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Saturday, May 1, was the second anniversary of the formation of the Violence Free Wairarapa Campaign and the first of the signing of the "Rise Above It" charter.
These anniversaries mark something of a milestone for our community.
Rise Above It, the local council-driven campaign to prevent family violence, has received widespread publicity and enthusiastic support from throughout our region.
For that we can all thank a large number of individuals and organisations, from Mayor, Bob Francis, and his council team, to the Mayors and councillors of Carterton and the South Wairarapa. Supporting them, a large number of public and private sector organisations and agencies have backed Rise Above It, including CYF, Wairarapa DHB, the Police, Women's Refuge, Te Hauora Runanga o Wairarapa and countless local businesses and individuals.
It's a fantastic effort and illustrates what can be done when a community accepts the need for change and rallies support among its own people to tackle an insidious problem threatening the safety of its children and families.
As a community we have come a long way in facing up to our problems, especially those associated with violence and abuse toward children and families. This whole-of-community effort deserves recognition and celebration.
The Everyday Communities Programme, a CYF initiative to get communities acting to achieve safety for their children and families, also marked its second anniversaries on Saturday.
All children have the right to be cared for and most will receive the love, care and attention they need from their families and whanau. But when they don't, children should be able to expect that the community and government will work together to provide the necessary support and services.
On Saturday our community celebrated a personal milestone proving to ourselves that we can take ownership and develop our own solutions to our problems.
Our self belief is supported by a commitment from both local and central government, businesses, organisations and individuals working together to eliminate violence and abuse of children and families.
Good on you Wairarapa!
Two lawyers will be made available for complainants and police officers involved in the Commission of Inquiry into Police Misconduct.
The lawyers will not appear before the commission, but will instead be available to complainants and police officers should they have any concerns they feel unable to raise with the Counsel Assisting the commission or other commission staff.
Two senior lawyers are already acting as Counsel Assisting and the commission has hired people specifically to take the complainants' stories.
It is important people understand the inquiry is not an adversarial hearing which means the normal approach applying in a criminal trial is not called for.
While we will obviously monitor the situation, at this stage there seems no need for either complainants or police officers to have independent lawyers appearing on their behalf.
The commission is also quite rightly concerned that having legal representation for a substantial number of individual witnesses will, whatever approach is adopted, lead to a much more lengthy and adversarial hearing.
Cabinet has agreed to another step in the fight against business compliance costs.
Currently when a Minister puts a paper to Cabinet proposing new legislation, it has to be accompanied by a Regulatory Impact Statement. Where the proposal has red-tape implications for business it also requires a Business Compliance Cost Statement.
Following the decision this regime will also apply when a Minister proposes that Cabinet support or adopt a bill proposed by a backbench MP rather than the Government. In recent years the number of these members' bills being enacted has increased and the impact of them has become greater.
This is only one step in a process of tightening-up the way government makes decisions that impact on businesses.
While the regulatory impact and compliance cost statement regime doesn't stop the government imposing compliance costs on business, it does make sure they are taken into account.
Associate Commerce Minister John Tamihere has also asked officials to look at other ways that the process can be made more robust.
Mr Tamihere, who is also Minister for Small Business, said it was crucial that the impact on business is thoroughly considered by government before decisions are made.
From a small business perspective, it's nice to see a government decision that imposes the compliance costs on government departments, rather than on business.
This decision also implements yet another recommendation of the Ministerial Panel on Business Compliance Costs and shows that the Government continues to be committed to reducing compliance costs.
We were lucky enough to have Mr Tamihere in the southern end of the electorate on Thursday and I was pleased to be able to accompany him to some of his appointments.
The first was a meeting in South Wairarapa, about youth issues, and then on to Martinborough for a meeting with people running small businesses. Following this we visited the Youth Choices Trust in Masterton, before the Minister attended the small business forum at the Copthorne Solway Park.
My thanks to Mr Tamihere for making the time to visit Wairarapa.
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