The Northland Health and Social Innovation Awards are returning in November this year. Northland DHB has written quite a bit about it on their Facebook and in media releases.

The elections are now on us and the names are out, teams have been formed and alliances are being created.

I commend all of the people who have decided to put their name forward. Over the next 6 weeks we will see our mayoral candidates being pulled from one meeting to another, explaining where they want to take the district.

Whangarei District Council wants to “restructure” quietly while our community is distracted by elections. In case you’re not familiar with the term, ‘restructuring’ tends to mean sacking faithful workers and creating more jobs for the boys. In this case, WDC’s proposed restructure creates two $140,000 jobs.

It was really great to hear over the weekend International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach appeal for unity within the world.  It got me thinking about our local body aspiring politicians.

Mr Bach said “We are living in a world of crises, mistrust and uncertainty.” His speech was directed at terrorism and world leaders.

Has central government got it wrong again? The new Better Local Services bill appears to be taking away powers from the local councils. Is that power being given back to the people?

Whangarei District Council’s Blue/Green Network Strategy report is a creative way of saying the WDC are finally going to start looking after the city’s natural waterways. The rationale in the Strategy is that paths along improved waterways will deliver:  

The folks who built Whangarei’s airport at its current site in Onerahi in 1939 may not have envisioned that it would need to move after less than 100 years, but that fact has been obvious to Northlanders for decades. Whangarei has lost several plane services because of our small runway. We can only handle 50-seater aeroplanes these days.

Northland is feeling the pinch of a shortage of volunteers from rugby clubs to Red Cross. Meanwhile, we have people pushing for a seat on our councils at the October elections. Those people need to know that volunteers are part of the picture. There are those putting their name up for Council who have never volunteered.

All around New Zealand we are questioning the sentencing of the two people responsible for the death of little Moko Rangitoheriri, yet on June 15 elder abuse was swept under the table.

What happened to little Moko was dreadful, but it’s not the only abuse problem going on in our country. Multiply the suffering of Moko by tens of thousands of examples and you may understand how widespread this problem is.