auckland supercity

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Cost of the Ports of Auckland fiasco

Written By: - Date published: 11:03 am, March 29th, 2012 - 9 comments

Apparently the Auckland Council doesn’t know how much the POAL fiasco is costing. Rough estimates suggest that the cost is at least $400,000 a day, probably significantly more.  No wonder the Council doesn’t want to know.

Local Board members call for council action on PoAL

Written By: - Date published: 8:40 am, March 24th, 2012 - 38 comments

We’ve received the following press release from Auckland Council Local Board members calling on Len Brown and the councilors to stand up to PoAL’s out of control management. The workers want to work and be more productive. The bosses want to screw them out of their pay to increase profits and are acting irrationally in pursuit of that goal.

I resign

Written By: - Date published: 7:01 pm, March 22nd, 2012 - 13 comments

I wish to tender my resignation as Chair of the Ports of Auckland Board. I took a profitable and efficient Port and lost it millions of dollars in contracts. I spent, inappropriately, substantial amounts of money on a public relations campaign against our staff that could have been spent reinvesting in the port or returning to Auckland Council. The financial position of the Port is in a dire decline. We wish

More from the Port…

Written By: - Date published: 7:25 am, March 14th, 2012 - 6 comments

Emergency Council Meetings, mediation, court action – the fight continues on a number of fronts. But at the core of the dispute is the SuperCity structure National set up – to give Council company boards free-rein, and democratically elected members no say.

Why I think that Auckland is getting scammed

Written By: - Date published: 12:42 pm, March 12th, 2012 - 69 comments

It turns out that the report that provided the basis for a 12% return on equity at the Ports of Auckland is based not on something commissioned by them. Instead it comes from the previous employers of the current chairman at PoA, who have previously been interested in buying ports in NZ. And the comparisons used for the ROE are spurious.

Incompetent management forces Shearer & Brown off fence

Written By: - Date published: 10:41 am, March 12th, 2012 - 47 comments

After months on the side-line, David Shearer and Len Brown have been forced to choose a side in the Ports of Auckland dispute by the irrational and unreasonable behaviour of the Ports management. Shearer has come out against casualisation and marched with the workers in Saturday. Brown has offered mediation between the parties.

Local board members support wharfies

Written By: - Date published: 7:24 am, January 18th, 2012 - 6 comments

The travesty of the Port of Auckland dispute is that we have a publicly-owned company trying to slash its workers’ pay so that it can try to undercut another majority publicly owned company that has already slashed wages, the only winners being the foreign shipping lines. Well, here’s some of our representatives standing up for Auckland workers.

Joyce knows best

Written By: - Date published: 7:09 am, December 6th, 2011 - 35 comments

Steven Joyce isn’t a big believer in democracy. He has overruled Treasury, the Ministry of Transport, the Ministry of Economic Development and the Ministry for the Environment to make sure that the government keeps control of Auckland’s transport funds, and Auckland Transport is unaccountable to Aucklanders.

Government to overrule Auckland?

Written By: - Date published: 2:04 pm, September 27th, 2011 - 24 comments

Nick Smith is looking at issuing a “Government policy statement” to ensure that the Auckland Plan complies with their agenda. They may ban the urban limits that are proposed to keep green, productive land around Auckland and help ensure rates stay low and public transport works in a more liveable city.

Goff dissects Key on RWC

Written By: - Date published: 7:02 am, September 16th, 2011 - 65 comments

A video clip from Parliament yesterday.  Goff calmly and systematically rips Key and the government apart on Friday’s RWC fiasco. Armstrong calls it Goff’s “best speech in a long time”.

Incompetent and insulting

Written By: - Date published: 7:24 am, September 15th, 2011 - 82 comments

The government’s handling of the RWC opening and the resulting chaos has been both incompetent and insulting to Auckland.  “Seizing control” is simply adding insult to injury.

McCully needs to front up

Written By: - Date published: 10:24 am, September 11th, 2011 - 92 comments

McCully  is Minister for the RWC.  He claimed the government had done “their best” and assured Auckland that the transport systems were ready to go.  He was wrong in every respect. In the aftermath of the fiasco McCully now needs to front up and get three things right…

Auckland transport shambles

Written By: - Date published: 1:27 pm, September 10th, 2011 - 111 comments

The RWC public transport fiasco was not a good look for our biggest city, and not a great advertisement to the world.

Hiding the costs from Auckland

Written By: - Date published: 7:58 pm, June 1st, 2011 - 18 comments

Hide is trying to distance himself from his negligent costing of the Auckland merger, and the consequent $450 million blowout on IT systems alone.  Aucklanders won’t have the satisfaction of kicking him out at the election.  But they can still kick out the arrogant government that steamrollered all over the city, with no regard for good process or public opinion.

National vs Auckland

Written By: - Date published: 1:42 am, May 23rd, 2011 - 23 comments

National are not acting in accordance with Auckland’s wishes. Aucklanders want public transport, and its Council wants a quality compact sustainable eco-city – National seem to be aiming to frustrate that. Aucklanders should submit their views to strengthen our voice against the government.

Auckland: Submit!

Written By: - Date published: 5:37 pm, May 9th, 2011 - 25 comments

Apologies to non-Aucklanders, but this is an appeal for those in the Queen City to make sure they have their say on the future shape of our biggest city.

