Waimea Weekly
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Your Community Newspaper
Wednesday 9 April 2014
Celebrating 50 years
Wakefield to miss out
Page 6
Nelson Branch - Vintage Car Club NZ
WOB win again Page 28
Page 15 - 17
Air NZ cost health board $1.8M Air New Zealand’s “rapacious approach” to air fares has cost the region’s health board an extra $1.8 million since competing airline Origin Pacific collapsed, the equivalent of 100 hip replacements, 1000 cataract operations or the annual salaries of 25 nurses. The Nelson Marlborough District Health Board’s former chief executive John Peters – who retired from the DHB in 2012 after eight years as its head – says since Origin Pacific was competed out of the market in
2006 the DHB has faced additional costs on its air bills of $1.8 million. “Origin stopped carrying passengers in August 2006, and by the end of the DHB’s financial year in June 2007, ten months later, the costs for air travel had increased by over $200,000 compared to the same period the previous year of using Origin. That was nearly a 20 per cent increase, when the actual passenger numbers had grown by less than two per cent.” He says in the seven and a half years since
Andrew Board Editor
andrew@nelsonweekly.co.nz then, and at that annual rate of around $240,000 additional cost per year, the cost of air travel will have exceeded what would have been paid to Origin by something around $1.8 million. “There is no compensation from central government that money has to be found from the local
health budget. To put it in perspective, this represents around 100 hip replacements, or 1000 cataract operations, or 25 nurses – or any number of other vital health services for the Nelson and Marlborough region that could no longer be provided, but instead goes to Air New Zealand to shore it up on the routes it still has competition.” Air New Zealand was contacted to answer questions raised by John but did not get
SEE PAGE 2
What a flash proposal Kathy Barton will never have another lunch break like it. Hauled up in front of dozens of singing and dancing strangers in the Richmond Mall food court, Kathy was handed a bunch of flowers before the “flash mob” split leaving her partner Craig Kempton standing ten metres away in a tie, holding an engagement ring. “I was stunned,” she says, “Completely shocked. I was like a stunned mullet, it was surreal.” Craig spent six weeks organising the wedding proposal and included the expertise of Soundstage for the “flash mob” of singers and dancers, belting out the Bruno Mars song ‘Marry You.’ He also organised for one of Kathy’s friends to meet her during her lunch break from Farmers and for their family members to appear at the end of the proposal. “I got three hours sleep on Friday night,” says Craig. “I was so nervous
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but 99.9 per cent sure it would end the way I wanted it to. I had no exit strategy.” The proposal started with Kathy enjoying lunch before two Soundstage members broke into song, by the second verse dozens of others, ranging from children to older adults had joined in and had the mall rocking. As the song came to a close, Craig’s youngest son Shaun approached Kathy with a bunch of flowers, took her hand and led her to the front of the flash mob. There she stood with her hand over her mouth as the mob split and Craig was left standing with the ring. The crowd broke out into applause as he walked towards her, got on one knee and proposed. Shaking, she said yes. Craig says he got the idea from a YouTube clip and was thrilled with how it turned out. “We were just buzzing, absolutely buzzing. It went off better than I could have dreamed.”
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