Local Elections Candidate Interviews: Jennie Hayman- Waikato Councillor - Waikato Regional Council

As part of the Morning Show's coverage of the 2022 Local Elections, Aaron will be interviewing candidates standing for positions on the Raglan Community Board as well as the Waikato District and Regional Councils. Below is a transcript of Aaron's interview with Jennie Hayman.

(Listen to the full interview below:)

Aaron

You're running for regional council and, as I do with everyone, I thought we’d start off with you telling us a little bit about yourself, your personal life and your work life. Just so people get to know you a little bit.

Jennie Hayman

I'm from the north of the Waikato District, from Pukekawa. So, to reach Raglan, I came down Highway 22.

Aaron

The old highway around the back.

Jennie Hayman

Yes, it's very old and fragile.

Aaron

Have you lived up there all your life?

Jennie Hayman

No, I haven't, actually. We're more recent arrivals, in terms of living permanently in Pukekawa. Having said that, since I was a child, we have visited my uncle and aunt and cousins in Pukekawa.

Aaron

So, you've had family there forever. It’s hard to locate Pukekawa. I’ve never heard of it to be honest. Is it near Pukekohe?

Jennie Hayman

Yes, it is. Pukekawa is pretty much the northern extent of the west side of the river. So, as the Waikato River heads out towards the sea at Port Waikato, then Pukekawa is that whole area there.

Aaron

In your working life, I know you've served on councils before, but what else have you done?

Jennie Hayman

Professionally I was a medical scientist. Specifically, I was a medical microbiologist, which was fairly interesting as we’re living through a pandemic. Infectious disease control very much comes into that, although I was not a virologist, I was a microbiologist. I worked in at Waikato Hospital and in London at a hospital there, and when I returned to New Zealand after my OE, I worked in Auckland because that's where my parents were.

Beyond that, I started life in local government, probably as a result of an interest in the Resource Management Act and that's where I began to understand those processes. So, as you said, I have been in local government. I was on Franklin District Council as the councillor for the southern ward, which stretched from Waikaretu on the West Coast right up to the Firth of Thames to Kaiaua and Miranda.

Aaron

As regular listeners might remember, the Franklin District Council was broken up when the Auckland super city came. Some of it was sucked into the super city and some of it went to Waikato District Council. I don't know how people up there felt about that?

Jennie Hayman

A portion also went to Hauraki District, and that was because those people felt at greater affinity with that part of the country. They did not look to Hamilton or Ngāruawāhia, or anything more to the west. Their nearest towns were Paeroa, Thames and Ngatea. 

Aaron

I doubt that anyone where you were looked to Ngāruawāhia?

Jennie Hayman

Interestingly, if we delve into history, there are some remnants of a Raglan–Pukekawa connection. Raglan was the name of the county council prior to 1989, and Pukekawa and all that northern extent up to where it reaches the Waikato River, was part of Raglan County Council.

Aaron

It was all along the coast wasn’t it?

Jennie Hayman

Yes. Pukekawa spent a long time trying to escape from Raglan County Council, and the reason for that was because they had a greater affinity with Pukekohe. Pukekohe was their nearest town, it was a service center, and they wanted to be part of the then Franklin County Council. Finally, their time arrived in 1989 when they were included in the new Franklin District Council. 

But going back to 2010, the lead up to that was very traumatic for the people in the southern part of Franklin; to go back, in essence to Waikato District Council. I had to support people and try to help them through this very difficult time. I also supported my constituents on the Firth of Thames area, enabling and supporting them to persuade the powers that be that they were better placed with Hauraki District, than Waikato District, and that was eventually what happened. People’s concerns at the time were around access to libraries, access to health and all of those sorts of things, because as you probably realise, the former Counties-Manukau DHB extended deep into the Waikato.

Aaron

Yes, the DHB boundaries don’t match the boundaries of the councils. I've had that explained to me that it was quite an issue during the lockdowns.

Jennie Hayman

It absolutely was, because we were used as the hard border of Auckland: we had stationed policemen both at Mercer and in central Pukekawa. That was tough, and after the lockdown which started a year ago, because there was a lot of fear about the ability of the health services to cope, if the virus got out.

