local government
Categories under local government
- auckland supercity (418)
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- local body elections (119)
- supercity (102)
Tamihere wants to privatise half of Watercare
Written By: - Date published: 8:33 am, July 3rd, 2019 - 98 comments
John Tamihere has caused jaws throughout the region to drop by proposing that half of Watercare is privatised.
What happened to one person one vote?
Written By: - Date published: 8:30 am, June 28th, 2019 - 34 comments
Did you know that under our local electoral system some people get more than one vote?
Tamihere has some strange friends
Written By: - Date published: 8:02 am, February 26th, 2019 - 20 comments
John Tamihere has been endorsed by Jordan Williams for Auckland’s mayoralty. And his campaign has commissioned the Taxpayers Union to do a cost cutting exercise.
23 dinosaur councils refuse to sign Climate Change commitment
Written By: - Date published: 9:29 am, February 20th, 2019 - 78 comments
Thames-Coromandel mayor and former National Party MP Sandra Goudie has called a request to sign up to LGNZ’s Climate Change declaration irresponsible at the same time as the Council has entered a coastal inundation notation on the titles for a Retirement Village development it issued consent for.
Show us the money Simon
Written By: - Date published: 9:06 am, January 31st, 2019 - 82 comments
Hopefully the media will ask of National the tough questions, like how it is going to increase spending in critical areas, pay down debt and give us a tax cut at the same time.
Roastbusters redux
Written By: - Date published: 9:46 am, January 27th, 2019 - 92 comments
One of the Roastbusters this week has talked publicly about what happened in an apparent attempt to start a music career. And John Tamihere has started his Mayoral campaign having to answer questions about his attitude to what happened.
The wonder of e-bikes and e-scooters
Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, January 6th, 2019 - 20 comments
The rise of cycleways, e-bikes, and e-scooters is steadily revolutionising commutes around Auckland, especially Central Auckland. Like public transport the economic reasons for commuters are easy to understand. You don’t get ridiculous parking costs or the lousy variable commute times of fat footprint cars jammed up on crowded roads.
Political punditry in 2019
Written By: - Date published: 8:57 am, January 4th, 2019 - 79 comments
The media has recently reviewed its predictions from last year and made a few new ones. How did it go? And what is going to happen in the next 12 months?
Wow, Anak Krakatau is just gone..
Written By: - Date published: 11:17 am, December 31st, 2018 - 14 comments
The progeny of Krakatoa, Anak Krakatau, that blew up and dropped most of its volume into the ocean to cause the December 22nd tsunami in Indonesia was very intense. Satellite radar images show that it lost most of its volume and the cone is just gone. That was just a minor eruption in a crowded world.
Simon who?
Written By: - Date published: 7:52 am, November 22nd, 2018 - 43 comments
National MP Simon O’Connor is thinking of a tilt at Auckland’s mayoralty.
Auckland Council is investigating online voting
Written By: - Date published: 12:34 pm, November 21st, 2018 - 63 comments
Auckland Council wishes to conduct a trial of online voting at next year’s local government elections. Is it time to try this out as a voting system?
RIP Penny Bright
Written By: - Date published: 8:11 am, October 5th, 2018 - 33 comments
Veteran Auckland political activist Penny Bright has died.
Modern Technology Is Eroding Our Society
Written By: - Date published: 11:12 pm, September 30th, 2018 - 52 comments
People are losing their people skills rapidly and it is having an effect on society.
Remembering Chris Morley
Written By: - Date published: 3:21 am, August 27th, 2018 - 7 comments
On Friday 27 July 2018, Wellington Tramways Union Vice President Chris Morley passed away after a short battle with Cancer, aged 62. Chris had been a Wellington bus driver since 1978, when public transport in the city was run and controlled by Wellington City Council. In 2008 I was privileged to be elected to the Tramways Union […]
Families Package and Auckland Regional Fuel tax kick in
Written By: - Date published: 10:24 am, July 2nd, 2018 - 48 comments
Labour’s Family Package and the Auckland Regional Fuel tax have both kicked in.
Petrol is going up, and up
Written By: - Date published: 8:30 am, June 30th, 2018 - 57 comments
Not all the current government’s fault, but the arrival of the fuel tax this weekend heralds a number of very sharp rises in what we have to pay in order to run a car.
