Anything substantive to say?

Written By: - Date published: 10:15 pm, January 3rd, 2010 - 25 comments
Categories: scoundrels - Tags: , , ,

My assumption whenever I read Cameron John Slater’s trash over at Whale Oil is to assume it’s just that trash. That’s why I don’t bother reading Cameron John Slater’s daily tirade of garbage anymore unless specifically alerted to something (I do have to admit there was a period where I used to read it regularly for sheer amusement). I didn’t get alerted to this post until recently, and while tempted to just leave him and his sewer system to feed and regurgitate amongst themselves, I’m not the type to be able to sit back and not respond when something can quite easily end up as a google truth (an unrefuted smear sitting in cyberspace).

A couple of weeks ago I was sworn in to the Eden-Albert Community Board. A thing called an extraordinary vacancy was created when the only Citizens and Ratepayers (C&R) member on the board defaulted his position by failing to turn up to four consecutive meetings without leave. Interestingly, Cameron John Slater defends this bludger who was paid by the ratepayer for the four months he didn’t do even the miniscule amount of work required by law, i.e. turning up to a meeting once a month.

Cameron John Slater rants about how City Vision ‘stacked the board’ to appoint me. I’m really not quite sure how City Vision can ‘stack’ a board when they already have an outright majority (For those of you outside Auckland, C&R and City Vision are the two main players in local body politics in Auckland). Further, Cameron John Slater moans about how my poor predecessor Ryan Hicks was ‘hounded from the role by the nasty spiteful City Vision members’. While Hicks was the only C&R member of the board, City Vision only had a majority of one. It must sorely disappoint C&R that Eden-Albert voters don’t even want them as their opposition the more moderate but still fairly conservative, third player, Focus Eden-Albert take that place. Does Cameron John Slater allege that Focus Eden-Albert are nasty and spiteful too?

I didn’t quite understand Cameron John Slater’s point about equal representation and transparent democracy. The Community Board had two choices it was too late in the electoral cycle for them to be able to hold a by-election, so they could either leave the position unfilled, or appoint someone else.   In deciding to appoint someone to share the workload and make the board more effective, City Vision really did make the most democratic choice. As Cameron John Slater well knows, I was the next highest polling candidate. I was only defeated by Hicks in the 2007 elections by 188 votes.

I wonder what Cameron John Slater’s views are on what his party in government is doing to equal representation and transparent democracy. For example, the NACT government have raised no objection to the Local Government Commission’s essentially final determinations on ward boundaries under the new Super City (they have said any further changes will only be minor tweaks). Unlike central government electorates which have to be more or less the same size, local government boundaries are supposed to pay more heed to communities of interest.  That said they must still be within a population size difference of plus or minus 10%.  The LGC couldn’t get either of those requirements right. Under the current recommendations, 8 of the 12 new wards will fall outside of the mean population size by more than the allowed 10%.   As for idiotic decisions regarding communities of interest (and I’m sure there’s many examples like this throughout Auckland), try this: both the Mt Eden Village Shops, and the Eden Valley Shops (Dominion Road) will be chopped in half. The half of the Mt Eden Shops on the “volcano side”  (Maungawhau/Mt Eden) will go to the new Auckland Central ward, while the other half will remain in what is effectively Eden-Albert combined with the existing Mt Roskill ward.

I contested the 2007 election because I wanted to make a difference in Eden-Albert and I know that I can do this over the next year (and further into the future, if Eden-Albert will have me). Pretty much my whole life is dedicated to campaigning on issues I care about, and now that I’m a representative for Eden-Albert, a lot of my focus will switch to more local issues. Along with my regular Community Board duties (I have been appointed Community Constable liaison and Youth Affairs Spokesperson) I plan to get involved in many of the local campaigns, such as those opposing the non-tunnel version of the SH20 Waterview connection, those opposing the expansion of the Balmoral McDonalds and St Lukes Shopping Centre, and campaigns on local issues surrounding the new Supercity.

There’s two issues that I really want to push in the next year – 1. Helping the two local groups attempting to set up Community Gardens get underway, and 2. Getting youth involved in local democracy. I don’t care which side of the political spectrum youth come from, getting young people involved and aware of the democratic processes is vitally important. I’m always amazed at the number of people I meet who have no idea what a Community Board is/does. Empowering young people (like myself, but even younger!) to get involved and teaching them what they can achieve has the potential to create engaged and non-apathetic citizens and support the functioning of democracy within New Zealand.

