Jim Bunny Rogers Rabbits www.sunlive.co.nz

No! Nuh! Nein!

Should we rename Tauranga ‘NO-ranga'? Because ‘No' is the inevitable howl that goes up to anything that might signal change, that might make this city even more dynamic. Kāo! No! Nuh! Nein! First the museum, now the stadium. It's the danger of putting stuff out for consultation, inviting opinion and objection; the danger of giving carping naysayers a platform. It gives them breath, a chance to say ‘NO' to anything and everything – and nothing gets done.

So progress strangled by self-interest.

Up the ante

I got that attitude sprayed in my face the other night. Some ex-farming money was sitting opposite me at a dinner party when I suggested a city of 158,300 people needed and deserved a decent wrap-around, purpose-built sports stadium. Preferably with a roof. And preferably at the Tauranga Domain. Not too much to ask for – we boast the country's busiest port and we're a star performer when it comes to regional economic growth. Up the ante – chuck in a new basketball stadium cos that's the game of the future. Futureproof, because basketball is flying – second most played secondary school sport in the country. I watched the blood surge over his collar. And he shot my ‘put it out there and see' suggestion down in a shower of spittle, particles of tiramisu desert and outrage.

I could see Super Rugby being played at a new stadium, the Black Ferns, Phoenix, All Whites, Warriors, rock concerts. All Mr Naysayer could see was another zero on his rates demand. The expletives and asterisks flew.

'If you want to go to a ****ing stadium go to Hamilton.” More saliva and tiramisu. Doesn't he want to give his grandchildren a reason to stay in No-ranga?

'If you want to go to a ****ing concert, go to Auckland. Cos I'm not ****ing paying for your highfalutin ideas.” So is he happy to see wads of Tauranga cash disappear out of town, get spent elsewhere?

He didn't want to discuss, he just wanted to vent. 'Discussion, understanding and compromise is what we need,” offered the Doe with measured wisdom. 'It's not about getting what you want, or don't want, but what the city needs. However it's always the loud complainers – not the vast quiet majority – that get heard.”

Mr Nayser and I didn't swap cards.
And he didn't invite me out fishing on his $550,000 14-metre game-rigged cruiser with teak cockpit and American ash and leather interior. He's ocean-going and not into stadium sports. Probably never been through a turnstile and I'm a landlubber – if I want fish, I go to Bobby's. Never the twain shall meet. Thank God for Commissioners who can see beyond partisan politics and still get stuff, like a ‘People's Stadium', done.

Emotive language

There's also been other emotive language floated by stadium interest groups. Like ‘extinction notices' for sports clubs. Probably over-stating it. Relocation doesn't necessarily mean extinction.

Like 'you wouldn't put a stadium in Central Park”. Central Park is designated 340 hectare National Historic landscape, a public conservancy, with 42 million visitors a year. It has soccer fields, carousel, skating rinks, zoo, gardens, monuments, and concert and theatre venues, 18,000 trees and 200 bird species. So a stadium wouldn't be out of place. ‘No-ranga Domain' doesn't compare. It's a sports fields – mud and grass. And it's screaming for development at any level.

Critics liken it to 'paving paradise” – a reference to carparking. My dictionary tells me ‘paradise' is 'heaven and ultimate abode of the just” or an 'ideal or idyllic place”.

Curious, I wandered up to paradise at the weekend for a nosey. It was quiet – deathly quiet. Even the homeless amongst the trees had abandoned their tents for the afternoon. ‘Paradise' was as exciting as a rolling maul, the resetting of a scrum or a half-time interview. At best sad, at worst inadequate; a sorry statement on a city that promises so much.

A young female discus thrower was training – putting in a lonely pitch for athletic clubs that want to stay at the domain.

But hang on...what about those loud, red, defiant banners around the Croquet Club? 'Hands off Tauranga Domain” they shouted at me. That smacks of attitude. Just 75 members and dictating to the rest of us. But I read somewhere croquet players are a feisty lot, using words like ‘evil', ‘painful', ‘devastating' and ‘lethal' to describe rivals and tactics in a game which otherwise appears as docile and effortless as snooker played on a lawn.

Moment later 'thwack”, then another 'thwack”. There were a dozen or so croquet players, on a cold, grey Sunday afternoon with their hands firmly gripped on the No-ranga Domain. 'Come and join us,” they called out to me. 'It's harder than it looks.” Thwack! They may have changed my mind, at least about croquet. Might give it a crack even if they are heaved from their piece of paradise. 'Thwack” to that.

Email: hunter@thesun.co.nz