Sometimes it is not easy to step outside your comfort zone.

Moving half-way across the world to New Zealand in 1982 was a big step for me and my family, but our first rental home on Harland Street, Tinwald, turned out to be a great spot in a great street.

The people living around us were an amazing mixture – from young families to old, from self-employed to freezing worker, from different cultures. There was respect for everyone and it was a great community.

Over recent years, there seems to be a different feel around New Zealand.

It feels like we are drifting apart and have less tolerance and inclusiveness, we have different rules for different cultures/communities or race, and that to me is not the right direction for our community and country to go.

We all came from different parts of the world to live in “God’s own”, whether your whanau arrived in the first waka or on sailing ship, or the latest Boeing airliner.

We are all here to live in this great country.

Keeping it simple is key to harmony in the future. Respect all different cultures, be inclusive of race, gender and ability, be open-minded. Learning from our past and concentrating on an equal, inclusive and tolerant community for the future should be the goal.

So what is Council’s role in helping to create an inclusive and tolerant society? We have our Welcoming Communities programme and we support the Hakatere Multicultural Society, the local newcomers network, the refugee resettlement programme and a host of other community groups working in the traditional wellbeing space.

But is there more we could do? Now is the opportunity to tell us.

Council has just released four short surveys as part of its work to create a draft Long Term Plan for 2024-34. The surveys are grouped into wellbeing themes – environmental, cultural, economic and social – and we are asking people to take 10 minutes and give us their feedback.

The information gathered will help us prepare a Long Term Plan that will go out to the community for formal consultation in the new year.

Council produces a new Long Term Plan every three years because things change over time, and we need to hear what you think about a plan and priorities for the next 10 years.

So this early opportunity is for blue-sky thinking. It is to encourage ideas that could evolve and help ensure our district remains a great place to live, work and play.