In the declaration, ECan committed to urgently addressing the issue of groundwater pollution, which impacted drinking water sources and supplies.<\/p>\n
Mackenzie dismissed the declaration as \u201cgreat politics but a lot of noise and no action\u201d.<\/p>\n
He suggested rural voters recognised the council\u2019s existing work to improve water quality.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you look at all the things ECan is doing to address water quality, I don\u2019t think [the declaration] has any great reflection on a change in direction.\u201d<\/p>\n
The \u201celection stunt\u201d and associated Greenpeace campaign on nitrates got traction in the election in Christchurch, but not outside the city, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe provincial parts of Canterbury have a better understanding of the work that the regional council has done in terms of its plans and the contribution rural landowners are making towards improving water quality.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe votes reflect that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Selwyn, which Mackenzie described as the \u201ctarget audience\u201d of the nitrate declaration, and Ashburton district voters re-elected their incumbents.<\/p>\n
Mackenzie said this \u201creflects an understanding of what is going on, what is trying to be achieved, and the willingness of landowners to achieve it\u201d.<\/p>\n
He is hoping the new councillors will look to avoid division, \u201cbe open-minded and work together to be more constructive than last term\u201d.<\/p>\n
Mid Canterbury\/\u014cp\u0101kihi voters have re-elected incumbent John Sunckell to the regional council.<\/p>\n
Mackenzie said there is a clear community mandate \u201cto sort out the consenting issues that are frustrating the region\u201d, and that work is going on between the regional council and central government.<\/p>\n
Sunckell went a step further, stating that the significant challenge for the term will be RMA changes and the big question around what that will mean for the future of regional councils.<\/p>\n
He was also frustrated with the nitrate emergency decision, but said it \u201cprovides the opportunity and a platform to really push the data that is coming through\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe issue isn\u2019t that we don\u2019t have a nitrate problem. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe issue is we are addressing it and need to show how that\u2019s going.\u201d<\/p>\n
The new council is due to meet on October 29, where the councillors will be sworn in and the new chairperson and deputy chairperson will be elected.<\/p>\n
Deon Swiggs, who was re-elected in Christchurch West\/\u014cpuna, is understood to be the lead candidate to become the new chair after serving as deputy last term.<\/p>\n
– LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the declaration, ECan committed to urgently addressing the issue of groundwater pollution, which impacted drinking water sources…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":81949,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[534,806,63002,5205,22218,27652,15974,6119,305,57505,63003,5126,57531,111,43,139,27653,69,1523,56522,5914,6695,63001,24687],"class_list":["post-81948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-amid","tag-as","tag-canterburypkihi","tag-council","tag-division","tag-ecan","tag-emergency","tag-faces","tag-have","tag-ian","tag-incumbents","tag-john","tag-mackenzie","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nitrate","tag-nz","tag-over","tag-reelected","tag-regional","tag-regions","tag-sunckell","tag-voters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81948\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}