Govt highlights benefits for Tauranga in funding deal – but (in smaller type) beneficiaries learn they must repay the debt

Buzz from the Beehive

Geography, ethnicity and your occupation will determine the extent to which you might benefit from the latest hamper of goodies to be distributed by the Beehive.

But be warned. Being a beneficiary may result in levies being imposed.

Roughly interpreting the latest announcements, the beneficiaries are (or appear to be)- 

• Tauranga people (but there’s a taxing sting in the tail); 
• Homeless families in Tauranga’s suburbs (but not many and they must be Maori);   
• Rural people living in just some parts of the country and engaged in the right work;
• A few favoured food and fibre producers;
• An even more select group – some Maori businesses in the primary sector;  
• People needing mental health services (but they must live in the Gisborne area).

The press statements don’t put it quite that  way, of course: 

Anne Tolley gets it in the neck from riled ACT candidate (and is likened to Marie Antoinette) in Tauranga byelection manoeuvres

The unelected head of Tauranga wants the city’s next MP to push for progress with some infrastructural projects.

We speak of Anne Tolley, the former National Government Minister who chairs the commission which was appointed to govern Tauranga after Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta sacked the democratically elected – but vexingly dysfunctional – city council.

News of the commission’s developmental priorities reached Point of Order via a robustly expressed press statement from the ACT Party’s candidate in the Tauranga byelection, Cameron Luxton..

But the press statement whetted our appetite to delve deeper into the commission’s wishlist – or demands – because Cameron Luxton colourfully reminds us of the fate that befell Marie Antoinette.

Attention is drawn to the ethnicity of Tauranga’s MPs (Maori) for more than three decades …

We are grateful to David Farrar for drawing attention to something we overlooked in our report yesterday on the Maori Party’s reason(s) for not standing a candidate in the upcoming by election.   On Kiwiblog today, he reports:

So Tauranga is unsafe for Maori!

Stuff reports:

Te Pāti Māori says it considered standing a candidate in the Tauranga by-election, but opted not to over concerns about safety and racism in the region.

Party president Che Wilson said racism and hate speech in Tauranga made it a “safety issue” for the party to participate in the upcoming by-election.

Astonishing that Tauranga is so unsafe for Maori as it has had a Maori MP for 35 of the last 38 years!

While we are on this topic, did any of the nation’s political journalists ask Wilson why the party did not stand a candidate in that seat in the 2020 general election?