Tim Dower: Rotorua is a complete cluster

I've got family coming down from Europe at Christmas, and bringing people who've not seen New Zealand before.

We were talking on the phone the other day and the subject of spending a few days at Rotorua came up.

It pains me to say it, but I wasn't able in good conscience to recommend Rotorua.

I explained about the emergency housing, but only in broad brush terms. I didn't go into big detail about people knocking on the door at night looking to score drugs.

Or the police turning up at all hours, places not being safe for families, gang activity and all the rest of it.

Thing is we need tourism and especially international tourism if we're going to start paying our way in the world again.

Rotorua is already back up to the thousands of visitors a day, so far mostly New Zealanders who kinda know the score.

But those overseas visitors are coming back, and some of them are having pretty bad experiences, which of course they go home and tell ten others about.

So the idea of, well, it's almost a black list of places to avoid, will have been a difficult call.

Does it go far enough to protect visitors? Does it do anything to protect the reputation of Rotorua?

Well, in the absence of any government interest in tackling the issues around emergency housing, it was a call the district had to make.

But it's not a long term answer.

At the same time, surely, by definition, emergency housing is not a long-term answer either. It's a problem created by government policy.

Yet another case of a well-meaning feel-good plan carelessly execute with unintended consequences.

Something you and I might refer to as a complete cluster.

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