English Council Elections
Written By: - Date published: 10:02 am, May 7th, 2018 - 16 comments
By Nick Kelly – Upper Hutt boy in London.
National wants to add to Auckland’s gridlock
Written By: - Date published: 4:11 pm, May 2nd, 2018 - 16 comments
National has promised to overturn Auckland’s Regional Fuel Tax. But has no proposal for how the funding will be replaced.
The Big Auckland Transport announcement
Written By: - Date published: 1:30 pm, April 26th, 2018 - 39 comments
Minister Phil Twyford and Mayor Phil Goff announced the ATAP, the transport programme for Auckland for the next ten years. At $28 billion it is the largest civil infrastructure programme since World War II.
Auckland’s new fuel tax
Written By: - Date published: 10:04 am, March 23rd, 2018 - 37 comments
The signs are that Aucklanders are going to support a regional fuel tax designed to alleviate congestion.
A storm is coming
Written By: - Date published: 11:04 am, February 12th, 2018 - 65 comments
A big storm is set to hit Auckland next week. And it won’t be the last.
Auckland Council by election hypocrisy alert
Written By: - Date published: 11:03 am, January 22nd, 2018 - 13 comments
The National candidate for the Maungakiekie Tamaki Auckland Council by election is complaining that if the Labour candidate wins it will trigger a costly by election. But he is ignoring the fact that the three current by elections have all been caused by National endorsed local government representatives resigning.
Can This Government Regain Power on Its Policies?
Written By: - Date published: 11:46 am, January 17th, 2018 - 82 comments
The sixth Labour led Government has made a good start to its term. But what policy results will New Zealand have to vote for and campaign on in 2020?
Is it time to Nationalise Auckland?
Written By: - Date published: 8:51 am, January 13th, 2018 - 52 comments
It has been a decade now since Minister of Local Government Rodney Hide proposed amalgamating all of Auckland’s city councils into one enormous entity by dumping much of the Royal Commission’s proposals. Well it’s time to hold its results to account.
Sea level rise: coming to a town near you
Written By: - Date published: 10:52 am, December 12th, 2017 - 39 comments
From Newsroom:
“We now see building new suburbs on land prone to liquefaction in much of the country as foolish … We should see allowing new subdivisions on vulnerable coastal land as equally foolish.”
– Commissioner for the Environment, Jan Wright
All aboard for awesome public transport
Written By: - Date published: 10:03 am, November 30th, 2017 - 40 comments
What’s actually behind the employment discontent in New Zealand’s public transport? Turns out its the rule changes National brought in. CTU Secretary Sam Huggard blogs from Together.
Nett migration – still coming in fast and not going out.
Written By: - Date published: 8:21 am, November 23rd, 2017 - 42 comments
Statistics NZ has released the latest nett permanent and long term migration figures for the year to date at October 2017. There is a slight fall from a few months previously. But it remains a sustained high putting major pressure on infrastructure and resources – especially in Auckland. We need to massively cut any new migration here for years to catch up with the work.
Auckland’s impending environmental crisis
Written By: - Date published: 11:30 am, November 2nd, 2017 - 12 comments
Unless Auckland Council finds more funding for the environment the predictions for what will happen are dire.
NRT: This stinks
Written By: - Date published: 8:40 am, October 11th, 2017 - 71 comments
Idiot/Savant points to the unfairness of the Government having forced Christchurch red zone families off their land and now trying to sell that land at a profit.
Transport in Auckland and National’s deliberate incompetence
Written By: - Date published: 6:58 am, July 25th, 2017 - 36 comments
National appear to be completely uninterested in spending Aucklander’s transport taxes on Auckland. Instead they want to put in roads that have no economic measurable benefits for Auckland except to increase the road congesting trucks on our roads. Why do National hate Auckland?
National again subsidises their land banking contributors from taxpayer funds.
Written By: - Date published: 8:41 am, July 24th, 2017 - 25 comments
The announcement that National were granting infrastructure funds to develop housing projects in the far north and south of Auckland caused me some amusement. Wisely Auckland council resisted this boondongle that only benefits land bankers, speculators and their political party (National) for some time. To the point where National used taxpayer funds instead.
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