Aaron

Well, it did. It came here, didn't it? It came to Raglan.

Jennie Hayman

It came everywhere.

Aaron

Which was inevitable, I think. So, you were on the Franklin District Council, then the Waikato District Council. Then you were on the Waikato Regional Council, which you stopped doing three years ago, and now you're back looking to go on the regional council again? So why did you step down? 

Jennie Hayman

Yes, I did step down. Three years ago, in 2019, I along with many other people had big plans, different plans for 2020, which of course could not be realised. I was due to do more work in the Pacific, because my area of specialty this millennium is in Pacific archaeology. So, I've spent a bit of time doing field work in Samoa, which I have not been able to get back to since 2019. Also, we had a big trip planned for my family to go to Europe in 2020. We made plans for months on end, but of course we couldn’t do that.

Aaron

So, if you'd known what was going to happen, would you have stayed on the regional council perhaps?

Jennie Hayman

That's a good question. That would have been a totally different consideration. I'm not sure if I would or would not. I'm often of the mind that new fresh blood is a good thing. Definitely, when I stopped standing for Waikato District Council, I thought we needed fresh new people. Because I very much came from Franklin, I was tarred with the Franklin brush. But in 2016 regardless, I stood for Waikato Regional Council, and Fred and I were elected. 

Aaron

So, that’s Fred Lichtwark, who’s a local guy who everyone knows.

Jennie Hayman

Yes, that was Fred’s first foray into local government. It's a steep learning curve. I was all right because I'd been in it for years, and Fred and I came to a good understanding. Not that we had agreed on everything, but he had different areas of expertise than I did, so sharing across those areas, both geographical areas and also different skill sets, was very beneficial. Fred is a Raglan guy, so essentially he looked after Reglan. Other than supporting Fred where I needed or wanted to, Fred was pretty much the man for the place.

Aaron

For Raglan, yes. We should probably explain to listeners that the regional council is very large and there's currently four candidates for two positions on the Waikato constituency, which is like a ward at the Waikato Regional Council. People struggle to know what's happening with the regional council or what it is, so I always feel like I need to explain all these things. Your constituency happens to map over exactly where the Waikato District council is, so that might help people a little bit.

So you had that experience, and you were out for three years, which didn't turn out to be the three years you thought they were going to be. Why have you decided to come back this time?

Jennie Hayman

Now we get to the more difficult questions. What has been very much apparent, via the media, and we know that the media frequently like to relate exciting stories or bad news.

Aaron

That's one way of putting it, yes.

Jennie Hayman

It's been apparent that there's been a lack, and I'm not the only candidate who will say this, a failure to work together amongst the members on the Waikato Regional Council. Given that a lot of that unhappiness has included the Waikato General Constituency, which is the area that is Waikato District Council, I felt like this is a real threat to what we now perceive as democracy in the Waikato region, and that there was a need for more collegiality, as I would like to call it, working together. I had done that with Fred and we had managed. 

I also note that on Waikato District Council you've got another candidate, Noel Smith. I've worked with Noel at Waikato District Council, so have experience of working with him too.

Aaron

He's running for the regional council; same place as you.

Jennie Hayman

He's running for the regional council, but he will tell you what his concerns are.

Aaron

I talked with him late last week. Everyone has the same concerns. That the regional council was in the news for the wrong reasons over the last couple of years.

Jennie Hayman

Absolutely, and we live in a time where there are multiple challenges. Whichever way you look, there are challenges: at a global level, at the Pacific level and in New Zealand. Of course, everyone knows that there have been changes after changes after changes arriving upon us from Wellington; that is, from central government - and local government pretty much has to do what central government says. If central government says though shalt do this, then you have to do that. Waikato district, I think tomorrow, will notify a variation to their district plan, as required by central government, to increase density in residential locations.

Aaron

Yes. That's been coming. That’s the whole country. 

Jennie Hayman

That applies countrywide to towns, that is highly urbanised areas where there is public transport. I was thinking, well, why doesn't Raglan count? I think it's the public transport.

Aaron

Also, we're just under the threshold. 

Jennie Hayman

Which is 5000.

Aaron

Our town is below that; it’s three and a half thousand people.

Jennie Hayman

So maybe that's a lucky thing.

