Local Opinion

Looking ahead to Christmas

As Community Liaison Officer, I am not only based at Cambridge station, but also part of the wider Western Waikato Police prevention team. This team is composed of other community liaison officers, school and community…

Fieldays spring back 

Next week our roads will be under strain as drivers will arrive at – and depart from – a warmer edition of Fieldays. That annual – now in its 54th year – event that brings…

What’s Wrong with the Public Sector? 

Two reports I saw this week reinforced how poor the performance of the New Zealand public sector is these days. First, a warning of widespread failings in the public accountability of government agencies. In an…

Supporting events: explaining our role

About 30 years ago I helped organise sponsorship for what was then the richest football tournament in Waikato. We recruited sponsors and encouraged our Tokoroa club members to support the people who supported us. That…

The bullies who follow

As I write this column, I have joined the ranks of those who’ve had to isolate due to Covid-19. Anecdotally, there seems to be a bit of it going around again. The experience certainly reminded…

All hail the Black Ferns 

The Oxford dictionary defines ‘sport’ as – an activity involving physical exertion and skills in which an individual or a team competes against another or others for entertainment. Several key words leap out from that…

Open day – and taggers tagged

What a great turn out we had at the Cambridge station community engagement day on Saturday. See: Full house at Police Station I hope everyone enjoyed looking inside our new base.  I was hanging out…

Inflation is out of control 

Mervyn King, a former Governor of the Bank of England, said publicly in late October that ‘central banks have lost control of inflation’. I agree. All central banks were very slow to take action to…

Road safety… and we’re engaging

You will have seen publicity around the reduction in the speed limit from 100 kph down to 80kph on part of State Highway 1 near Hickey Road. If you have driven it since then, you…

Communications break down…

A review discussing how to make local government more relevant to people has itself highlighted a glaring communications’ failure. The Department of Internal Affairs informed national media and Government funded local democracy reporters about the…

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