Date: March 11th 2013

Hastings achieves Safe Communities accreditation

Hastings received Safe Communities accreditation at a ceremony held in the Council Chambers this morning (Monday 11th March).

Hastings has become the 23rd city or town with International Safe Community accreditation in New Zealand and the 311th to receive accreditation in the world. The process that has led to accreditation began in late 2011 and Council has worked with partner agencies for nine months to put the application document together.

An application for accreditation was submitted to the Safe Communities Foundation NZ on 31st October 2012 and a successful site visit was completed on 6th December 2012.

Hastings Mayor Lawrence Yule says “Gaining accreditation is a first step and now we must ensure that the work continues. We need to ensure that the cooperation between the partner agencies continues with a focus on improving crime prevention and road safety, preventing injury from falls, to minimise the misuse of alcohol and promote safety in the workplace, at home and in the water.”

The agencies involved in Hastings Safe Communities programme are the Hawkes Bay DHB, Health Hawkes Bay, Ministry of Social Development and ACC. Those agencies have been joined by the Fire Service, Police, NZTA, RoadsafeHB, and Te Taiwhenua O Heretaunga while 40 community organisations have supplied information and indicated they want to be part of the programme in the future

Lawrence Yule says “To maintain safe community accreditation we must be able to demonstrate that all agencies are working collaboratively, and that the agencies have developed a close working relationship with the wider community. This collaborative approach will result in a better use of resources in the future.”

“One of the major benefits of gaining Safe Community accreditation is that Government agencies that fund community projects will look more favourably at initiatives which take place in an accredited community. Also, agencies with common community objectives will find it easier to coordinate their activities in a more supportive manner. By being part of an international network we can access information about projects in similar sized cities in other parts of the world, and apply them to Hastings,” Lawrence Yule says.

Central Hawke’s Bay and Napier are accredited Safe Communities and Wairoa is working towards their accreditation.

ENDS

© Scoop Media

Public Address Link:
A (Sweary) Analysis Of Urgency Abuse And
The Consititution

Keith Ng: You’re looking at the Regulatory Impact Statement (RIS) for the Public Health and Disability Amendment Bill. Basically, the courts said that the Government had to pay family members who looked after people with disabilities (because not doing so was discriminatory), so the Government passed this law to say: “Yeah nah.”

The RIS isn’t just redacted for the public – it was redacted for MPs. *Parliament* voted on this, with all the relevant facts blacked out.

Sure, it’s understandable, right? If you’re passing a law that’s really dodgy, you don’t want advice from civil servants saying “uh, this is pretty illegal” to be public. But actually, that’s not really a problem here, because in the same piece of legislation, THEY SAID THEY CAN’T BE TAKEN TO COURT. More>>