Walk The Line

Lying in bed on such a marvellous morning as this I was hard pressed to find any reason to rise and do battle with the political has-beens, wanna-bes and never-will-bes who inhabit Rodney here north of Auckland. But there are reasons—good ones: my boss John Law is often challenging but always invigorating; his PA Vicki Shanley is glorious, gracious and totally devoid of veneer. Today there is also the prospect of a leisurely drive to the wine country of Matakana, and later a few drinks with crusty old journos who by 7.00 tonight will have solved all the ills of the world. So, it is not all bad.

Nevertheless, this week I was mortified. And before anybody such as .33 rushes to say that is an inevitable consequence of getting married, let me say it was something to do with Rodney. As many of you know, I work for the Rodney District Council, and each year we at the council poll our residents to find out what they think of us. This year we did well on the provision of services such as libraries, parks etc; quality of life in Rodney scored rather well too; our mayor (John Law) scored highly.

But in the attitude and behaviour of council we did less well. As a governing body, we instilled little confidence in the community. Our administration was perceived as lacking and our general administration not up to scratch. Of course there are arguments in rebuttal to this, and one can question some of the methodology of the poll. Also and even so such a poll is valuable in highlighting deficiencies and giving us improvement goals to work toward.

So, why am I upset; why am I traumatised? I am because of one single line in the report. One line of 7 words, 33 characters. It nearly destroyed me. It is this:

“Overall, you did less well than Hamilton.”