Chris Bishop was forced to eat humble pie this week on his plan to make Auckland a more compact city. And the Government’s backflip on the number of new dwellings makes a mockery of Auckland Council’s recent consultation on Plan Change 120. How councillors are supposed to weigh the new proposal with open minds under that kind of pressure is anyone’s guess.
Christopher Luxon is extracting utu on Chris Bishop for his pre Christmas attempted coup by making Bishop eat humble pie on his plans to allow intensification in Auckland’s inner suburbs.
Tim Shadbolt’s passing shows what it’s like when a bona fide radical activist gets into power for long enough to make a permanent difference.
If Labour wins government in 2026, many things won’t be recoverable.
The recent decision by PNCC to remove Rangitāne o Manawatū representatives from the Culture, Arts, and Community Committee, and to remove the independent member from the Finance and Audit Committee, is not an administrative tidying-up exercise. It is a political statement.
Christopher Luxon successfully contesting his Auckland Council Rates bill will reinforce a strong impression that he is more concerned with personal wealth than the collective good.
In the Papatoetoe subdivision of Otara Papatoetoe Local Board complaints of stolen voting papers and voters being told how to vote inside polling booths and in public places have been referred to the police.
The provisional Local Government election results have shown appalling turnout especially in Auckland and a voter reaction against large rates increases, potentially caused by the shelving of the Three Waters Reform package.
Anti vax organisation Voices for Freedom has published a glossy well presented booklet suggesting how local body campaigns should be run. And it looks like a number of right wing campaigns are borrowing heavily from the information in the booklet.
I was asked “Do you think that the Tamaki Makaurau by-election will be a signal of whether the TMP almost clean sweep of the Maori electorate seats will continue?”. My response was that the characteristic of by-elections was that results were defined by people not voting. It is also what is going to happen in local body elections later this year. That is a problem.
Post updated
The Planning by Firing Squad approach is characterised by being very rushed, lacking in detail, an almost total lack of public consultation, non-existent local knowledge and consistently paying little heed to environmental effects. It is a classic Wellington Ivory Tower approach.
Kaipara District Council has circulated throughout the country a Franks Ogilvie opinion suggesting that local government obligations to Māori are limited. But even a cursory review of the opinion suggests that it is flawed and should not be used to minimise respect for Māori.
In the murky world of local politics, few things reek as badly as Wellington mayoral candidate Ray Chung’s despicable conduct. His smearing email, circulated to fellow councillors in early 2023, peddling baseless and salacious gossip about Mayor Tory Whanau, is not just a personal attack, it’s a grotesque abuse of power that exposes his utter unfitness for public office.
National is rolling out comprehensive water corporatisation, across New Zealand. For those who don’t live in Auckland, Wellington, or other centres with commercialised […]
With National aligned Desley Simpson ruling herself out of the Mayoralty race and pledging support for Wayne Brown Auckland’s mayoral contest looks like it will be a two way battle between Brown and Kerrin Leoni.
$250mn in emergency housing “savings” a year under National, while government increases corrections budget to ~$2b a year, and will surpass NZ’s ”moral and fiscal prison failure prison rate” by 2026
Smart move by Whanau and great for the green and the left.
Can Kerrin Leoni pave the way as Tamaki Makaurau’s first wāhine Māori Mayor? Open to all today from Nick’s Kōrero…
Under its latest Emissions Reduction Plan the Government is placing major reliance on processing of orgnic waste and landfill gas capture. But it has quietly recently cut funding for the Waste Minimisation Fund by $177 million over 4 years.
The Government announced reform of AT, effectively conceding that the behemouth National created in 2010 was the wrong structure.
I think the left should find a Mayoral candidate to advance progressive principles and policies. And with a muscular fight on the right there may be the opportunity for a candidate to come through the middle and win.
94% of councils that have voted vote to retain Maori wards. Many of them are National background Councillors and previously urged Central Government to not push ahead with the legislation. The forced local referendums are now expected to cost ratepayers and take away from Council workloads
While Luxon and Brown hand it to the Councils, a grassroots campaign is taking effect and the power is with the people. Warning: article contains satire.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has announced that the Government will do away with Local Government’s obligations to consider the social, cultural and environmental implications of their decisions.
Chris Bishop has announced proposed changes to planning laws that will increase urban sprawl and damage to the environment.
The Government is moving with urgency to reverse Labour’s repeal of referenda for Māori wards on local councils.
* unless they want to set up Maori wards.
We have remarkably little democracy left in New Zealand.
This week we have seen National confirm it will cancel the Auckland Regional Fuel Tax and this will cause the cancellation or suspension of many projects designed to address congestion. And it has been confirmed that axing the clean car discount has seen sales of electric vehicles plummet. And that electric vehicles will shortly pay more to use the road than petrol vehicles.
This is the only possible explanation. As well as celebrating all things car National has a pathological hatred of cycleways and walkways and public transport.
National’s 100 days of action is to address the rhetoric of economic difficulties but the announced policies will do nothing to help the pressure that ordinary people are feeling.
Tory Whanau is the latest high ranking female Politician to be the subject of a media onslaught based on rumour and innuendo.
It is a given that the right in power want to sell public assets off and the left want to retain those assets. And it appears that the right’s eyes are on Ports of Auckland.
In the absence of any political party stating clearly that public ownership of major infrastructure is a very good idea, here’s 10 good things public ownership of infrastructure does that private ownership doesn’t.
Fresh from his success at selling off part of Auckland Council’s Airport shares Wayne Brown has proposed another privatisation, that of Ports of Auckland Operations by way of the granting of an operating lease for the Port’s activities.
A guest post by Seddonville Miner outlining the history of voting rights in New Zealand and how Christopher Luxon’s recent claims about our voting system are hopelessly incorrect.
