Miscalculations all round

Seems fundraisers for the Splash Centre are pleased with Wanganui's response to a raffle for a RAV4, with 12,000 tickets snapped up in six weeks. Well done the organisers, the many local businesses who helped out, and the people who bought tickets. The Splash Centre will benefit by $21,650 from this magnificent effort.

That only leaves $1,478,350 to be found. As Keith Hindson pointed out back in September, the funding shortfall between the Diva's dream and the fiscal reality requires fundraising of $20,000 a day, not every six weeks.

Meanwhile, faster than the Chron's subeditors can come up with new headlines, a new horse enters the buy-election race, forcing them to start headline recycling. No sooner had "Seventh start for by-election" been forged in lead (they don't actually do that any more - Ed.) than they were relighting the furnace to cast "Eighth hopeful for by-election".

The seventh candidate is Heather Smith, who stood on a Ratepayers' Association ticket at Council election and is a member of Democrats for Social Credit (formerly the Democrats, formerly Social Credit, formerly the Social Credit League, formerly the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (better check that last one - Ed.)).

On the plus side, Ms Smith also had a go at a council seat in the 1990's in a bid to stop the sell-off of public assets and is pledged to oppose any sale of Wanganui Gas. She may be one of the few people who actually understood what Major Douglas was on about, since she has a degree and a post-graduate diploma in economics and is economics convenor for the New Zealand National Council of Women.

Latest entrant is local beautician Chandra Osborne, whom the Chron coyly notes is 25. Oddly enough we wouldn't have a clue how old the other candidates are, not even the redoubtable Mr Hunter-Bell.

She's the owner of Cleopatra's Nails, Beauty and Body Piercing, apparently. We're not sure if back stabbing counts as body piercing, but it would seem she's ideally qualified for a seat at a diVision- heavy Council. And if that's not enough, she served four years in the Navy including a spell in East Timor. No indication so far of where she stands on the issues.

We'd remind all the candidates that the Buy-Election Blog will be up and running soon after nominations close (the exact date to be determined by the amount of Christmas cheer consumed by Watchers, which we suspect will be inversely proportional to motivation levels. That's it, Mickey, send a seasonal carton of Pinot Noir round to the cave and you'll buy some postprandial peace). All the candidates will be receiving by snail mail a formal invitation to contact LawsWatch via lawswatch-at-hotmail-dot-com to arrange their spot on the blog.

And now to Muzza Who (sorry, Hughes), who has obliged the candidates with a column in Midweek showing what not to do when you're elected:

First I will cover representation and agree with the comments of the Mayor (now there's a surprise - Ed.) that we have too many elected representatives. Not only in Wanganui but the whole region. In the Wanganui, South Taranaki, Ruapehu and Rangitikei area there are four mayors, four CEOs, over 70 elected representatives and over 60 senior staff, plus Horizons Regional Council. Amalgamating into one Unitary Authority with a Chairperson rather than a mayor, rural and urban representative from each region, one CEO and say 10 senior managers would produce significant savings but I doubt it will happen.

As for Wanganui, I believe eight councillors would be sufficient. I have served on boards with six directors administering companies with revenue 10 times greater than our City's. My observation is the difference between a well-functioning board and Council is that generally a board will quietly and efficiently work to achieve the best result for the company and stakeholders without all the necessary consultative processes a council must legally go through. Fewer meetings and less debating /arguing could result in a lot more being achieved with ratepayers getting better value.

Ah yes, democracy is so damned inconvenient, isn't it Muzza? Far better that the peasants leave it to those, like you, of clearly superior intellect, to run things for us without all these annoying meetings and all that messy consultation with the rest of us. Sorry, Muzza, we'll just shut up while you spend our rates. Apologies for having inconvenienced you. And of course the boards of our major companies are run so well, and pay their CEOs and senior management such reasonable salaries, we can relax in the knolwedge that following that model will certainly result in those savings you promise.

This brings me to what savings could be achieved by having fewer elected representatives. True, the total salary pool set by the remuneration authority would stay the same unless all those elected unanimously agreed on a reduction. One would hope this could be done but, if not, the savings could be used to better remunerate the Rural Community Board who could be given greater powers as direct rural representation on Council is likely to be reduced to one seat.

Right, so if the turkeys don't vote for an early Christmas, income-wise, we'll achieve these promised savings by paying rural community board members more.

Muzza then goes on to tell us all what we need to do if we're to profit from the Rugby World Cup. We're not too sure what that is, exactly, but we're sure that on the strength of this column, local businesses will just hand over their profits to Muzza and let him sort it out. It's more efficient that way.

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