Perhaps what annoys me the most is the assertion that I am some sort of carpetbagger. I do currently live in Parnell (5 minutes drive in traffic or 15 minute walk into the Eden-Albert ward), but my affinity has always been with Eden-Albert. I grew up in Eden-Albert (in a number of different houses), and don’t feel the same connection with any of the other places I have lived. In other places I’ve lived (Christchurch, Tauranga, Auckland City) I wouldn’t be able to tell you much about the local residents or issues.  My Grandparents bought their first house in Eden-Albert and brought up my mother and lprent there. My mother bought her first house in Eden-Albert and only recently moved out of the area. When I moved out of home I lived in an apartment in the ward. Eden-Albert is a nice mix of working class and emerging middle-class wealth. There is something unique about the ward I love its heritage, its cultural diversity and its unpretentiousness when compared with places like Parnell. Eden-Albert is the only place I could legitimately run as a local candidate it’s my home.

Finally, one has to ask, why the big interest in me? Cameron John Slater has attempted smear after smear since I dared carry out a minor geeky prank and google-bomb his dear leader as ‘clueless’. Does he not have bigger targets to focus on? Perhaps this latest post was a favour to Daddy who heads up C&R? Of course all that good work spinning a nothing story was nullified by his final comment:

That said Rocky does actually have a brain and isn’t your usual leftist drone, she may actually do a good job.

Hmmm… why all the fuss then?

25 comments on “Anything substantive to say? ”

  • Comments are now closed

  1. Rex Widerstrom 1
    3 January 2010 at 11:23 pm

    Wait… you were the next highest polling candidate? Then WTF is the problem?! After all, I haven’t heard him (or, to be fair, many other people) complaining about MMP.

    Under MMP people who did not, on their own merits, receive a single vote are elected to Parliament – a body slightly more important (with all due respect) than a Community Board.

    If one should accidentally fall off the gravy train another (who could be said to be doubly unelected since s/he didn’t make it through the first cull) gets to step up and replace them.

    All this is done without a single voter being consulted.

    Whereas, in appointing you, the Eden-Albert Community Board is reflecting the wishes of those few thousand (hundred? however many) voters who indicated they wanted you representing them.

    They did not only the correct thing, but the democratic thing, and good on ’em I say (and congratulations to you, rocky).

  2. Whaleoil 2
    4 January 2010 at 12:43 am

    Nice rant, feel better now.

  3. mickysavage 3
    4 January 2010 at 7:39 am

    WOBH is an unusual person. He said this yesterday in a post where he had confused changes in absorption levels of CO2 with changes of CO2 levels :

    As a christian I couldn’t actually care less if the planet is doomed. It simply means the second coming is upon us, so if Climate Change is the destroyer of all mankind, I say bring it on.

    The biggest laugh of all is thinking that governments that can’t even organise trains to run on time, feed their own people, ensure adequate health care, protect their citizens from the depredations of crime are somehow able to miraculously get it all together to save the planet.

    It is laughable, risible even, to think that the UN is capable of such a feat.

    So I guess that if we want to debate with him what should be done to save the planet he is not interested because he is happy if it is destroyed?

    He should come out and say that climate change is real but it is a good thing because the rapture will happen earlier instead of saying that it will not happen.

    As for his treatment of you rocky his misogyny combined with his hatred of lefties makes him on occasions, well, irrational.

    • lprent 3.1
      4 January 2010 at 9:03 am

      I didn’t believe that even wee Johnnie could misunderstand that they were looking for a detectable decrease in CO2 absorption rates in the oceans.

      Sadly I was wrong. It is a sad indictment of the science training that Johnnie managed to absorb that he misinterpreted this result so badly. Perhaps we should bring this up as an prime example of the need to give better science training to the ministry of education?

      I was so shocked, I even left a comment on the post pointing out what they were talking about on Johnnies blog.

    • quenchino 3.2
      4 January 2010 at 10:21 am

      As a christian I couldn’t actually care less if the planet is doomed. It simply means the second coming is upon us, so if Climate Change is the destroyer of all mankind, I say bring it on.

      Fundamentalism. Nothing to do with actual Christianity.

      • felix 3.2.1
        4 January 2010 at 12:21 pm

        Fundamentalism. Nothing to do with actual Christianity.

        What a strange thing to say. Do you really believe they have nothing to do with each other?

        • Truth is stranger 3.2.1.1
          4 January 2010 at 12:53 pm

          Fundamentalism is not exclusive to Christianity, and in fact is widely misused.
          It is even portable to the new religion, where fundamentalism is where you only believe the dogma from the IPCC and the Hockey Team, and ignore recent empirical evidence (aka facts)

          • felix 3.2.1.1.1
            4 January 2010 at 1:30 pm

            This trend of attempting to equate scientific study with religious belief is interesting in that it immediately outs the writer/speaker as one who possesses no understanding of either.

            Kind of a helpful filtering tool really.