Aaron

It's not going to stay that way. Within 10 years, I'd hazard a guess, we might be approaching that boundary.

Jennie Hayman

So there are changes to the Resource Management Act, which is in part why we're seeing this plan change, the variation to the district plan that I just mentioned from Waikato District Council.

Then we come to the waters, and I don't want anyone to be confused that I’m taking about the three waters, which is stuff that goes through the pipes underground: infrastructure, delivering water to people, taking away wastewater and dealing with, in the urban area, stormwater.

But the regional council does deal extensively with water. If you think in terms of scale, and get away from the infrastructure and waters running in pipes underground or overground, and instead think about the marine environment, think about the Waikato River, which is the basis for the Waikato region – the region covers the full length of the Waikato River. Managing those resources; if you like to think of a river as a resource, I mean it's more than that, it’s an important part of the landscape.

 How people interact with those different environments, and here you hear coming through in my language, the landscape archaeologist, thinking about people and their environments and how people have adapted both themselves and their environments too.

Aaron

Back to the start of that bit of the conversation, you've seen the controversy on the council, are you offering yourself as an alternative non-controversial person who will get the job done? Is that what you're going to say?

Jennie Hayman

Well, thank you for saying it for me. In effect, yes, because I have been there, and I don't think I was a controversial person or whatever. Definitely you have differences of opinion with your colleagues, but that's all right, because if you can explain why you think in the way that you do. Or why the residents whom you represent think the way they do, then people generally can come to an understanding of why you have a difference of opinion.

I do have that experience, but I also think that's just embedded in me, and probably also from archaeology being used to working with people, but apart from that, also integrated catchment management, which you may have heard of and at Waikato regional level, and the drainage advisory subcommittees; they were a huge part of my work in 2016 to 2019. Regrettably, they suffered some sort of demise at the beginning of this triennium, so November 2019.

Aaron

So when we're talking about integrated catchment management, can we simplify that? We know what a catchment is, we're sitting in the Whaingaroa catchment here, so the management of that catchment means what? Can we put that simply? 

Jennie Hayman

If you think about it in terms of water, for instance, water tends to flow in towards a harbour, towards a river, towards the sea, and what people do on that land and how they arrange their environment in order to protect themselves is part of integrating the management of that catchment.

Aaron

So, is it about protecting the water of the catchment?

Jennie Hayman

It works both ways. We must have greater emphasis on care and the management of the water that goes in. So that means what people do on the land will affect the river. It's easiest for me to describe it in terms of the river. Because that catchment is a very big catchment. But equally going back to the river, flood protection.

Aaron

We know that's an issue. You're from the Port Waikato area where there's been an issue: aside from the sea trying to take away the houses, flood protection up there is also an issue.

Jennie Hayman

It is and now increasingly, coastal erosion. Again, that's very easy to see at Port Waikato, that’s been occurring over quite a length of time and it's going to increase. So that threatens, not only the environment, but people and people’s cultural heritage. That will also doubtless be a big issue in Whaingaroa. 

Aaron

We've got the issue of climate change and sea-level rise. The question is how focused should the regional council be on that? A lot of people want to see a lot of quick, fast action around climate change. The cliche is that the farming community doesn't want fast change; they're saying we can't cope with fast change. Where are you sitting in amongst all that?

Jennie Hayman

I guess I would say that working with people is a whole lot better way of dealing with this than issuing decrees from above – do this and do that. Because what knowledge do you have to suggest that your decrees are the most appropriate way to address the crises that we face, including climate change?

Aaron

Most people say something should be done. Are you saying what is to be done is the issue?

Jennie Hayman

We have to think a great deal more carefully about what exactly we are thinking of, in terms of quick delivery solutions. My personal view is there is no quick answer to this. There are no quick solutions.

Aaron

But there's a demand for quick solutions.

