Commission Hears Evidence On Proposal For Including Wainui In Whakatane County Area

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 43, 4 May 1948, Page 5

Commission Hears Evidence On Proposal For Including Wainui In Whakatane County Area

The Commission consisted of :Mr Justice Goldstine, Messrs J. W. Andrews and W. E. C. i George, with Mr F. B. Stephens .as secretary. Appearing for the Whakatane County Council was .Mr T. E. Hamerton and Mr N. V. Hodgson'presented the case : for Opofiki. Opening proceedings His Honour the points at issue. He said -the inquiry had arisen out of a petition signed by ratepayers whose properties were situated within the area in question being presented to the Whakatane County Council, which ; passed a resolution in favour of ac- . ceding to the prayer of the petition. The proposed alteration was referred to the Opotiki County Council which objected to it, but submitted .a counter-proposal for an amended .alteration of boundaries, involving .a smaller area than that originally proposed in the petition. This coun-ter-proposal was not acceptable to the petitioners and in due course 'the Whakatane County Council presented a petition to the Governor- - General requesting that the alteration of boundaries originally proposed in the petition be given effect to.

Whakatane County’s Case Stating the case for the Whakatane County Council, Mr Hamerton .said that the ratepayers in the area concerned had three reasons for their petition to the Whakatane County Council, the first being the condition of the roads. The reading situation had always been bad and .a constant source of hardship' to all the settlers and, because the ratepayers thought that the Whakatane Council would give them a more symyathetic’ hearing than had been given them by the Opotiki Council in pursuing the' proposed Wainui ;Deviation. Ratepayers in the district also felt that they had' not been fairly treated by the Opotiki County Council in many "respects of the roading position. Secondly, the area under discussion was small and compact and yet was divided under two local authorities, and members of the Settlers Association were unanimous in their decision that this did not make for the progress and the unity of their area.

Their third reason, Mr Hamerton concluded, was the community of interest that Wainui had with Whakatane. All the! telephones in the in the district were linked to the Whakatane exchange, the majority of the settlers did most of their business in Whakatane and have very little community of interest with ■Opotiki. Evidence of Settlers Mr T. Burke, farmer of Wainui, gave evidence that the first meeting of the body that presented the petition was held in 1933 for the purpose of promoting the affairs of the community. The proportion of settlers that were in the Whakatane and Opotiki , Counties was approxi 7 mately 2 to 1 and the community of interest was all in the Whakatane area. Realising that the roading system as it was would always be poor, the Settlers’ Association with P.W'.D. and local body representatives had inspected an allweather route known as the Wainui Deviation and the last time Mr Semple was in the district he had said that it was a No. 1 priority road job. Considering that inclusion in the Whakatane County, was for the good of the whole community, petition was circulated by the Settler’s Association and sent to the Whakatane County Council. After the Opotiki County Council had considered the proposal, it sent back .a counter-scheme that would give the Whakatane County Council a smaller area that was of no rateable value yet on which the Whakatane Council had to do the most work. The Settler’s Association still adhered to the view expressed in the petition. ' Mr/ J. H. Sax and Mr A. W. L. Bradshaw, both farmers, corroborated Mr Burke’s statements and Mr Sax added that he thought that the opposition from the Opotiki County Council was directed to some controlling interests that could see that the construction of the deviation would cause them a considerable loss by the people travelling to Whakatane to do their business. Mr C. Li. White also backed up Mr Burke’s statement.

Another witness. Mr H. Ngamoki, alleged that he had met Mr Upton, Opotiki County Engineer, in Opotiki and that Mr Upton had asked Rim and his father-in-law into his

Evidence covering the pros and cons of the proposed inclusion of the Wainui settlement on the western shores of the Ohiwa Harbour in the Whakatane County instead of the Opotiki County was heard by the Local Government Commission on Friday. 1 The question arose out of the settlers’ having petitioned the Whakatane County Council to take their area under its jurisdiction, a proposal to which the Opotiki Council had objected, putting forward a counter-proposition for an .alternative boundary adjustment giving the Whakatane County a smaller area in the same general locality* ,

office and had asked them both to sign a paper. After this he asked them to go around with him to all the other Maori farmers and persuade them to sign the paper so that Mr Upton could use it as a counter petition to that compiled by the Settler’s Association. Asked what happened to that paper, he said it had been lost. County Clerk’s Evidence

Mr C. G. Lucas, Whakatane County Clerk and secretary of the Whakatane Harbour Board, pointed out the advantages to a small, compact settlement Wainui of unified control. He also showed that Whakatane was closer for most of the people in the district than Opotiki and was their main shopping centre, but the greater part of his evidence concerned the place of Wainui in tfie Whaaktane County’s endeavour to have the main highway deviated via Ohiwa and Ohope beach and through Wainui. That proposition also had a bearing on a Harbour Board proposal to establish an outport at Ohiwa. Opotiki Point of View

Opotiki was prepared to concede the smaller area which it had offered and which it believed gave the Whakatane County and Harbour Board all they needed, declared Mr N. V. Hodgson, counsel for the Opotiki County. It would be agreed there was community of interest between Whakatane and the Wainui settlers, he said, but that also applied to Opotiik. Development Scheme?

He suggested this was part of a major Whakatane development scheme. For some years there had been something of a tug-o-war between ' the Whakatane Borough (with support from the County in the background) and the Opotiki County and Borough as to where the state highway from Rotorua should go. Opotiki favoured the Taneatua route; but Whakatane wanted the highway through Whakatane and Ohope. That idea fitted with what he believed to be the ambitions of the Whakatane County and Harbour Board. Even so, what Opotiki had offered on this occasion would give all that Whakatane interests needed.

Mr M. Stone, Opotiki County Clerk, said in his evidence that the Opotiki County did not know of any of the petitioners’ grievances so that it could only learn of them in the course of the negotiations between the two counties. His Council disputed the right of some ,of the petitioners to sign the petition, on the grounds that they had not payed their rates. ' Mr W. M. Gault, Opotiki County Chairman, said that Mr Burke, the sponsor of the petition had told him that, provided the deviation went through 'he did not care which County he was in. Asked by the secretary, Mr Stephens, if anybody ever been refused county work when it had been asked for,, Mr Gault said never to his knowledge. He also said that the Opotiki County Council would be quite prepared to include the whole of the Wainui settlement in its area if requested to do so.