Len wants your input, fellow Aucklanders!

Aucklanders think Joyce is crazy.

Written By: - Date published: 2:30 pm, April 5th, 2011 - 27 comments

Even considering putting in a new harbor crossing without heavy rail that hooks into our existing public transport rail system is simply ideological stupidity by National. Well it is good to see that Aucklanders recognize the critical requirement for a new harbor crossing – “Rail crossing wins big backing in poll”. The sample is small but quite clear…

Steven Joyce: still living in the 20th century

Written By: - Date published: 12:32 pm, March 27th, 2011 - 46 comments

Steven Joyce and the NZ Transport Authority seem to be living in the 20th century. You know the time, when there was a strong causation and correlation between rising numbers of people and increased use of roads. But neither appear to have caught up with the 21st century where that isn’t happening. Yearning for the 1960’s in planning transport infrastructure doesn’t help Auckland or the rest of NZ

Future Auckland Transport

Written By: - Date published: 6:15 am, March 23rd, 2011 - 78 comments

This post was going to be about Auckland Unleashed which is being released today, but has been somewhat, er, derailed, by the bridge vs tunnel report that’s come out.

Auckland: a sprawling car future?

Written By: - Date published: 7:17 am, March 12th, 2011 - 77 comments

National will reject Auckland Council and Aucklanders’ view on what their future city should look like. Instead they propose One ever more sprawling city, with ever more sprawling motorways, ever more cars clogging its veins, ever less community, and ever less government money.

No votes for appointed advisers

Written By: - Date published: 1:17 pm, January 22nd, 2011 - 23 comments

It’s been revealed that the Government, having decided against dedicated Maori seats on the supercity council, gave appointed Maori advisers votes on council committees under its supercity legislation. That’s just unacceptable, we can’t have appointees voting equally to democratically-elected council members.

Spending Brown

Written By: - Date published: 2:41 pm, December 13th, 2010 - 49 comments

ACT, through Rodney (who’s so careful with the taxpayer’s money) and Jami-Lee Ross, are trying to make an issue with Len Brown’s spending.  I’m shocked…

This Government Doesn’t Trust You

Written By: - Date published: 10:34 am, December 8th, 2010 - 34 comments

You not only can expect to be spied on more after an overhaul of the SIS, but you sure as hell shouldn’t be allowed to know how they are going to do it.  It’s your freedom they’re protecting, so you should expect a reduction in liberty to achieve that.  And we certainly can’t be allowed […]

Maori seats for Auckland?

Written By: - Date published: 3:10 pm, November 16th, 2010 - 8 comments

National’s handling of the Auckland SuperCity process was profoundly undemocratic in a multitude of ways.  Thank goodness, and the common sense of Aucklanders, that a “Labour Mayor from South Auckland” was elected to sort out at least some of the resulting mess.  Len Brown has pledged to hold talks on dedicated Maori seats on the Council.  It’s great to see that Brown is open to correcting National’s injustice on this matter.

Happy birthday Auckland

Written By: - Date published: 12:01 am, November 1st, 2010 - 8 comments

Happy Birthday Auckland!  The new Supercity is now in effect, with Mayor Len Brown at the helm.  How is the tension between a left wing mayor representing a third of the country, and a right wing central government, going to play out?  The Nats can’t afford to let Auckland fail…

Gordon Campbell: Central vs Local Government

Written By: - Date published: 7:02 am, October 21st, 2010 - 12 comments

Gordon Campbell on central government’s reaction to the local government elections.  Campbell argues that National has a vested interest in the failure of both Len Brown in Auckland and Celia Wade-Brown in Wellington, and that voters have rejected the “1980s model of political leadership”.

National’s anti-Public Transport message

Written By: - Date published: 11:00 am, October 19th, 2010 - 16 comments

Different voice, same message: instead of Stephen Joyce or John Key, we now have Bill English saying that they don’t have any money for Public Transport.  Just money for roads.  They’ve been forced to commit to $1.5 billion of ongoing Auckland rail projects, and that’s all it’s going to get, thank-you.

Sunday Morons: an omnibus of silly people

Written By: - Date published: 1:02 pm, October 10th, 2010 - 19 comments

With all of the political activity over the last week, there are a few items that missed getting covered as well as the ones that we covered extensively. Rather than do individual posts on the idiots of the week, I’ve written an omnibus post of my notes from the last week.

Auckland Moves Left

Written By: - Date published: 11:03 pm, October 9th, 2010 - 13 comments

Len’s in in Auckland, but it’s not just the man at the top the left can be happy with. Auckland may have provided a few new seats to National at the last general election, and Hide may have done his best to set up the SuperCity for his mates to win – but the Council doesn’t look so bad either. Add in the Local Boards, and it wasn’t a big day of celebration for the right.

Congratulations to Len Brown

Written By: - Date published: 1:30 pm, October 9th, 2010 - 121 comments

It’s official, Len Brown is the first ever super city mayor. My congratulations to him and to his team who have worked so hard to get this result. It’s a great victory for the people. The Right thought they had stitched up Auckland very nicely with their undemocratic supercity but the people have rejected them […]

Election results – Brown Wins!

Written By: - Date published: 1:10 pm, October 9th, 2010 - 62 comments

There are various good online sources for following the local body election results.  Here’s a quick roundup.