity enhancement – protecting and enhancing our most threatened ecosystems and species, bringing nature back into town

  • Biosecurity - prioritising vertebrate pest control (opossums & feral mammals) to allow our forests and birds to recover

  • Promoting climate-friendly tourism development

  • Support for recycling and the circular economy

Clean Streams

We need strong, ambitious limits on water quality and quantity that drive environmental improvements while also supporting jobs, community wellbeing, and food and fibre production.

  • Ambitious but achievable environmental bottom lines, with certainty for primary producers, urban communities and consent holders

  • Ongoing focus on soil erosion in our steeper hillcountry, to keep excess soil and contaminants out of our rivers and streams

  • Support for regenerative agriculture and horticulture, as ways of farming that support a pragmatic choice of methods whilst growing healthier soils, keeping soil out of streams and increasing drought-tolerance.

Water Security

We need to move from talking to action, the current paralysis in Heretaunga water quality and water security serves no-one.

  • Support for distributed high-flow storage – a network of small-medium scale dams to augment summer flows and provide room for growth

  • Support for urban rainfall capture and greywater recycling schemes

  • Water use efficiency standards - encouraging large water users and suppliers to improve water infrastructure to reduce wastage

  • Opt-in schemes for targeted rural rates to fund stream shading and flow augmentation on the Heretaunga Plains

Regional Parks

We need more opportunities to enjoy the Hawke's Bay environment whilst building biodiversity.

  • Supporting regional park developments at Ahuriri and Waitangi

  • Investigating further opportunities to improve public access to our fabulous Hawke's Bay's outdoors – potential new regional parks, improving recreational access to rivers and streambanks and creating connectivity between public spaces

  • Preserving more areas for indigenous biodiversity protection and enhancement

Economic Development

We need climate-smart economic development that heals not hurts the environment.

  • Setting environmental bottom lines, then focusing on doing more with less to create headroom for growth

  • Protecting versatile soils of the Heretaunga Plains from urban creep

  • Supporting climate-smart innovation and value-add

  • Helping guide Hawke’s Bay tourism to a more local and sustainable focus – creating the environment to encourage kiwis to holiday closer to home and for international guests to stay longer and have the chance to give back to the environment

Cost Control

HBRC is the logical home of many region-wide projects that are best funded collectively, however we need to rein in recent unsustainable increases in general rates.

  • General rates increases capped to no more than the Consumer Price Index

  • Targeted rates and debt funding for capital works - using the strong balance sheet of HBRC to debt-fund projects that invest in a better future, whilst taking responsibility for a fair share now of the cost of climate change adaptation

  • Making hard informed choices with our community on our priorities

Support for HB's dedicated environment volunteers

The protection and enhancement of our environment depends on the goodwill and voluntary support of a legion of our local residents. They deserve better recognition and support from Hawke’s Bay Regional Council.

  • Dedicated fund to assist with environment group administration costs – insulating them from impending additional costs of operating incorporated societies

  • Funding for mana whenua representation required for planning processes, recognising the enormous burden on a small number of volunteers exercising an essential kaitiaki function

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