Pen pushers drive provinces to the brink

and environmental health”, yet the civil servants at EPA are milking it for all it is worth.

As ACT agricultural spokesperson Mark Cameron pointed out, it is totally unacceptable that Bovaer has languished at the EPA for two and a half years. I agree.

The reality is that farmers are under pressure to reduce emissions and Bovaer can assist with that – but the approval process is languishing in a faceless bureaucracy.

Then there’s Land Transport NZ or Waka Kotahi (LTNZ). In the provinces roading has become a shambles, much of it caused by inclement weather compounded by bureaucratic stupidity.

I’VE reached peak irritation with the Wellington bureaucracy. It seems many have little to do except sit at their desks and figure ways they can irritate the productive provinces with countless and irrelevant rules and regulations.

That’s compounded by the fact there is a distinct lack of either rural or provincial experience in either the senior management teams or the boards of many organisations.

By their decisions they lack any knowledge of life in the provinces. It appears to us that there are these huge faceless, amorphous, gold-plated bureaucracies that justify their existence by casting their pearls of wisdom to the ignorant swine in the rest of the country.

In Wairarapa, State Highway 2 between Carterton and Masterton is a mess.

LTNZ “consulted” with the locals and then totally ignored all local input.

Hinakura is a productive rural hamlet to the East of Martinborough. Floods took the road out, isolating the community. They can currently get out, but it takes a lot more time on substandard roads that are unsuitable for heavy vehicles and are often closed.

Locals tell me it’s a pain in the butt getting stock in and out. Getting services is impossible and kids’ education is suffering.

The road is going to cost $14 million to fix but LTNZ isn’t interested as it claims it doesn’t represent value for money. It wouldn’t know.

Putting that cost in perspective, it is but a drop in the ocean compared with the $62m goldplated advertising campaign for the misguided Road to Zero promotion.

A for incompetence for former transport minister Michael Wood. Which brings me to KiwiRail. It recently came to Wairarapa with the news that it is going to close several road crossings, meaning infinitely less access across both Masterton and Carterton. Its official reason was safety, which is pure rubbish as there haven’t been any crashes on the crossings deemed for closure. In typical Wellington-centric fashion it didn’t tell the local councils but put letters in boxes informing residents of its misguided proposals.

KiwiRail comes across as a complete shower. Trains don’t run and are rarely on time.

You’d think that climate change would encourage efficient, convenient public transport but KiwiRail obviously missed that bit.

As with LTNZ, its board has no obvious provincial expertise and, by its record, deserves an A for irrelevance. The organisation itself certainly qualifies for an A for incompetence.

So, in summary, we’re suffering greatly in the provinces because of an arrogant lack of understanding from the Wellington bureaucracy, a corporate jackboot approach that would do a dictator proud, governance that lacks practical provincial experience, all combined all with a degree of ministerial incompetence. It needs to change.