Jennie Hayman

There is demand for lots of things. Unfortunately, I think we need to push the pause button in a manner of speaking, and just take a step back, and think of it from an individual level. Unfortunately, or fortunately, however you like to look at it, because we live in the rural sector, I'm very aware of how we affect the environment. So we obviously have to catch our own water and we treat that ourselves on site, but that's just for our personal use, but I'm also aware of an underinvestment and under education on wastewater. So we have our own wastewater treatment plant that processes everything that we produce and it comes out as, hopefully, a minimal amount of actual truly waste, because of the treatment processes and then just water comes out. But not a lot of people are really knowledgeable about that or prepared to put in the extra expense for one of those systems, and with that comes another step back; in that it depends on what you put down in the system. So we use only plant-based products, cleaning products.

Aaron

This is on your personal property.

Jennie Hayman

That's my personal view, but I think that we have a leadership role, not only in trying to educate people, but also in enabling them to get better systems in place. I don't think there's a magic plug that you can put all your rubbish down and it just disappears. Life’s not like that. You look at the huge cost involved in catering for those across our region, whether that be the Waikato District, which is really quite big, or Auckland, and look at the cost, being born there of trying to manage those.

Aaron

What does that mean in terms of people? I still come back to the question of scientists saying we need to move fast on climate change; we must implement things. I've asked the question of other candidates too, because we’re aware that farmers, as individual landowners and running a business, can only handle so many instructions from government to do things differently. Maybe they've been asked to do too much too soon. Does that mean central government needs to actually stump up some cash to help the regional council get things done? Would you say that?

Jennie Hayman

Yes. Funding for all of these things is always a challenge. And I don't need to tell you what Fred will say. I’m sure that the people of Whaingaroa are very familiar with Fred's work in this space. I come back to working with people, so working with the farmers, but I also come back to responsibility to try and work with people as individuals, groups, communities, villages, or whatever. 

Certainly, one of the big questions is always public transport. Well, I've long fought for public transport, including for Raglan. I've supported, I remember, in Waikato Regional Council, certainly Waikato District Council, for increased provision of a bus service between Raglan and Hamilton. But also in the north. When you think where I come from, around Pukekohe.  So Pukekohe is now part of Auckland. But how do people in those villages, and some are now growing at such a rate, how do they get to move around?

There needs to be much more provision and thought and funding. Because it always comes down to funding provision of what will be either a train service, if you happen to be on the train line, or a bus service. Port Waikato desperately needs it. One bus a fortnight, or whatever, from there is not going to cut the mustard. There’s a need for far greater public transport.

Aaron

There's the age-old issue too, that if we want to do more things, it needs more money and that might mean lifting rates. Does anyone want to be seen to say that we need to lift our rates?

Jennie Hayman

As I've said the other day when asked that sort of question about budgetary processes, the councils have annual budgets and they also have the long-term budget, extending over a longer period of time, and as a regulatory authority you need to think very carefully about when and why and how you might want a project. Because projects have to be funded. So, if you want desperately to do this something, what other part are you going to back off on in order to get the funding to apply to the project which you think is more urgent?

It always comes down to the same thing: increasing the rates take, although of course there's other mechanisms available. You may recall years ago the reviews around rates: it's a long, hot debate.

Aaron

It always is, and it never goes well. Before we wrap up, can you just tell us about some of the things you did in the three years that you were on the regional council? Some achievements? I'm aware that they often sound very bureaucratic to people, but there were things you must have worked on that you are proud of or of being part of. So, tell us what they were.

Jennie Hayman

As I say, largely in that area of integrated catchment management and the drainage advisory subcommittees. I worked a lot with those, and that was because I felt it enabled you to work directly with people and people who were invested in the land. 

If you want something really different, this example arose in the Franklin District Council times. I've always had a great interest in the Hauraki Gulf. I know that's on the other side of where we are right now. But it is part of the Waikato region. Waikato Region is 50 per cent of that Hauraki Gulf, and I was on the Hauraki Gulf Forum. So that was another area where I had a huge input, in terms of working with multiple communities and multiple people. In a co-governance arrangement too, because tangata whenua form part of the Hauraki Gulf Forum. I had that involvement over quite an extended period and I have maintained that interest.

Aaron

One final quick question, or looking for a quick answer: can you tell people why they should vote for you? 

Jennie Hayman

Because I bring experience and I bring that desire to work with other people. And I have worked with the current counsellor Fred Lichtwark, and I have also worked previously with Noel Smith on the Waikato District Council. So, people working together, I guess, is my key driver.

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