auckland supercity

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Happy birthday Auckland

Written By: - Date published: 7:02 am, January 26th, 2015 - 11 comments

Happy Birthday Auckland. Body in The Herald comments on “A splendid anniversary”…

Save the Pohutukawa Six

Written By: - Date published: 9:28 am, January 3rd, 2015 - 34 comments

Despite local opposition Auckland Transport intends to fell six prominent Pohutukawa to make way for an extra road lane with dubious transport benefits.

Why John Banks must never be the Super City Mayor

Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, December 3rd, 2014 - 60 comments

The Herald today suggested John Banks is thinking of another tilt at the Super City Mayoralty. This video shows why he should never be trusted with this position.

Unaffordable housing & the culture of greed

Written By: - Date published: 11:17 am, October 4th, 2014 - 47 comments

Rental housing remains unaffordable for many.  The problem is the greed of investors & speculators,  supported by a culture in which housing investment is seen as a way to individual prosperity.

First they sold Auckland, then the rest of NZ…?

Written By: - Date published: 10:00 am, October 3rd, 2014 - 28 comments

A quiet shift in a dodgy Key govt-SkyCity deal: TVNZ land, sold to SkyCity for its convention centre, is to be used for a new hotel.  Plus: non-mandated deal between Auckland Transport Authority & a US corporate – intense surveillance of Aucklanders’ diverse activities.

Helen Kelly on Vote Chat: Questions for PoA & Key?

Written By: - Date published: 1:35 pm, August 16th, 2014 - 17 comments

Helen Kelly is interviewed on Vote Chat.  Kelly raises questions about the Ports of Auckland & Key’s role in Dirty Politics. She has read some of Dirty Politics, & was axed from today’s the Nation Panel, then replaced by Josie Pagani.[Updated]

Message from Christchurch: Send Help Now

Written By: - Date published: 8:57 am, August 5th, 2014 - 36 comments

Power has been concentrated into the figure of one man – a man who has in recent weeks shown that he thinks he is above the rule of law. You might think your one vote doesn’t make much of a difference – but it is everything to us here. Another three years of National and Brownlee, and we might not have a vote at a local level at all.

Auckland’s forgotten West

Written By: - Date published: 8:55 am, June 17th, 2014 - 107 comments

Almost a week after last week’s storm, some people in West Auckland are only just getting their power back on, while others are still without hot water. Some parts of Auckland’s west are becoming increasingly neglected under John Key’s watch, especially since the centralising-moves following Hide’s blueprint for the “supercity”.

The neoliberal power game: cities for sale

Written By: - Date published: 7:24 am, May 4th, 2014 - 27 comments

An NZ Herald article about Mai Chen’s book on Auckland Council, supports big power, big money, big competition, and economic activities focused on anything but the production of material needs and wants.  It ignores the struggling precariat living with housing, income, transport and energy poverty.

Second class citizens. Beggars belief

Written By: - Date published: 9:49 am, April 29th, 2014 - 58 comments

Out of sight-out of mind seems to be the logic of Auckland City’s bylaw to come into effect next month, to outlaw begging on the streets. The clear message from Native Affairs report, ‘Walk on By‘, last night, is that the bylaw is the result of pressure from the comfortable middle classes. [Update: bylaw only says it’s an offence where begging causes a nuisance]

Auckland Council CCO 2 step

Written By: - Date published: 10:42 am, March 7th, 2014 - 13 comments

Mai Chen argues that the current review of Auckland Council CCOs will put them on a tighter leash.  Tony Holman argues against the whole CCO set up: it’s a trojan horse, 2 step towards privatisation of Auckland assets.  Aucklanders need to have their say. Vote out Team Key to prevent such sales.

A glorious waste of money for the titillation of perverts

Written By: - Date published: 9:28 am, February 8th, 2014 - 70 comments

The fiasco of the wet dick and the perverts shuddered to a conclusion yesterday with the direct bill of around $250,000. Len Brown was strong-armed into paying $40,000 for the audit which turned up nothing much except that his wife brought a lot of hotel nights. Questions remain about who was responsible for the waste caused by the lack of scoping of the external audit. Looks like dirty politics at the ratepayers expense.

Herald massaging a message

Written By: - Date published: 5:19 pm, January 23rd, 2014 - 23 comments

The Herald continues its tabloid-style vendetta against Len Brown by serving up non-news in a shock-horror frame to make the mayor look bad. With a combination of the delicate removal/rewriting of what was said and a a senile loss of memory about the chains imposed on Auckland by National, Act and Rodney Hide – the Granny Herald continues its downward slide into irrelevance.

Auckland Council’s next 100 days

Written By: - Date published: 9:54 am, January 14th, 2014 - 46 comments

Auckland Council probably has only 100 days left to sort itself out.  Otherwise it is going to be a long three years where the prospects of good being achieved will be poor.

Local govt is on the move

Written By: - Date published: 11:00 am, January 6th, 2014 - 51 comments

The Local Government Commission is currently proposing to crush a number of local bodies together into the same kind of mess that the Auckland super city has been suffering. Undemocratic and divorced from anything local because only a wealthy few can consider standing and those few can ignore any local wishes from the token local boards. The only defense that citizens have against the LGC is to force binding poll. Be ready to do so for Northland and Hastings/Napier.

Wet Dick and the Perverts

Written By: - Date published: 10:37 am, December 27th, 2013 - 136 comments

It should be the name of a group from a bizarro version of the 1960’s. But no, it is what passes for the governance of the Auckland City Council these days. There is our mayor with his wet dick. Then we have the five perverts who are busy emoting faux outrage whilst quietly forgetting that we elected them to help run a city. Dick Quax, Cameron Brewer, and the handful of other perverts in council can play with that aspect of their lives on their own time.

