Posts Tagged ‘christchurch’

Paul Henry and Christchurch’s floods

Written By: - Date published: 2:26 pm, April 30th, 2014 - 67 comments

Paul Henry’s rant last night on TV3 and his attack on Lianne Dalziel was appalling.  And it makes you wonder if the intent was to take the attention away from John Key who has shown that he will move heaven and earth to increase irrigation for Canterbury Plain farmers but thinks that the Council should deal with a water problem that is significantly affecting a number of ordinary people.

Wrap of the Week

Written By: - Date published: 2:22 pm, September 6th, 2013 - 3 comments

Things I didn’t get to this week, from Christchurch earthquake anniversary to Kim Dotcom.

Christchurch East – A safe seat?

Written By: - Date published: 1:21 pm, June 19th, 2013 - 26 comments

Lianne Dalziel’s decision to run for the mayoralty of Christchurch will be great for the people of the city. But this means a by-election in Christchurch East: and with National’s 2011 party vote 1000 more than Labour and the Greens combined, it’s going to be a long way from a cake-walk for any Labour candidate.

Dalziel for Christchurch mayor

Written By: - Date published: 9:36 am, June 19th, 2013 - 28 comments

As widely anticipated, Lianne Dalziel has confirmed that she will stand for Mayor of Christchurch.

Christchurch kids as political pawns

Written By: - Date published: 8:58 am, February 19th, 2013 - 39 comments

Looks like Parata has been shafted by Key – her written promises to Christchurch schools will not be honoured. Instead it seems that Christchurch kids are being used as pawns in National’s electoral maneuverings.

Parata and the Christchurch schools

Written By: - Date published: 11:45 am, February 18th, 2013 - 73 comments

As widely reported, Chirstchurch schools find out their fate today. The damaged Hekia Parata was the wrong person to front this process…

NRT: More dictatorship from Brownlee

Written By: - Date published: 11:06 am, November 23rd, 2012 - 11 comments

No Right Turn on the Nats’ contemplating yet another way to trample on democracy in Christchurch.

Which Parata to believe?

Written By: - Date published: 9:02 am, November 12th, 2012 - 15 comments

Hekia Parata September dressed up plans for school closured and mergers in high-sounding language and pushed them hard. Hekia Parata November says that some of those plans were crazy. Which Hekia Parata should we believe?

Parata bungling inexcusable

Written By: - Date published: 9:36 am, October 3rd, 2012 - 74 comments

Parata is trying to close schools based on data that is (as even the Ministry now admits) massively incorrect. The attack on the social fabric of Christchurch was already inexcusable. This latest fiasco makes it even worse.

Latest education stuffup quickest U-turn ever

Written By: - Date published: 10:12 pm, September 13th, 2012 - 38 comments

Brownlee and Parata announced school closures and explained the rationale. Now they’ve backed down and they’re trying to blame a Ministry mistake. This was the quickest U-turn in the history of politics.  Update:  And this morning it seems that closures and mergers are back on again – does anyone know what is going on?

$3 Billion

Written By: - Date published: 6:47 pm, July 31st, 2012 - 21 comments

The government have $3 billion for the Christchurch rebuild burning a hole in their pockets. But at the same time they’re claiming governmental poverty is why we need to sell our productive assets… And there’s 30,000 people nearby wanting proper houses to live in.

Property rights should not trump human welfare

Written By: - Date published: 10:18 am, July 2nd, 2012 - 9 comments

I/S at No Right Turn on Pita Sharples’ suggestion that Christchurch’s homeless squat in abandoned red-zone properties rather than sleeping in their cars.

Christchurch – economic hindrance?

Written By: - Date published: 2:15 pm, May 25th, 2012 - 16 comments

The Government have been pushing a line that Christchurch is holding us back as an economy.  The poor people of Christchurch are to blame for all our woes apparently, with their earthquake.  We shouldn’t blame National, just Cantabrians.

But it’s not true.

Christchurch rental crisis

Written By: - Date published: 3:31 pm, April 18th, 2012 - 61 comments

According to Gerry Brownlee it isn’t happening.

Frack Free NZ

Written By: - Date published: 4:30 pm, April 13th, 2012 - 33 comments

Christchurch has declared itself a fracking free zone. Symbolic gesture? Perhaps – but this was how Nuclear Free New Zealand got started…

Latest quakes

Written By: - Date published: 9:13 am, December 24th, 2011 - 59 comments

Heartfelt greetings and commiserations to all in the shaky city. Use this post for general discussion of the ongoing quakes in Christchurch.

