5th September 2019

Earlier this year on February 2019 we posted this article;

“Government is being stymied by bureaucrats”

February 15, 2019

Press Release – Citizens Environmental Advocacy Centre

This week we saw salvation army releasing their state of the nation report that showed that Jacindas vision of a Kinder gentler caring Government is not being nurtured by the bureaucrats who still have an iron grip on government …Citizens Environmental Advocacy Centre In’c.

“Government is being stymied by bureaucrats over health care, transport, and trades training”.

Seven months later it appears over-reach by bureaucratic control is still slowing our Government function and role in completing policies to improve our ‘health and wellbeing’.

So far this week, - two issues arose;

• 1/ it was announced in a report that the ‘health services for disabled’ is not reaching ‘adequate services’ to ensure the health and wellbeing of all citizens’.
•
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/checkpoint/audio/2018711682/nz-health-disability-system-fragmented-complicated-report

Quote; New Zealand's health and disability system is fragmented, overly complicated, and lacking in leadership.

That's the finding of an interim report of the government's review of the system. It doesn't have any specific recommendations, but highlights some key areas where change is needed, including raising questions about the roles and number of District Health Boards.

• 2/ Also in the second report is showing that there was an unacceptable slow release of funding from the (PGF) “Provincial Growth Fund” unit, and the report said that only a fraction of the “committed” funding had actually been distributed so far although Quote “over half of the $3 billion has been committed’.
•
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/389116/more-than-half-of-provincial-growth-fund-now-committed

This was the Coalition Government promise made to us all in HB/Gisborne on February 2018 for rail in HB/Gisborne.

https://www.labour.org.nz/provincial_growth_fund

QUOTE; “The government will give $5m to KiwiRail to reopen the Wairoa-to-Napier train line, which it says will take more than 5000 trucks off the road each year.”

Our CEAC response; to Shane; No trains are yet running - where are they?

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/351093/back-on-track-chunk-of-60m-regional-fund-goes-to-rail

We’re boosting tourism and forestry opportunities in Gisborne and Hawke’s Bay.

• Investing in Gisborne and Hawke’s Bay to immediately boost tourism and forestry opportunities.

• Redeveloping Gisborne Inner Harbour.

• Funding a programme to commemorate the first encounters between Māori and Europeans.

• Kick-starting the creation of a $20 million Wood Processing Centre of Excellence in Gisborne, which will create 167 jobs.

• Backing KiwiRail to reopen the Wairoa-Napier line for logging trains.

Our CEAC response; to Shane; “we want some funding to be earmarked for the restoration of all rail services provided, especially all the way back to Gisborne not just half way along the rail line, Gisborne needs a full rail “service between both Provinces, and cutting off one province from rail to the next province is a foolish idea.

Both these stalled policies graphically show what we highlighted last February, that a slow almost stalled pace of change is still present today, and we blame bureaucrats as being responsible for disrupting in delivering Government policy.

Our centre was shocked that to see that the Government has yet to ‘call time on these bureaucratic mishandlings’ and dismiss these who are not doing their job to assist in our provincial projects that our communities are seeking action on.

‘Public servants’ of which these bureaucrats are means that they should do the job of what their employer (the public) expects of them.

This is the ‘year of delivery’ stated the Government so please get the RGF sorted out as our East Coast HB/Gisborne provincial rail system now needs to be restored to services after seven years of being mothballed by an errant national Government under the mistakes made that caused flooding and damage to our rail by ‘redirecting’ the funding to Auckland so we lost track maintenance staff funding in 2011 by then Minister of Transport Steven Joyce.

A note to the Auditor general John Ryan;

• In our bullet point 2/ Quote “over half of the $3 billion has been committed’.
•
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/389116/more-than-half-of-provincial-growth-fund-now-committed

We want to make it clear to the Auditor General John Ryan (see link above) who ordered a review of the Provincial Development Unit and MBIE officials who were told to improve the management of the fund auditing the PGF to understand the following here;

• That was the last National Government in 2011 through their “Minister of Transport” Steven Joyce, who was responsible for the multimillion dollar damage to our rail washout who should be blamed for the cost and resulting loss of our economic fortunes and decline to have caused the closure of our rail line.

• So we want Auditor general John Ryan to also review National Government operations in 2011/12 who caused the resulting loss of our Gisborne/HB Provincial rail.

• Auditor general John Ryan to carry out an ‘environmental impact assessment report’ with an audit of the ‘loss/cost’ of the economic opportunities so the Provincial Development Unit and MBIE officials must now put the rail service back in operation to improve the HB/Gisborne management of both our transport and economy, after national destroyed our future prospects without rail.

These are the driving force why our HB/Gisborne community strongly requests this Government needs to restore our Rail in Napier to Gisborne to make our economy flourish again after years of stagnation, and lower truck damage and dangers on our regional roads.

End.

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