FROM THE MAYOR

By Martin Connelly

I spent part of the last week at the Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ) annual conference. The 

conference got off to a rip-roaring start with the Prime-Minister berating councils for our “white elephants”, then telling us to “reign in the fantasies” and to get back to delivering the basics.

Following this, his Government stumped up $750,000 to go towards a World Dance Crew

Championship in Auckland, provided the council matched that amount. Go figure.

As you can imagine, a lot of locals got onto me about whether our Council had reigned in our expensive fantasies and gone “back to basics.” My normal answer was to ask them precisely what

non-essential expenditure they were thinking of. I got a lot of answers such as the million dollars to

Kuranui High School, a new dog pound, the new skate park in Greytown and a fair few others.

Usually, I reply by saying those decisions were made prior to this Council, and I then repeat, “what

has this Council done that was a fantasy project?”

Yesterday I got asked, “do you spend anything on the unemployed?”. For this I plead guilty because

we do have a programme to help employ young people and not every council does. 

It is clearly unnecessary and we do it anyway _ here is why.

The programme I am talking about is called the “Mayors Taskforce for Jobs” (MTFJ.) Its sole purpose is to get young people into sustainable employment. The programme works by getting to know young people who seek employment, but are struggling to get a job, and getting to know employers and what they need in a future employee. 

We often work with young people to get them work ready before we try to match them with employers. One example was an MTFJ worker who initially went around each morning to get a young person out of bed so he got to work on time. We follow up for months after a job placement, to make sure that everything is working out for both parties.

Why do we do this? Because no-one else does it in this part of the world. There is a Work and Income Office in Masterton, and I think they do a good job also. But It’s not easy for unemployed

young people from here, who possibly don’t have a driver’s license to get to Masterton, and the sort

of help they will get is often of the ‘one size fits all” variety. 

The MTFJ works out of our towns – the Heartland Services building in Martinborough and the Community Centre in Featherston. In summary, we help our own young people to stay local, work local and contribute local.

The prospects for young people on the job-seekers benefits are dire. There are 20,000 more people

on the Jobseekers benefit this year _ than at the same time last year. I was recently told that

“teenagers on a youth payment will spend an average of 24 years of their working lives on a

benefit.” This is a huge waste of their potential and I regard it as a moral duty to do what is possible

to help people escape that future. 

The other reason why I support the MTFJ, is that it succeeds. Last year, across the Wairarapa, we got 90 people into work, most of them into sustainable employment.

Most small councils of our size are part of the MTFJ. Most larger councils are not, but unlike us, they usually have the services of MSD and Work and Income on their doorsteps.

The main reason MTFJ succeeds is because of some amazing employers. In Martinborough I recently gave certificates of appreciation to Scotty’s Meat and the Neighbourhood Café, both of which have taken on a young person recently. 

Please support these businesses because they are supporting our youth.