            • Macro 3.2.1.1.1.1
              4 January 2010 at 2:20 pm

              Fundamental “christians” have really nothing much in common with following the way of Christ. eg Our Super “Bishop” for our Super City and the moralistic and perverted ideas of the so called “christian” right. There are many who will pray “Lord! Lord!” But they are false prophets. I think that is what quenchino was saying. It makes me cringe every time people identify Christianity with fundamentalist claptrap.
              And yes fundamentalism is not an exclusive commodity to Christianity as Truth is stranger correctly points out – but he is wrong to suggest that it is Climate Science that is acting in a fundamentalist way. Rather it is the so called “sceptics” and CCD who will reguarly repeat the mantras given them by their priests – the PR consultants of the petro-chemical industries.

        • quenchino 3.2.1.2
          4 January 2010 at 2:11 pm

          The scriptures of all religions use allegory and metaphor to convey abstract ideas such as divinity, justice, purity, compassion, dignity and mercy in concrete terms that our limited minds can grasp. There is never a one-to-one mapping from the abstract to the concrete; all scripture can and should be interpreted from many different perspectives. It is the journey of a lifetime to discover just some of them.

          Science is the tool by which we measure and understand the material domains of this world. Religion is the tool by which we discover the abstract nature of the next.

          Because there is just one creator, and one reality… science and religion must be at some level in harmony with each other… but it is a mistake to think that the tools that work in one, will work in the other.

          There are many atheists for instance, who make the mistake of applying valid scientific tools, such as scepticism and testable hypothesis… when they approach religious matters of faith, love, self-abnegation and sacrifice. They begin their journey equiped with the wrong map, and get lost.

          Religious fundamentalists makes the equal and opposite mistake of mapping the abstract domain of religion into literal materialistic interpretations in this world, no matter how rationally absurd or dangerous they are. This is most often done by ego driven church leaders, who attempt to exert influence and power by usurping the credibility and success of the sciences.

          Atheists and fundamentalists are in this sense brothers on opposite sides of the same mistaken coin; but while the atheist can have been said to have at least set out on a path to find God, the fundamentalists while wearing the garb of believers… have set their feet away from Him.

          (You last comment Felix puts the same case more succiently.)

          • felix 3.2.1.2.1
            4 January 2010 at 4:05 pm

            A lot to think about in there, q. Thanks for taking the time.

          • felix 3.2.1.2.2
            4 January 2010 at 4:15 pm

            Incidentally (or perhaps back to the topic) I find it difficult to believe that Slater is any kind of Christian, Fundamentalist or otherwise.

            I suspect that he just thinks he’s found a convenient new tool for clawing out of holes he’s dug himself and enjoys the bombastic language that goes along with it.

  4. Jenny 4
    4 January 2010 at 8:02 am

    Yaarr beef hooked, Whaleoil, me hearty.

  5. lprent 5
    4 January 2010 at 8:08 am

    I have been appointed Community Constable liaison and Youth Affairs Spokesperson

    Can’t think of a person who could be more qualified….. 😈

  6. grumpy 6
    4 January 2010 at 11:17 am

    Actually Rocky, he has quite nice things to say about you. Probably the most praise he has ever given a leftist activist – are you sure you’re not mates???

    • gitmo 6.1
      4 January 2010 at 11:41 am

      Luke I am your father

      • grumpy 6.1.1
        5 January 2010 at 1:10 pm

        Hi Dad, Mummy wants to know when you’re coming home?

        Can you bring the milk?

        • lprent 6.1.1.1
          5 January 2010 at 2:07 pm

          Both of you were more substantive than than wee Johnnie. I think that he managed to establish that rocky went on to the board and he spelt the C&R bludgers name correctly.

          Everything else that wee Johnnie said was incorrect.. Or did I miss something..

          I suspect that was what annoyed rocky. She has a low tolerance for bullshit.

          • grumpy 6.1.1.1.1
            5 January 2010 at 2:33 pm

            Can’t see it;s an issue anyway. From what I know, Rocky was the next highest polling candidate, it’s called democracy.

            I can’t stand people who put themselves up for election, get voted in and then don’t bother turning up.

  7. Bored 7
    4 January 2010 at 11:28 am

    Seasons greetings and congrats Rocky,

    What a grotty way to start a New Year, but atleast you have the opportunity to do something positive which is something the unhinged aquatic one does not have the ability to do.

  8. Killinginthenameof 8
    4 January 2010 at 3:08 pm

    Lies of omission from Slater, nothing new there. Regular readers (not the righties, they are happy to shut their mouth for the greater good) might notice how often his wild claims and allegations ammount to SFA.

  9. Swampy 9
    7 January 2010 at 9:56 pm

    He had a lot less to say than you, didn’t he. Is this a campaign blog or something. I think you are put out that everyone knows who you are now. Unlike that Cameron John Slater who everyone knows who he is already.

    [rocky: I’ve always been open about who I am (see my very first post!). You’re really starting to annoy me, as I keep having to waste time replying to your uninformed comments.]