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.
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.
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.
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
Can Kerrin Leoni pave the way as Tamaki Makaurau’s first wāhine Māori Mayor? Open to all today from Nick’s Kōrero…
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.
Chris Bishop has announced proposed changes to planning laws that will increase urban sprawl and damage to the environment.
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.
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.
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.
Dear journalists, please do not let Mayor Wayne Brown off the hook regarding his appalling dereliction of duty.
We have heard numerous claims from Auckland mayor Wayne Brown and his supporters that the proposed budget is about saving money and getting rid of a nearly $300 million hole. This is a huge disservice to Aucklanders and hugely misleading.
Two unprecedented summertime storms in Auckland suggest that the threats posed by climate change are not in our future but are here now.
The Mayor of Supercity this week has given a textbook example of how not to communicate in a crisis.
Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown is providing National strategists with a rather large headache.
There will be no respite for any of us this year; it’s a politics and a society of endurance.
As Auckland slowly recovers but ready itself for further storms there is some attention being given to review Council’s response to the super storm. The initial impression, and this is held widely is that the response was sub optimal.
Wayne Brown is proposing the sale of Auckland Council’s Airport shares to plug a budget hole. He thinks it is a simple decision and a rational way to take care of the deficit. I beg to differ.
Elon Musk and Wayne Brown both deliberately promote chaos.
Wayne Brown (or is that Matthew Hooton) has over the past few days released a series of letters that are astonishing in their audacity. His latest on transport proposes business as usual at a time when dramatic change is required.
Wayne Brown has by Mayoral decree ordered Watercare to stop working on the Three Waters reform. But he should take legal advice because his decree has absolutely no legal force.
The left and the Ardern government need to start appreciating the new Auckland mayor.
The people have spoken and with appallingly low turnout levels grumpy campaigns have succeeded and Auckland and other areas have moved to the right.
This year’s Local Government election is reaching a critical stage. And it is vital to get the right people elected. Please make sure that your families and friends vote for progressive candidates. Your kids and your grandkids futures depend on it.
Wayne Brown’s mayoral campaign hit a really big pothole on the weekend when he was caught bad mouthing Herald reporter Simon Wilson. His comments received a lot of support from the right on social media who made comments about Wilson similar to the comments the left make about Mike Hosking. Are these examples of the same phenomenon, political bias against critical commentators?
Even though her name is on the ballot paper and people can vote for her National aligned Mayoral candidate Viv Beck has purported to withdraw from the Auckland Mayoral race.
Recent leaks and publicity have caused huge damage to Viv Beck’s campaign to become Auckland’s next mayor. They also highlight the stark difference between the left and the right in terms of campaigning.