Auckland in search of democracy

Written By: - Date published: 12:59 pm, December 24th, 2013 - 29 comments

Media beat-ups around personality politics divert from Auckland’s real problems: an undemocratic council structure that panders to corporates, & that does not represent Auckland’s diversity, while doing little to counter the destructive impact of the inequality gap.

Reef piranha

Written By: - Date published: 8:32 pm, December 22nd, 2013 - 42 comments

Today’s Herald editorial gets one thing right – a media pack has turned on Len Brown. But it’s not gutsy journalism – it comes straight out of the Rupert Murdoch playbook. Len’s latest sin is his upgrades – EY says  they total  $32,000 for 64 occasions. That’s $500 an upgrade, which seems  a lot on top of what Len paid. The report does not detail how this total was arrived at, and I cannot find any example of any journalist asking questions about it.

Ernst and Young should investigate Cameron Brewer

Written By: - Date published: 7:46 am, December 20th, 2013 - 240 comments

Cameron Brewer apparently forgot to file a declaration of interests in 2012 which should have included details of a four day junket to the Gold Coast paid for by Mediaworks.  Dick Quax forgot to file returns in 2011 and 2012.  Is an investigation required?

Showdown at Auckland Council

Written By: - Date published: 8:52 am, December 19th, 2013 - 264 comments

Today’s Council meeting will no doubt develop a great deal of heat but little light.  And then hopefully everyone can settle down and working on the real job which is to create Auckland into a great city.

NZ Herald: Disgrace to democracy

Written By: - Date published: 11:03 am, December 18th, 2013 - 246 comments

The  right wing NZ Herald editors, have misused their position in the news mediascape to  produce some shameless, highly partisan and manipulative propaganda. They do not have the interest of all Aucklanders at heart. More considered analysis needed. Let’s wait for tomorrow’s public meeting.

SkyCity: they’re toxic

Written By: - Date published: 8:11 am, December 16th, 2013 - 170 comments

The detail of the Ernest and Young report on Len Brown clears him of all significiant wrongdoing on the local government purse. The hotel room upgrade values are just complete bullshit for someone who had a regular family timeouts at one hotel – which did most of the almost all of the upgrades. The type of customer that all hotels want. The political question is about receiving anything “free” from Skycity.

Public transport vs private transport. Don’t waste money on fasttracking motorways

Written By: - Date published: 1:08 am, November 26th, 2013 - 99 comments

Ok, I know this image has a lot of issues. It is a 256 color animated gif. Dithered to hell. Bad colour balance, tilt and even a moving focus point. But it certainly makes its point about what kind of road space we’re paying for to inefficiently fill with cars? Have the idiots at NZTA and in this incompetent National government not read their own statistics? Roads aren’t filling up. Public transport does.

Oil rigs – coming to a beach near you?

Written By: - Date published: 7:58 am, November 19th, 2013 - 98 comments

The Government is in the process of handing out oil exploration permits which would if unchanged allow drilling 6 nautical miles out from the west coast beaches of Auckland.  And Auckland Council had the chance to submit on the proposal and did so, in a very gentle way, but forgot to ask the locals including the local board.  There has to be a better way.

Len Brown will today propose a living wage for Auckland Council employees

Written By: - Date published: 7:48 am, November 7th, 2013 - 15 comments

Len Brown will today propose to Council that it funds a living wage for all Council and CCO employees.  It is intended that this is funded through savings, particularly with high level wages, and efficiencies and will be brought in over three years if supported by the Council.

BLip: The swearing of the Auckland council

Written By: - Date published: 9:11 am, October 30th, 2013 - 18 comments

BLip is well known on this site for his ever-growing linked lists of the lies of John Key. But it appears he has been branching out into the role of reporter in this hilarious account of the swearing of the Auckland council last night that was picked out of Open Mike.

On the waterfront: art & politics

Written By: - Date published: 12:01 pm, October 29th, 2013 - 81 comments

Auckland authorities disrespected past worker struggles in allowing an art work on the waterfront, that commemorates the ruthless suppression of the 1913 strike. After protests, it has now been covered.  Time for the many to unite for fairness at work & in daily living!

The Blame Game

Written By: - Date published: 7:51 am, October 27th, 2013 - 107 comments

And so it continues.  Inside the Palino-Wewege-Cook-Slater camp, every one is pointing the finger at everyone else and putting the blame elsewhere for the clumsily executed smear campaign against Len Brown.  Got to wonder who is in the shadows frantically pulling various levers?

Playing dirty: The politics of contradiction

Written By: - Date published: 8:03 pm, October 19th, 2013 - 169 comments

Slater’s track record speaks for itself. As the Brown-Chuang-Wewege-Palino story unfolds, his angle on the story shifts, and the contradictions abound. On The Nation this morning,  Slater lays it out: politics is a dirty game, and that’s the game he’s playing.

The NBR and Editorial Independence

Written By: - Date published: 8:24 am, October 18th, 2013 - 21 comments

The NBR has fired long time senior reporter Jock Anderson for writing a sympathetic Len Brown editorial.  This apparently was against instructions even though the comments appeared to be balanced and fair.  This raises concerning issues about NBR’s editorial independence and the control over content that management has.

Making sense of the census: regional decline

Written By: - Date published: 12:33 pm, October 16th, 2013 - 30 comments

Yesterday John Key, some MSM journos and a few Standard commentators were gloating that recently released Census 2013 data showed David Cunliffe was wrong in his concern with regional decline.  The evidence shows Cunliffe is correct.