Candidate anxious over lost communities – Mana
Posted on November 4, 2011 by admin in Dr Peter Cleave, Election 2011, Press ReleasesCandidate anxious over “lost communities”
Dr. Peter Cleave, Mana Movement candidate for the Rangitikei electorate, says his main goal in entering the election is to address the country’s lost communities.
“I entered this campaign committed to the principles of the Mana movement”, says Dr. Cleave,” but now more than ever, I am anxious about the nation’s lost communities – those places in the Rangitikei electorate, for example, such as Marton, Tokomaru, Taihape, Hunterville, Bulls, Waiouru, National Park, Raetihi and Taumarunui, where even the basic necessities of a developed nation can no longer be taken for granted.”
Dr. Cleave points to low wages, unsafe workplaces, dilapidated housing, grossly inadequate transport, and a lack of individual dignity.
“This is third world stuff”, he says, “and we should be ashamed to boast that New Zealand is a wonderful place in which to live and raise children as long as these conditions continue to blight our forgotten communities”.
Dr. Cleave anticipates a tough campaign, but is convinced voters will respond to his message of lost communities and the need to repair them.
Madalene Frost says:
Post Author November 8, 2011 at 12:44 pmMana candidate Peter Cleave is so right about third world conditions in regional communities. When Taihape lost its hospital and rest home recently, due to inadequate funding from the DHB,
the whole land based travelling public lost a critical facility. If you are seriously injured on SH1 between Wairouru and Taihape, your chances of getting to either Wanganui or Palmerston North hospitals within the ‘golden hour’ are almost impossible – even by rescue helicopter from Palmerston North. And when the 50 plus jobs were lost from that essential facility, added to the many more layoffs in the timber industry, the town’s income plummeted. This has resulted in many retail failures and empty shops. It is often said now of Taihape, ‘you can be born here, but
you can’t now die here’ – not in dignity anyway, if your whanau live hours drive away from your ‘new’ rest home in an alien city.
The demise of this great little town is so sad. Our remote outstanding landscapes are a mecca for overseas and domestic tourists, but we who live here can’t afford to live just on the mountain and river views!
And to Rangitikei electors I say, for the protection of our majestic Rangitikei river – perhaps our greatest natural asset – make sure you prevent Ian McElvey the destroyer of the once mighty Manawatu, from getting a chance to destroy our river, by giving two ticks to Peter Cleave and MANA.