Alexia Russell

It's expensive, relies on diesel, its infrastructure is failing, there are no jobs to keep young people on the island and a key government presence there.

The Department of Conservation is once again being restructured.

I'm Alexia Russell and today on The Detail, it's been a year since Regional Development Minister Shane Jones landed with a Hercules full of business leaders, media and officials promising to help fix things.

My newsroom colleague Jonathan Milne was on that flight, so we're checking in with him again, and later I'll also be talking to newsroom's environment editor David Williams about what's up with DOC.

Since last year, there's a new mayor and a new council chief executive after the last one went overboard with his ratepayer-funded home renovations.

Jonathan has been following the saga.

So a situation like that probably makes it worse that your chief executive's spending money that hasn't been approved.

This is Andrew Goddard, a Senior Inquiry Specialist at the Office of the Auditor-General after that report was released.

And he's been caught out.

He's gone.

It must be heartbreaking for the community.

That's Associate Transport Minister James Meagher last September announcing a $24 million replacement for the 40-year-old Southern Te Ari.

That lifeline of a ship keeps breaking down and is unreliable to the extent that a couple of years ago cattle couldn't get to the abattoir on the mainland to be slaughtered

and nearly 6,000 had to be culled.

The new boat should be in operation by the end of next year.

The council also gets $4.2 million a year from Internal Affairs in recognition that its ratepayer base can't possibly cover all the expenses.

In fact, Jonathan says the island is just about entirely bankrolled by the New Zealand taxpayer.

But can you look at a community like the Chathams and say, you're just not economically viable, everybody pack your bags?

What was the mayor's reasoning?

What are the cons of it?