Kiwibank for Hutt Valley?
Porirua City Council?s announcement that it was looking to move into the banking world with a series of independent, community owned companies providing Kiwibank services with profits ploughed back to the community prompted the Petone Herald to see the views of Hutt City Mayor David Ogden. Mr Ogden is impressed by the Kiwibank concept and has not ruled out the idea being used in his constituency. However, he believes that any initiatives should be kept separate from council, given the security issues that are associated with the banking sector. Mr Ogden says the Bendigo Bank community banking scheme, from which the Porirua proposal stems, from is an interesting concept which seems to have worked well across the Tasman. He said approaches have been made in the past to implement similar facilities in the Hutt area with New Zealand Post and was still an idea that could work in the future. ?The whole idea is a good one, although I think security is something that may have to be looked at. ?It all works wonderfully well until you get robbed, and you have to wonder what they?d do if someone broke into the Porirua Library. But if you can get past that, and get a good board of people to run it for you, then there?s no reason why it can?t work.?
