Now with all that fantastic God sent rain over the weekend, Rarotonga should have lots and lots of water stored up in the water intake tanks … those 10 x 2 million + litre storage tanks (totalling at least 20 million litres of water) would have been full within a few hours with those massive downpours so no doubt the public can be reassured by TTV that the immediate water drama is over, and we have plenty of water stored for the upcoming Christmas period.

Perhaps the chairman of TTV would be able to reassure the public that indeed those tanks were built for water storage at great expense and are holding huge volumes of water and were not built primarily for maintaining header pressure as he espoused some time ago? Clarification please.

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Parliament sits for a tiny bit of time each year. What reason could any paid person have for missing a sitting when they have calendars to plan ahead? Why would they need a proxy vote? What are our MPs paid for?

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Regarding the frontpage Cook Islands News article published on December 9, 2024, “Police need numbers and bigger budget”. Hard to disagree with that. For once the long serving police media and strategic adviser has been up front and brave enough to put down the facts. He lists the issues that face the Police daily and also highlights that it is not really the leadership position which is critical.  Aka Matapo appears to have done a great job to keep the policing wheels turning, despite critical staff number shortages, and in the face of very little Ministerial back up, and despite some MFEM assistance, no real financial boost to their coffers. Minister for Police has put a very small band aid on the wound by appointing a tribunal of ex cops and others to find out what the policing issues are … totally useless, expensive and time-wasting exercise, as we all already know what they will find. OK if that is the very best that the incumbent Minister of Police can offer, with no immediate financial support to get recruiting numbers moving, which is the REAL issue, clearly it is time for a Motion of NO CONFIDENCE in the current Minister of Police. Get him out, and appoint someone who can and will get the job done. Mark Brown, you are at your use by date as Minister of Police, as you have achieved absolutely nothing in your tenure.