He Karere Tau Hou 2026 (Happy 2026 New Year) Ki te whānau whānui Māori o Aotearoa, ka tuku atu ngā mihi aroha me ngā kupu whakatenatena mō te tau 2026. Kia kaha, kia māia, kia manawanui. Kia ū ki te kotahitanga, kia whakapakari i ngā hononga, kia tiaki i te reo, i te whenua, i te tangata. Ahakoa ngā wero kei mua i te aroaro, kei roto i a tātou tonu te kaha ki te whakatika, ki te whakakaha, ki te whakatinana i tētahi ao tika ake mō ngā reanga e heke mai nei. Mā te Atua, mā ngā tīpuna, mā te kotahitanga o te iwi, ka taea ngā mea katoa. “He aha te mea nui o te ao? He tangata, he tangata, he tangata.”

Politicians of all stripes have blamed it for much of the country’s ills: the housing crisis, sluggish economic growth, low productivity. This week the government will unveil the latest chapter in the planning regime’s tortured, 40-year-history. Before the RMA came into force in 1991, environmental laws lived in a jumble of separate statutes. The bill’s architects, led by Sir Geoffrey Palmer, imagined a single coherent system built around one unifying principle– sustainable management. Today I wrote to Minister Chris Bushop encouraging him to push ahead forcefully with his RMA reforms. The RMA is killing our whanau and regional development.

“He tau taumaha kua hipa, ā, e tangi tonu ana mō rātou kua wehe ki te pō. Kia tau te rangimārie ki a koutou i tēnei Kirihimete. Kia haumaru, kia koa i te wā me te whānau. Ngā mihi o te Kirihimete, me ngā painga katoa mō te tau hou 2026” “A heavy year has passed, and we continue to grieve those who have departed. May peace be with you this Christmas. Be safe and enjoy this special time with your whānau. Christmas blessings, and every good wish for 2026”

At a time when we see and hear unpreceedented concerns from whanau and communities across the coast and Nation and the announcement from Central Government to Cap rates that are typically 3 to 4 higher than the rate of inflation. This really really grates with whanau particularly when it is revealed from actually council spending over the last 12 months that more than $30 million was expended by Councillors on Consultants and advisors. Today we have written to the Chair of the Bay of Plenty Regional Council requesting information | BOPRC Chief Executive Performance Planning and Review While you and your fellow Councillors provide essential governance oversight of all Regional Council affairs, one of your primary functions is to appoint and direct the Chief Executive to deliver on the best interests of our whanau and communities.  Like with any Governance arrangement, the interface and relationship between the Governors and especially the Chair and the CEO is critical to focusing the entire organisation and its resources to plan for and deliver on the interests of all its shareholders, ratepayers and indeed all stakeholders (ie those issues we have laid out requesting a face to face discussion on).

Our whanau and community strongly support this announcement with nothing obvious being derived by either the Opotiki District Council or Bay of Plenty regional Council. Our landowners and communities have extended a formal invitation to both councils to come and meet face to face with our whanau and Chairs of our land Trusts to discuss our concerns and issues. High amoung our concerns is the constant increases in rates with nothing meaningful being delivered back to our whanau and communities. This last week fro financial expenditure from the 2025 Financial Year for the Bay of Plenty Regional Council we learn that an eye-watering $30+ million was spent by the Regional Council on consultants and other advisors with an addition $10 million expended on duplicated costs to the Rotorua, Kawerau, Whakatane and Opotiki District Councils. And unbelievably more than $100,000 was spent on Office Stationary in the last 12 months.

Yesterday the Government announced its proposals to simplify local Government. Something we as landowners and communities on the Eastcoast strongly support. Local government matters. It shapes the places we live, the local services we rely on and makes decisions that affect us every day. But the system we have today isn’t working as well as it should. We don’t need yet another report or a review to tell us that local government needs to change. A month ago we wrote to Minister of Local Government Hon. Simon Watts setting our concerns as local whanau and communities advovating for Central Government reform of Local Government. We further wrote to Minister of Regional Development Hon. Shane Jones laying out how Regional Councils and the Resource Management Act were the single biggest barrier to regional development destroying opportunity for $Billions in new Annual regional GDP and 1,000's of new jobs wasting 10 years of time to get a Resource Consent.