It’s cold in Christchurch

Written By: - Date published: 7:15 am, July 26th, 2011 - 69 comments

Why has the government delayed the second phase of Christchurch’s heating programme for two months?  Could the timing be any worse?

Godwin the EQC

Written By: - Date published: 4:43 pm, June 24th, 2011 - 12 comments

Sometimes you have to simply start from 1.0 for Godwin’s Law. This pretty much applies to anything re-subtitled from the movie “Der Untergang”. The latest one that I have seen is this side splitting rendition of exactly what has been going on inside the EQC operation in Christchurch.

Caption Contest

Written By: - Date published: 11:00 am, June 21st, 2011 - 34 comments

Plain news from Canterbury TV

Written By: - Date published: 6:33 pm, June 17th, 2011 - 7 comments

From Canterbury TV (good to see they are still serving Canterbury) the first news report is better than most of the other stuff I see in the TV news about Christchurch. This is what people are telling us (one sent this clip through) in e-mails and comments. Now you can see them. It is a […]

Fabians lecture

Written By: - Date published: 3:11 pm, April 26th, 2011 - 1 comment

“Reconstructing Christchurch” with Peter Harris and Hon Lianne Dalziel. Venue: St John’s Church Hall, 176 Willis St, Wellington When: April 27th, 5:30 PM

A challenge to Gerry Brownlee

Written By: - Date published: 7:54 pm, April 25th, 2011 - 24 comments

Lianne Dalziel has left her political future to the people of Christchurch that she represents.

If it’s good enough for her to seek such a mandate, then why shouldn’t King Gerry do the same?

Heroic cynicism

Written By: - Date published: 6:58 am, March 30th, 2011 - 140 comments

The government is backing a call for “heroic” student loan holders to pay their loans back asap to help fund the earthquake recovery.

But there doesn’t seem to be a similar call for “heroic” high earners to return their unaffordable tax cuts.

As The Dust Settles

Written By: - Date published: 10:06 am, October 26th, 2010 - 8 comments

It appears that Bob Parker is about to kick up a storm by insisting that commercial buildings be either repaired or demolished by 31/01/11.  He should be reaping a whirlwind.

Govt exploiting CHCH to sneak through abuses?

Written By: - Date published: 7:03 am, September 8th, 2010 - 10 comments

As our msm persist with their increasingly banal fixation on Christchurch’s troubles, I’m reminded of a story that appeared in 2001 not long after the horror of 9/11. It was about a political advisor in the Blair administration who was caught-out doing her job. On the day of the attacks Jo Moore sent an email […]

Caption Competition

Written By: - Date published: 6:28 pm, September 7th, 2010 - 41 comments

Yesterday Mr Key said he would leave for London to visit the Queen, only if he “could be confident Christchurch’s recovery was on track”, and appointed Big Jezza to oversee the Government’s Christchurch earthquake response. Today Key announced he won’t be leaving any time soon.

Christchurch workers

Written By: - Date published: 9:24 pm, September 6th, 2010 - 41 comments

Unite Union’s Christchurch office has been flooded with phone calls and text messages from worried workers in post-earthquake Christchurch.

What happened..

Written By: - Date published: 2:49 pm, September 4th, 2010 - 14 comments

New Zealand is one of the oddest places geologically (Japan is similar) in the world because of our position between two  plates and because we are at the twist where the plates change how they interact with each other. But the position of the Christchurch earthquake is a long way from the plate boundaries. Highly Allochthonous has a look at the mechanism of the quake.

Thank the regulators

Written By: - Date published: 9:26 am, September 4th, 2010 - 109 comments

The Christchurch earthquake was a shallow high magnitude earthquake close to a urban population centre. That is the disaster scenario for planners. It is a disaster, but not a major disaster. The enforcement of building regulations ensured that the city took damage, but survived largely intact.

Two stories on crime in Christchurch

Written By: - Date published: 11:54 am, May 15th, 2008 - 8 comments

Christchurch hosted a public meeting on crime within the city last week. But the thing that caught my eye, despite the very laudable aim, was how National MP, Nicky Wagner, managed to present two contrasting opinions on the state of crime in the Garden City, in close succession: I do think the statistics are sometimes […]

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