Party failure

Written By: - Date published: 11:47 am, July 11th, 2010 - 21 comments
Categories: auckland supercity, john key, rodney hide - Tags: , ,

Normally I can’t stand reading Kerre Woodham or the Herald on Sunday. Both encapsulate the lowest common denominator of the ‘news’ that is trivial and banal. However I have to agree with Kerre’s ‘analysis’* today in the Herald on Sunday – “‘Party central’ has all the appeal of a mid-life crisis“.

Why, if you are an international rugby fan, would you leave Eden Park and hop on a train, eschewing the delights of Kingsland’s cafes, going directly past the thriving night life of Ponsonby and taking a right on to a bleak windswept wharf instead of a left to the maelstrom that is the Viaduct?

What I know for sure is that if I was looking to have a good time, a contrived party place on Queen’s Wharf, decked out like the school hall for the fourth form social, would not be my first port of call.

Setting up a tacky venue away from the rest of the city and having John Key calling out to the peeps that the party is going down over here is just another tragic failure on the part of our nation’s, and our city’s, leaders to get things right.

Exactly the point I would make. Sure I’m known for being anti-social. And I stopped watching sport when I stopped playing. Being vicariously involved in other peoples performances with a minimalistic plot line has zero interest to me. It is boring.

But this is a pretty common Auckland set of traits. We’re more interested in getting on with life and work than prancing around doing things simply because they look cool. People who think like that are herded in the Parnell ghetto – like John Key.

But leaving my own preferences aside, and like Kerre, I find it hard to see the attraction of hanging out on a cold wharf. It is a bloody ludicrous idea. It might have looked like a good idea from the perspective of Wellington. But they’re pretty nuts there, and many of our exiled politicians seem to go nuts on arrival there (the famously ineffective McCully being a good example).

Viaduct Events Centre

There are a hell of a lot better places to be around in Auckland. I fail to see any attraction in standing around some old woofters talking about sport and getting pissed. If you wanted a place to have a bit of vitality out of the wind (the Viaduct Events Centre also looks pretty damn cold when the weather is crap), then set up a temporary structure in Aotea Square overflowing into the Aotea centre (or vice-versa) and isolate the party poopers from the fun going on around the rest of Auckland.

Sure it’d be good to remove the Queens Wharf from its current state of being a dead hole at the bottom of town. But that doesn’t require setting up a temporary school ballroom. Just build a passenger terminal with the intent of encouraging the frequent cruise ships occupants to give up their cash. That is a simple commercial proposition to be done with the assistance of local government. Moreover it will probably increase revenues over the long term rather than for a few days around a single event.

But the whole exercise of a ‘party central’ seems like a pointless exercise in wasting my taxpayer and rates dollars. Most Aucklanders seem to think much the same. The development of Queens wharf is something that can wait until we’ve elected our new council and sorted out the details of the ambiguous and incomplete governance that Rodney Hide has foisted on Auckland (another Auckland politico who seems to become more nuts since exile to Wellington).

Joh Keys Party CentralI really don’t care how much it hurts John Keys ego to see another one of his bright ideas get flushed down the ineffective toilet – he must be used to it by now. Just look at the cycleway and the jobs summit for examples. Stop wasting energy, resources, and effort on a bloody stupid idea just because John Key seems to think it is a good idea. History shows that they aren’t.

* Filed in the property section of the NZ Herald website – what is with that?

21 comments on “Party failure ”

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  1. Draco T Bastard 1
    11 July 2010 at 11:59 am

    I really don’t care how much it hurts John Keys ego to see another one of his bright ideas get flushed down the ineffective toilet he must be used to it by now.

    Jonkey is a “Yes” man. He’s great at doing what he’s told but he’s never been an “ideas” man as he just doesn’t have any (Well, any worth mentioning).

    • lprent 1.1
      11 July 2010 at 12:16 pm

      It is all about perception. Despite all of the evidence to the contrary, Johnnie seems to think that he has good ideas. Unfortunately he also seems to have his hands on my tax dollars. So rather than using them effectively and for the purposes that I pay them, he seems to think that flushing them down the toilet trying to make one of his ideas work is a better use for them.

      Has any one of his ideas actually been a success to date? I think that all of them have crapped out in ineffective dithering…

  2. ianmac 2
    11 July 2010 at 12:24 pm

    John Key does have ideas. It’s just that they seem to be not grounded on common sense or research. National Standards. Cycleway. Party Central.

    I always wonder about people who have not cut the hedge, or put in a path, or changed the oil. Does it disconnect them from Kiwis?

