The National Public Health Service is exactly what's wrong with this country.
The Health Minister, who shouldn't have had to, intervened in their submission to the district council looking at the application for McDonald's in Wanaka.
Why was the health service offering a submission? Because the council asked them to.
So who is more at fault (the answer is of course both of them), the council for creating work and waste, or the service for creative work and waste?
The health service, among other things, talk of health. They talked of health in the wildest of contexts, like the World Health Organisation context, which essentially means anything can be dragged into the health sphere if you are determined.
And my word, were they determined.
They won't be in future because Shane Reti told them to stop wasting everyone's time.
The irony of the outcome is the submission wasn’t even correct, hinting perhaps that these people have little, if any, knowledge of what they are actually doing and simply fill their days with pointless exercises.
They sighted Te Tiriti of course. What Te Tiriti has to do with fries and a chocolate shake, I have no idea, and I suspect they don’t either. But that is why all this is so criminal.
TeTiriti is everywhere for no particular purpose. Its overreach has reached the point of absurdity.
So hundreds of submissions, days of hearing, the Treaty and a Government department admonished by the minister. That is why nothing gets done and that is why the country is in the state it is.
These people want to sell a hamburger. They want to employ locals, they want to contribute to the growth of the community and they want to pay their tax.
They simply want to do business.
Why is the industry and apparatus in not doing business so vast, so complicated, so expensive and so wasteful?
And who is blowing it up?
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