    As a non-Aucklander I cannot see what is wrong with making use of the existing facilities then in time design and build a first class space on the wharf. And shift the terminal. The Airport manages from outside the City Central doesn’t it or should that be put in Central as well?!

    • Janice 2.1
      12 July 2010 at 8:39 am

      National Standards. Cycleway. Party Central I would like to add pandas and tax cuts to the donkey’s wonderful ideas.

  3. Margaret 3
    11 July 2010 at 1:12 pm

    Because Premier Johnny and “The Authoritarian State”. want it that way.

  4. Dan 4
    11 July 2010 at 1:15 pm

    Wellington parties every weekend without the need for Party Central. What a joke. NACT MPs with ego problems.

  5. tsmithfield 5
    11 July 2010 at 3:01 pm

    I bet Key wishes he had put the commissioners in at Auckland rather than Ecan.

    • Draco T Bastard 5.1
      11 July 2010 at 3:55 pm

      I’m pretty sure that NACT would love to replace all of our democracy with appointed commissioners instead. It’s what authoritarians desire – absolute control.

    • lprent 5.2
      11 July 2010 at 4:29 pm

      Cantrabrians may tolerate that (and they don’t appear to be – more disruption down there than I can ever recall).

      But I sure hell wouldn’t here.

    • Zaphod Beeblebrox 5.3
      11 July 2010 at 6:38 pm

      He has, haven’t you heard of the Auckland Transition Authority. Elected by no-body, they have been virtually governing 1/3 of the local government for the entire country for the past year, before passing the bill to the ratepayers.

  6. Cnr Joe 6
    11 July 2010 at 5:21 pm

    I see yr all missing what i understand to be the point.
    A place for people to watch the game.
    All together.
    Berlin and its big screens down a main throroughfare during this world cup ie?
    Party central perhaps not.
    Say, Game On Pier?
    Some cafes in Kingsland and the eateries of the viaduct are not a fragmentated alternative to finding a spot for ticketless citizens and guests to congregate, view and celebrate (commiserate), surely.
    C’mon people! Peak Oil, Collapse, Rising Tide of the Less-Hairy Ape aside. this thing is gonna happen. Best enjoy it.

    • Kevin Welsh 6.1
      11 July 2010 at 11:12 pm

      Berlin/Europe in the middle of July hardly equates to New Zealand at the start of September. Who wants to freeze their ass off watching a big screen outside?

  7. lucia 7
    11 July 2010 at 7:47 pm

    “Berlin and its big screens down a main throroughfare during this world cup ie?”

    That was the Tiergarten. Check out

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiergarten

    Literally ‘Animal Garden’.

    Not quite John Key’s “Party Central.

  8. Armchair Critic 8
    11 July 2010 at 8:48 pm

    Funnily enough I was browsing the Herald and, on your recommendation, I read Kerre’s column. Normally I avoid her because I find her writing reminds me too much of Paul Holmes, but with less of the self-importance.
    Anyway, the article I found asks why the Crafar farms should be sold overseas. A few weeks ago NatRad discussed the same thing and mentioned that the woman fronting one of the bids had, previously, taken $20million and turned it into less than $1million. And I thought to myself, even Allan Crafar couldn’t run his business that badly. Could he?
    Bring on Landcorp, I reckon.
    And congratulations to Kerre, two lucid moments put to print on one day.

  9. graham 9
    11 July 2010 at 9:26 pm

    It must hurt that a man as stupid as Johnnie kicked Helen out of office and made her run away to New York.At least he did one thing right

    • Zorr 9.1
      11 July 2010 at 11:51 pm

      Sadly politics isn’t about “intelligence” but “popularity” and “public perception” – Stupid Jonkey is doing his best to make what should have been a gimme 2 term government in to something that can be contested even by the likes of Goff.

  10. Ben 10
    11 July 2010 at 11:33 pm

    You do all realise that contractually there has to be a live fan site in Central-Auckland? Locked in non-negotiable. Has to be one.

    So where?

    • lprent 10.1
      12 July 2010 at 12:21 am

      Yeah I’m aware of that. As I said Aotea Square. They should have finished the rebuild by the end of the year.

      I saw that Key in the SST was saying Victoria Park. The clown obviously hasn’t walked past it like I have on my way to work. The place has a ruddy great big building site started up on it this year for the new tunnel. That is a long project.

      Not to mention that you normally have to shout over the sound of the motorway flyover – which I understand will be remaining.

  11. randal 11
    12 July 2010 at 1:50 pm

    the thing is that now we know for sure that National couldnt organise a pissup in a brewery.
    and what all this stuff really means is that the parasites who were going to get their hands on a whole lot of the taxpayers money to put up a booze barn arent going to now.

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